Fixing the Broken Market: A Guide to Affordable Housing for Policymakers

The Housing Dream That Slipped Away

Across the world, middle-class families are finding that the dream of owning a home is slipping further from reach. Incomes have not kept pace with skyrocketing housing prices, and what was once a natural milestone of stability is now becoming a privilege reserved for the very wealthy.

The crisis is especially acute for middle-income residents. The poor have access to targeted subsidies. The wealthy can absorb rising costs. But the middle class — teachers, engineers, office workers, small business owners — are increasingly priced out of both home ownership and long-term rental stability.

This blog is not about individual hacks to find a cheaper flat. It’s about systemic problems in the housing market — and what governments must do to fix them.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

What’s Broken in Today’s Housing Market

1. Land Speculation and Hoarding
   Land is treated as a goldmine rather than a social resource. Developers and investors sit on land banks, waiting for prices to rise, while governments struggle to meet genuine demand.
2. Runaway Construction Costs
   Material inflation, expensive labor markets, and layers of approvals make affordable projects less profitable than luxury ones. Builders follow the money.
3. Luxury Over Need
   Instead of meeting middle-class demand, developers focus on high-margin luxury apartments and gated communities. These often remain half-empty while affordable housing shortages deepen.
4. Speculative Buyers and Investment-Driven Inflation
   Increasingly, housing is being treated as an investment commodity rather than shelter.

• Companies and investment firms buy bulk properties to inflate prices, reselling or renting them at steep rates.
• Ultra-rich individuals hoard multiple apartments or villas across cities as “status assets,” many of which remain unoccupied.
• The result: fewer homes for actual residents, and artificially high prices.

5. Policy Gaps and Weak Regulation
Outdated zoning, restricted Floor Space Index (FSI), and cumbersome permissions deter affordable construction. At the same time, financial instruments (like REITs or easy speculative loans) encourage investment demand, not live-in demand.

What Governments Can Do: A Practical Playbook

A. Make Land Work for People, Not Speculators

• Create public land banks for affordable housing projects.
• Introduce land value taxation to discourage hoarding and speculation.
• Reform zoning laws to allow higher-density, mixed-income communities closer to city centers.

B. Rein in Speculative Buyers

• Stricter Controls on Enterprise Purchases: Restrict companies or funds from bulk-buying residential properties purely for investment.
• Tax Vacant and Underused Properties: Annual “vacancy tax” on units left empty for more than a set threshold.
• Higher Taxes on Multiple Ownership: Progressive property tax rates for those owning more than one or two houses.
• Mandatory Disclosure: Require ownership transparency to track concentration of housing in few hands.

C. Empower Genuine Buyers

• Subsidies for First-Time Home Buyers: Targeted support for families within defined income brackets.
• Priority Lending Schemes: Lower interest rates or mortgage insurance for live-in homeowners.
• Rent-to-Own Models: Allow middle-class families to build equity gradually while paying rent.

D. Partner With Developers — But With Strings Attached

• Mandate affordable housing quotas in large private projects.
• Offer tax breaks or FSI bonuses for compliance.
• Fast-track approvals for projects that allocate significant stock to middle-income housing.

E. Build a Healthy Rental Market

• Incentivize long-term rental projects by private players.
• Expand municipal rental housing stock.
• Create robust tenant protections to make renting secure and dignified.

F. Data and Transparency

• Open housing market databases to track ownership, vacancy, and pricing trends.
• Publish annual affordability indexes to guide local housing policy.
• Digital platforms for real-time monitoring of projects and delivery.

Lessons from Elsewhere

• Vienna: Nearly half of residents live in subsidized, high-quality housing that mixes income groups, keeping the market balanced.
• Singapore: The Housing Development Board ensures over 80% homeownership through state-led planning and targeted subsidies.
• Canada: Vacancy taxes in cities like Vancouver discourage leaving apartments empty.

These examples show that strong policy, political will, and transparency — not laissez-faire markets — keep housing affordable.

Closing Thoughts

Housing is not just a commodity — it’s the foundation of family life, community stability, and national productivity. When middle-class citizens can no longer afford homes, societies face weakened morale, declining birth rates, and widening inequality.

Governments cannot stand by while speculative forces distort housing markets. With the right mix of regulation, incentives, and long-term vision, it is possible to bring affordability back within reach — not just for the poor, not just for the privileged few, but for the broad middle who hold nations together.

