T and I are in the back of a taxi on the way to the airport, with the windows open so we can breathe in the thick tropical air for the last time. We are wearing seatbelts for the first time in months, which is good because we’re playing chicken with buses, veering around cars and flashing our brights at oncoming traffic. As we drive, I start to think about India.

India is a study in paradox and a constant assault on the senses. It is both maddening and endearing. It is filthy and spectacular. We have given beggars food and had kids share their food with us. I have wanted to punch a sadhu and hug a monk. I have had pervy men leer at me so creepily that I was afraid to be alone with them, and had women hold my hand so warmly that I didn’t want to let go. I have said my name, my country and no thank you more times than I can count. We have seen the Himalaya, the Ganges, the Rajasthani desert and the crashing waves and lazy backwaters of Kerala. We have taken pictures of strangers and been in strangers pictures. We have seen kids chase us to say hello and watched children cry when their parents make them greet us. We have seen the chaos outside the Golden Temple and the silence outside the Dalai Lama’s residence. I have seen more men peeing openly than ever in my life and seen women swim fully clothed. We have smelled the aroma of curry and the stench of urine. We have seen cows handfed chapatis and then watched them root through trash to find food. We have seen piles of rubbish and feces on the streets and the magnificence of the Baby Taj and Udaipur’s floating palaces. We have seen Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Muslims, Jains and Christians. We saw black dirt and belching smoke and more colors than I ever knew were in the spectrum. I ate the best food ever and still managed to lose weight. We have been followed, tugged on, and heard the desperate pleads of barefoot children and been asked for chocolate and pens by immaculately dressed kids just for the cheek of it. I have been driven to laugh, cry and scream in anger and frustration. We have shaken hands with innumerable men and kids and seen the shy smiles of women of all ages. We have seen dozens of people sleeping on the streets and we slept in the home of a wealthy family. We met Punjabis, Gujaratis, Rajputs, Keralans and Maharastrans. We have seen anger, resentment and lust and felt kindness from complete strangers. We have traveled in bicycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, taxis, cars, trains, planes and buses.

We got all this, even from our sanitized view of India—the white man’s English menu flashpacking version. We know a woman who saw prostitutes and a dead baby in the Ganges. We saw none of these things; maybe we didn’t look close enough. I told a friend of mine that India had beaten the hell out of us, yet still lured us back in. She said, you have to love those abusive relationships. She nailed it exactly. One day we are exhausted by the poverty and filth and poverty, and the next we are invigorated by the vibrance of the architecture and the sweetness of the people. I don’t know if we will miss India, or if we will come back. Either way, we will never forget it.