Jacob Coyle - Explore India

Explore India 2025

A colourful, absurd and authentic experience that defined enjoyable and helped me fall in love with an often misunderstood part of the world.

Memorable Moments

Throughout my experience of India memorable moments were almost more common than Indian traffic!

The kaleidoscopic nature of Indian society with its bright colours, rich culture and exotic smells took up much storage in both my mind and camera roll, sadly I can only pay to increase the storage of one of those.

A moment that will live in infamy in my brain is learning, and flawlessly might I say, performing a Bollywood dance in front of the Christ University students which such passion I'm hearing Craig Revel Horwood is looking for me to light up Strictly Come Dancing.

Speaking of BBC programmes another memorable experience came from partaking in Indian MasterChef, cooking authentic Indian cuisine under the guise of an expert chef who taught me to chop onions in such a way it would make Gordon Ramsey cry, though onions tend to have that effect on everyone.

Arguably my favourite experience was a trip we took to Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's spiritual compound to practice his "Art of Living" and learn how to properly meditate and achieve inner peace.

While a a sceptic of such practices myself I did appreciate the experience for what it was and particularly enjoyed meeting the guru's sacred cows (which are apparently solar powered) and getting a chance to try the various snacks made from their milk.

Being up close with these cows was further made memorable as I was constantly licked by them which apparently is an indication of good luck, however regardless if that is true or not it was an absurd experience that will stick with me for a long time. Seriously cow saliva is very difficult to wash off.

The Culture

India served almost as a therapy session for me with the bustling streets as the office, the backseat of a tuk tuk the chair and the countries unique and irreplicable culture guiding me in dismissing my preconceived notions of the country. While a culture shock  at first the wild and relentless nature of the streets began to excite me by the end of the trip as I enjoyed the adrenaline rush of weaving my way through oncoming traffic like a local.

I also particularly enjoyed the bartering culture in the local markets and shops as I sharpened my tongue in many verbal spars with the locals trying to get a good price on tacky souvenir model elephants that just about fit in my luggage.

My favourite part of Indian culture however was the warmth and curtesy I was shown by the Indian people both within Christ University and out on the streets. People were keen to talk with me about where I was from and how much I was enjoying India and such kindness was a true highlight, further reinforcing that despite  being separated by thousands of miles there is always common ground to be found with people from different cultures.

Challenges

As someone who often finds everything challenging before actually doing it (some might just say lazy) I found initially psyching myself up to even get to the airport to be the most challenging part.

Travelling half way around the world with a group of complete strangers whom I had never met before was a daunting prospect, especially due to the fact that being from Derry I was worried they'd find me harder to understand that the majority of the non-English speaking Indians in Bangalore.

However, once the accent barrier had been crossed at Dublin airport and I started talking to the other people going on the trip I felt reassured that I had made the right decision in going.

Making Friends

The true highlight of my Indian experience was the people I was fortunate enough to have gone with. We all got to know each other very quickly and were able to have lots some great conversations the whole way through the trip although, this hinged on actually hearing each other over the blaring of horns coming from the Bangalore traffic.

By the end of the adventure it truly felt like I had known some of the people I went with for years and I will always fondly remember the many laughs had and good times shared. It was also very easy to make friends with the student buddies allocated to us all by Christ University.

The Christ students were so warm, hospitable and knowledgeable about Bangalore helping to keep us all safe and show us really interesting and unique locations such as a fantastic ice cream shop above a dentists which we would have missed without them. This really added a layer of authenticity to the experience for me as I was actually able to visit areas frequented by locals and avoid tourist traps, helping to create to best India experience possible.

Advice to Others

To anyone thinking about going abroad I would simply say turn your brain off, stop overthinking it and just go!

Not all universities offer such a breadth of international opportunities and being able to travel across the world at a heavily subsidised cost thanks to GoGlobal is an opportunity worth taking.

From my experience all of life's greatest moments come from outside the comfort zone when you put yourself out there and allow yourself to become vulnerable to randomness of life. While similar statements often sound pretentious travel really does expand your horizons and your mind in a way that cannot be replicated by any other phenomenon in life.

In current times of political strife and the divisive rhetoric which often appears in the media, developing a holistic global perspective through travel is now more important than ever in creating a society that shows empathy and not hatred to each other.