The Voyage That Changed the World: Magellan’s Historic Circumnavigation

 “The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore.” — Ferdinand Magellan

Introduction

In 1519, five ships and about 270 men left Spain on a voyage unlike any other. Their mission? To find a westward sea route to the Spice Islands. What they achieved was far greater — they became the first humans in recorded history to circumnavigate the globe. This is the extraordinary, tragic, and thrilling tale of the Magellan-Elcano expedition.

🌍 Timeline of Major Events

1519 — The Journey Begins

• August 10: The fleet, called the Armada de Molucca, departs from Seville.
• September 20: Sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda into the Atlantic.

1520 — Mutiny and Discovery

• March: The fleet stops in Patagonia for winter.
• April: Mutiny at Port St. Julian; Magellan puts it down harshly.
• October 21: The fleet finds a passage through South America — the future Strait of Magellan.
• November: They enter the Pacific Ocean, naming it for its calmness (“pacificus”).

1521 — Tragedy in Paradise

• March: After 3+ months at sea, they land in Guam, then Philippines.
• April 27: Magellan is killed in the Battle of Mactan by Lapu-Lapu’s warriors.
• Leadership passes to Juan Sebastián Elcano.

1522 — Return Against All Odds

• July: Elcano leads the only surviving ship, Victoria, to the Cape of Good Hope.
• September 6: Victoria returns to Sanlúcar, Spain with only 18 survivors of the original 270.

⚓ Fun and Fascinating Facts

1. The Lost Day Phenomenon

• Upon return, the crew was astonished to find that their calendars were one day behind.
• They had carefully tracked every day, but circumnavigating westward meant they “lost” a day — an early real-world proof of time zone and rotation effects.

2. Ship Names

• Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepción, Victoria, and Santiago.
• Only Victoria survived.

3. Extreme Survival

• In the Pacific, sailors went months without fresh food.
• They ate rats, sawdust, and leather. Scurvy decimated the crew.

4. A Filipino Hero

• Magellan died at the hands of Lapu-Lapu, a local chieftain in Mactan.
• This moment is a symbol of resistance in the Philippines.

5. Circumnavigation Was Not the Goal

• The real mission was to find a westward route to the Spice Islands (modern-day Indonesia).
• Circumnavigation was an unintentional yet historic outcome.

6. The Final 18 Survivors

Among them:

• Juan Sebastián Elcano (captain after Magellan’s death)
• Antonio Pigafetta (chronicler of the voyage)
• 16 others — sailors and crew whose names are remembered in Elcano’s testimony.

🌐 Legacy

• The voyage proved Earth’s roundness in a way no theory could.
• It redrew global maps, shattered limits of imagination, and signaled the beginning of global maritime empires.
• It showed that human will could, quite literally, go around the world.

“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.” — Ferdinand Magellan

The Cosmic Clockwork Behind Our Weekdays: How Ancient Civilizations Gave Us the 7-Day Week

 A journey through astronomy, mythology, and mathematical logic across cultures

Have you ever wondered why our week has exactly seven days? Or why they’re named after planets — Monday for the Moon, Sunday for the Sun, Saturday for Saturn? What seems like a mundane cycle hides a staggering convergence of astronomy, religion, and ancient mathematical reasoning, shared across two vastly different ancient civilizations: Babylonia and India.

In this article, we’ll unravel:

• How humans identified the 7 visible planetary bodies?
• Why these celestial objects were linked to deities and time?
• The bizarre but logical leapfrog method that decided the order of the days?
• How two cultures with no direct connection arrived at the same 7-day week?

The 7 Wanderers in the Sky

Before telescopes, humans could see only seven distinct celestial bodies moving differently from the stars:

• Sun ☀️
• Moon 🌙
• Mars ♂
• Mercury ☿
• Jupiter ♃
• Venus ♀
• Saturn ♄

These were dubbed “wanderers” because they didn’t stay fixed among the constellations. From Babylon to India, these became celestial deities — symbols of power, time, love, war, and fate.

Ancient Babylon: The Origin Point (~1000 BCE or earlier)

The idea of 7 days in a week comes from the Babylonians, who were expert astronomers. 
They recognized 7 visible celestial bodies. They assigned each of these to a day of the week, forming the first planetary week.

Indian World (Ancient texts from various periods)

• Completely independently, India developed a 7-day week too, based on Hindu astrology and Navagrahas (nine planetary deities, seven of which rule days).
• These names date back to at least the Gupta period (~4th century CE) and were used in Sanskrit astronomy texts like the Surya Siddhanta.

The Chaldean Order: Speed of the Sky Gods

Ancient astronomers observed how fast these bodies appeared to move across the sky. They ranked them by apparent speed from Earth:

Saturn > Jupiter > Mars > Sun > Venus > Mercury > Moon

This became known as the Chaldean Order (named after the Babylonian astrologers of the Chaldea region in Ancient Mesopotamia). But the real magic came when they used this order to create the structure of planetary hours.

The order of weekdays (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday) is based on:

👉 A system called the “Chaldean order” + a rotating 24-hour planetary hour cycle.

Let’s walk through it.

🔭 Step 1: The Chaldean Order (Ancient Mesopotamia)

The Chaldeans (Babylonians) ranked the visible planets by apparent speed as seen from Earth:

🔭 Apparent Speed (slowest to fastest):

This order was considered cosmic hierarchy.

⏳ Step 2: The Planetary Hour Rule

The ancients divided each day into 24 hours, and each hour was ruled by one planet in the Chaldean order, looping in cycles of 7.

Example: Start with Saturday (Saturn day)

Hour 1 → Saturn 
Hour 2 → Jupiter 
Hour 3 → Mars 
Hour 4 → Sun 
Hour 5 → Venus 
Hour 6 → Mercury 
Hour 7 → Moon 
Hour 8 → Saturn 
 … (repeat through all 24 hours)

Now, the planet that rules the first hour of the next day gives the name of the next weekday.

Let’s trace it:

🪐 Planetary Hours:

This gives the exact modern weekday order!

🤯 So Why Not Use Physical Distance Order?

If we went by actual distance from the Sun, we’d expect:

☿ Mercury — Wednesday
♀ Venus — Friday
♂ Mars — Tuesday
♃ Jupiter — Thursday
♄ Saturn — Saturday

But ancient people didn’t know planetary heliocentric distances. They worked with what they saw: the motion and brightness of planets in the night sky.

🪐 Weekday Assignment via Planetary Hour Cycle

🧩 Notice the Pattern:

• The next day’s first hour is always the planet 4 steps ahead in the Chaldean loop.
• That leapfrogging gives the familiar weekday sequence.

✅ Final Weekday Order

Independent Discovery or Cosmic Coincidence?

What’s truly astonishing is that the same logic appears in ancient India.

• The Indian system of Hora (hour) and Grahas (planet-deities) aligns with this same structure.
• Even the order of weekdays in Sanskrit — Ravivāra (Sunday), Somavāra (Monday), Mangalavāra (Tuesday)… matches the planetary week.

Some historians believe this was due to cultural transmission after the Indo-Greek contact (~2nd century BCE). Others argue for independent development, based on the universal visibility and movement of planets.

Either way, both civilizations used math and observed the same sky — and found the same cosmic rhythm.

Final Reflection: We All Looked Up at the Same Sky

🧭 The Same Sky Leads to Similar Observations

Every ancient civilization — from Babylon to India to China — looked at the same seven bright celestial bodies:

→ Indians, like Babylonians, watched the night sky meticulously, tracking these over centuries.

📚 Indian Textual Evidence

• The Vedanga Jyotisha (~1200 BCE or earlier) shows knowledge of lunar and solar cycles and intercalation.
• Later texts like Surya Siddhanta, Yavanajataka, and Brihat Samhita detail planetary orbits, speeds, and calendrical logic.
• The Indian names of days reflect the same planetary lords:

This shows a structured planetary week in line with Chaldean logic.

🌍Why the Same Order?

Because both civilizations:

• Recognized 7 major bodies visible to the naked eye.
• Noted the relative speeds of those bodies:
• Moon fastest → Mercury → Venus → Sun → Mars → Jupiter → Saturn slowest.
• Built cosmic, religious, and temporal frameworks around this.

→ Even if Chaldean influence shaped details, the concept itself could have emerged naturally in both.

Terms in Indian tradition:

• Each day was divided into 8 parts or 60 ghatis (24 modern hours ≈ 60 ghatis). 
• Each part could be governed by a graha (planetary deity).
• Texts like the Surya Siddhanta and later treatises describe planetary periods and lords governing horas (hours).

Hora is the Sanskrit word from which the English word “hour” comes. 
And in Indian astrology, Hora is also ruled by a planet.

So even in Vedic and later Hindu astrology, the planet ruling the first hora (hour) of the day became the ruler of that day — just like in the Chaldean system.

🔄 So Did India Use the Leapfrog Method?

They may not have diagrammed it like modern historians do with a 7-point star or “leap every 3” logic, but:

✅ They divided the day into planetary hours (horas) 
✅ They followed the same order of speed (Chaldean) 
✅ They assigned weekday names based on the planet ruling the first hour

Which means: They arrived at the same leapfrog result, even if they conceptualized it in their own framework rooted in hora and graha systems.

🧭 Independent but Convergent

So Indian astrologers, perhaps without Chaldean diagrams, arrived at the same planetary-week cycle through:

• Careful observation of planetary motion
• Assignment of planetary rulers to horas
• Structuring the first hora after sunrise as the day’s planetary lord
• And rotating through the 7 in order of apparent speed

Despite cultural and conceptual differences, the math of 7 repeating grahas over a solar day produces the same weekday structure — naturally.

🧠 Summary Table

What makes this story so special isn’t just the math. It’s the shared human instinct to find order in the cosmos.

Across deserts and jungles, temples and ziggurats, priest-astronomers assigned divine meaning to motion. They saw the sky as a clock, and in doing so, they gave us the very names we still use today.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday…

These aren’t just days. They’re the legacy of our ancestors watching the heavens.

Sources & Further Reading:

• Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity
• Pingree, D. History of Mathematical Astronomy in India
• Yavanajataka, 2nd century CE Greek-Indian astrological text
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Planetary Week

Love in 2025: Challenges of Finding a Partner in a Forever-Connected World

This thought started with a conversation I had with a friend. We spoke after a long time and gradually caught up on each other’s work, health, and love lives (mostly mine, since she’s married). She reassured me about where I was and mentioned that many of her friends were also single and struggling to get married.

What struck me long after the conversation ended was that she and I are in very different phases of life. I’m in my late twenties (tears), and she’s five years older. And yet, both our circles are full of people ready to settle down—but unable to commit for various reasons. Primarily, because they haven’t found the right person.

While this is a universal and age-old struggle, it got me thinking: has society evolved in a way that no longer favors settling down? Why is it so common now to find capable, well-rounded adults who are still devoid of a loving relationship?

Let’s break it down. Why is it so difficult to commit, date, and marry in an era of constant connection—of social media and AI?

Technology has radically enhanced communication across geographies. We can now share our interests and interact with more people than ever before. And still, we’re just not able to find the one right for us. With the tools we have today, it should be easier to find a partner. And yet, somehow, we’ve gone in the opposite direction. Despite being hyper-connected, we’re lonelier and more selective than ever. 

I think this is due to a phenomenon I like to call Information Overload. Social media profiles, influencers, dating apps, reels, and the sheer amount of content we consume have warped our expectations of a romantic partner to the point that they’re no longer our own. They're dictated by what we think we deserve—based on an ideal reality shaped by curated content. Content designed to show us only the best of the world and the people in it.

Combine this with the constant, convenient validation we get from surface-level interactions—on dating apps or from strangers who give us fleeting attention—and we’re left trying to fill the void with distractions instead of meaningful connections.

This makes us feel falsely secure in the moment rather than inspiring us to invest in ourselves and those around us. It creates a polarizing mindset: the all or nothing approach.

Our exposure to others’ love lives—whether real or performative—has twisted our ability to understand and accept imperfections in our own. We fixate on exactly what we want in a partner and how we want it. We see others attaining their version of this effortlessly and adjust our expectations accordingly. And in doing so, we become dismissive of many potential partners who may have been compatible with just a little more patience, humility, and consideration.

Instead, we cut people off at the first sign of mismatched expectations. Often, we’re not even aware of doing this—it’s just how years of overexposure to perfect narratives have conditioned us. We filter through each potential partner based on gut instinct and quickly discard them for failing to meet unrealistic standards we've set, often without any real-world testing or understanding.

Put simply: we’re spoiled for choice.

We’ve made the dismissal of people—romantic or otherwise—universally acceptable because we believe there are always more options. And to be clear, this doesn't always mean replacing one person with another. Sometimes, we simply move on from the feeling of fulfillment we once received—or hoped to receive—to something quicker, easier, and more immediate.

Rather than making space for the possibility of love, we abandon the effort entirely—hoping instead to stumble upon exactly what we think we deserve, without accommodating another human being in that vision. This endless stream of convenient options has desensitized us.

I like to believe that consideration for your partner, being conscious of their needs, and the willingness to grow are the foundations of any good relationship. But today, our polarizing outlook recasts these things as incompatibility. So, it ends before it begins.

And that leads to long-term isolation, unfulfilled love lives, and an increasing number of quietly disheartened individuals. This, I believe, is the leading reason why finding a life partner in today’s world is so hard—when it should be easier.

Is there a way out of this rut? It’s difficult to say. We can’t undo our social conditioning from the last decade overnight. But we can become more aware of our choices and more intentional in the decisions we make—especially in matters of love, whether for ourselves or for someone else.

And I wholeheartedly believe, more than anything else, that we can all benefit from simply being kind.

Time Running Out and other short poems

Everytime I try to do something
Time goes by too fast,

In this worry of finishing
I lose the point of start,

I chase the flawless,
but my moment just doesn't last

I do my part,

I make my start

I run with the wind

and I swim with the stars

But how do I move

the burden of my beating heart

I sit by myself

pouring my tea

yet I couldn't find one soul

like my tea found me

I hear a whisper

from a large crowd

noisy they are

yet, the words aren't abound

My words weave this

the story of my way

yet I can't seem to craft

the shape of my day

I forget when I try to remember

things that have happened in the past

like water vapour, fire and ember

they hold me up

up my carefully crafted cast

Cambodia Pepper 2024

Cambodia Diaries-  

So, I finally decided to take the trip to Cambodia I had been planning to go since 2018 after a friend prompted me.  

Back in college, I can’t exactly say which year but surely before 2018 is where our story starts. I had just completed my first paid internship and I had money to spend. I decided to use this money to travel. I was not too big of a traveler back then, especially not a solo one but I thought it’s time for me now to explore things and take risks to see the world out there. I was especially fond of Japanese culture and media, so my prime planning was to spend my money on a trip to Japan.  

Although, with my budget, a trip to Japan was difficult. So, I tried talking to a friend of mine who used to travel. She redirected me to another friend of hers who was a travel blogger (still is) and had visited most of the world’s countries. With my budget in mind, she suggested Cambodia as a super affordable option at the time. And I liked the suggestion of visiting a country with cool temples, rich history and ample clean beaches.  

Soon, I got busy with life, then the pandemic happened and then I started a full-time job with little time to go on longer vacations. After 2 years of Covid-19, then 2 more years of a high-pressure, consuming job, I finally found a window to take a longer break- with my role change. I was about to join a new team and was wrapping things up in my previous role. I had a break of little more than a week between the transition. That's when I decided that it was finally time to cross the long put-up item from my checklist and visit the Land of the Khmers.  

I had also been on a break from solo or any kind of travel for years, so it took quite some time to prepare for the trip with some hurdles and extra expenses along the way.  

But nevertheless, I was determined to go on my trip, and I finally boarded the flight to Cambodia around midnight from the IGI Airport, Delhi. This was a flight around midnight amidst very bad weather & high turbulence. Around the outskirts of Cambodia, my flight was shaking more than an off-road bus. Weirdly twisting and turning, going up and down and simply shaking non-stop, it finally landed at Phnom Penh airport sometime after 4AM in the morning of 22nd June 2024.  

On a nearly empty airport, before the first ray of sunshine, 1 lone flight landed at a ghost airport. There were a handful of staff members in immigration who did our checks, all of whom also seemed to be scattering, after all passengers from our flight were done.  

Once I somehow found the exit to the airport- and with every single outlet closed, I waited around for a cab. Before I could book one via my app, a driver approached me with a slightly expensive but reasonable fare and with the knowledge of the route and area where my hotel was located. So, I hopped on the cab, and we took off into the broad roads of Phnom Penh still yearning for the rays of sun and covered in a blanket of darkness.  

Soon as we reached my hotel, unfortunately we hit another roadblock- that my booked hotel was closed. Thankfully, my cab person dropped me off to another hotel which had spare rooms and I stayed there. Despite a bit of a rocky start, I was determined to straighten out the rest of my trip and have fun as planned.  

Now, let’s start with my days and nights: 

Saturday, 22nd June 2024: I spent most of my morning catching up on the lost sleep in the overnight travel. Once awake, I decided to roam around, check out the local shops, see where I can get decent meals and the usage of currency here. Curiously enough, I discovered that we use US Dollars and Cambodian Riel together at all outlets. Like you can pay either by Riel, or USD or a combination of both and you’re going to get the change in the same format. Admittedly, this was a bit confounding as now I had to use a currency converter and a calculator at every purchase. Thankfully, all the locals were accustomed to this and showed me everything on their screens and calculators. 

From the beginning to the end, I found the Cambodian (Khmer) people to be very accommodating, welcoming and warm at all the places I went to. As expected, the prices were hiked everywhere for tourists but other than that, the people were reliable and decent everywhere. Polite and helpful too.  

Then I spent the next 2 days exploring Phnom Penh- changing hotels each night to stay in a different part of the city each time. Also visiting all the local sights, the city had to offer- the Buddha Stupa Park, Wat Botum Park, Royal Palace, National Museum, Silver Pagoda, Night Market, Bassac Lane and it’s multiple cafes. And most notably the serene boat ride across Tonle Sap River during evening to watch the sunset.  

Amongst the local cuisine I tried, I can recall- Amok: a fish curry with coconut taste, Khmer Noodles, Kampot Pepper Crab, Lok Lak and Lap Khmer.  

And honestly, it was a little too much for my digestive health and then I decided to switch to only vegetarian food for a while which was surprisingly difficult to find in Phnom Penh. 

Then I took a prolonged bus ride, again amidst severe thunderstorms to the coastal city of Sihanoukville. Now it was time for me to explore the beaches and islands of Cambodia.  

Tuesday, 25th June 2024: This time the weather was so bad that I could not reach my far away beach resort so I decided to make a short stay at a hostel nearby. And this was something I wished to try this time. I’m not usually a hostel stay person; I prefer my personal space and the security of living in a hotel. But for 1 night, I thought let’s give it a shot. And it was a chance worth taking. The hostel had all the amenities for solo travelers. The food was great. The commute and transport from the hostel were well sorted, the staff was amazing and there were many other people who were travelling by themselves. All for nearly a quarter of the cost of staying at a big hotel.  

Apart from the sea food, I found some terrific Italian, Chinese and even English food options. Being a seashore city, I also made it a point to try lots and lots of fresh fruits and fruit-based drinks. With a really standout passion fruit soda drink. Somehow I feel, all cuisine foods are great in Cambodia (didn’t try Indian though). Khmer food, however, I found a little bland for my palate. The flavours and spices were too distant from each other so I wouldn’t think it was as good as everything else there.  

Then the remaining days of my holiday, I spent exploring the beaches at Sihanoukville, exploring nearby Islands- Koh Rong and Koh Rong Sanloem- all of which had great day & night life, clean beaches with clear water, ample water sports and diving activities and just enough population to feel welcomed but not enough to be crowded. Amazing sights of the flora and idyllic resort destinations with cozy wood cabins. These islands were an ideal haven amidst nowhere experiences.  

Another interesting happening was when it got time for me to return to India. I had visited during one of the monsoon months but got lucky as I had found heavy rains on just 1 day. However, it got a little rainy when I was on an island nearly 40km away from mainland with my flight from Phnom Penh which was again 3-4 hours away from Preah Sihanouk. Ferries from the island don’t run if it rains. And had this happened, I’d have been stuck and missed my flight. On Thursday, I was consistently looking at the sky and counting the minutes for my ferry to arrive at the island. It was late, but thankfully it did. And after checkpoints at all islands, I finally reached the mainland. From there I took a luxury minibus to Phnom Penh and made it on time to the airport. From there, I boarded a flight delayed by 2 hours and reached Delhi amidst very heavy rains and news of accidents at airports.  

Another little something I noticed more at home was that there is a distinct smell of the cities. As did with Cambodia, probably due to being closer to water bodies. A flowery flowy kind of scent which envelops you in it’s lovely embrace as long as you’re in Cambodia. A place full of lovely people, great food, absolutely amazing beaches and a largely undiscovered territory which is full of young visitors yet still wonderfully joyous and unspoiled by the overflow of tourists. 

Whenever coming back to your home country, no matter from which place- however enjoyable it was, we feel a sense of relief and belongingness to our nation. Atleast I do. The moment I landed back in Delhi, I was elated. I had come home with a suntan and a sunburn on my legs, but it was an extremely enriching, opening and joyful experience. Once I came back and settled, I started missing the sense of freedom with no responsibilities besides going out every day- with the sole objective of having fun. Sparking in me an urge to travel again soon to my next destination.