Safe, Solo, Mindful Travel for Women in India with Mariellen Ward

Taking the leap after 40, would

you go into India not knowing

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anyone or anything about it?

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Well, our guest today did, and

now she works to promote mindful

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travel, cultural immersion, and.

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Safe solo travel for women in India.

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Very excited to talk to her.

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But first, welcome to To

Travel That Touches Your Soul

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podcast and video channel.

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From here, we bring you people

and places around the world to

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help you connect with something

greater than yourself and fulfill.

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Your heart's desires.

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I'm Karen Cleveland, and today's guest

is Mary Ellen Ward, an award-winning

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Canadian travel writer, blogger,

and tour operator who specializes

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in transformative journeys in India.

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She's the founder of the

acclaimed travel site.

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Breathe, dream, go.

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Inspired by nearly two decades of

travel across the subcontinent, Mary

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launched her custom tour company.

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Welcome to the show, Mary Ellen.

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Thank you so much for

having me on the show.

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I, and I, I just, it really resonates

with me that you talk about following

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your heart's desire and, and these themes,

these transformative travel themes.

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So I, I'm really excited

to talk about all of this.

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Excellent.

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I know I am too.

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And, and so following your heart's

desire, let's just get into where

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it all started for you in India.

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Let me share this, , photo,

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so this is a photo of you and.

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Tell us, tell us about this.

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So this was the pho first photo

of me taken in India when I

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So it's a just a little over 20 years ago.

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And, um.

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I was walking in a park, a beautiful

park in South Delhi, and my friend,

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my new friend took this photo of me.

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I had jet lag.

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I was a little dazed and I just

had, had no, I was like the fool

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in the tarot deck, you know?

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I had no idea what was ahead of me.

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I went on this trip to India.

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It was, it was literally like, you

know, jumping off the proverbial cliff.

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And I had a return, I had a return

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So literally six months later.

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And I had no idea what

was in store for me.

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I had no idea what that six

months ahead of me would bring.

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But I, I was, I was, you know,

I was just up for the journey.

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What led you to take that to start with?

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Why make that journey?

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Uh, it started probably, I guess you could

say well, I, and if you go way back, when

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I go, way back when I think way back,

I realized I was always drawn to India.

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I, I, there's so many incidents in my

early life that I, now, I can connect the

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dots, you know, but officially, I guess.

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It began when I was doing teacher

training, yoga teacher training in

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was doing yoga teacher training.

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Was partially as a way to recover

from grief and depression.

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I was having a lot of grief and

depression issues for several

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years because of a series of losses

in my life losing one parent.

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Then another parent, my fiance breaking

up with me one thing after another,

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and, and I was really, I guess I

was at the lowest point of my life.

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In my, my, this would be late thirties,

early forties, and I was looking for a way

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to, uh, recover from grief and depression.

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And that is why I did the yoga

teacher training course, to be honest.

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And it was during that course I, I

had a teacher who'd come from India,

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and I, I just felt very impacted.

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And I had quite a strong.

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Sort of emotional, energetic

response to the whole experience

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and, and had this kind of compulsion.

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This is a long story, but to make it

short, I just, I felt compelled to go

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to India, and I felt like it would be

I would, I would be doing it kind of to

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save my life or restart my life because I

was in such a rut and it took me 11 once

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I, from the time I got that very strong

feeling that I needed to go to India.

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To the time I left was 11 months,

took me 11 months of planning and

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saving and getting up the courage.

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And finally, I did go in December

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months and I traveled solo across

the length and breadth of India.

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I did volunteering.

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I did a, a yoga teacher training

course in Chennai this picture is me.

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When I was first in India,

I went down to Kerala.

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I did an Ayurvedic

treatment for two weeks.

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And this was taken while I was doing

that Ayurvedic treatment in Kerala.

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And I, you know, I was, it felt to

me like I was on a magic carpet ride.

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And looking back now, I realize I

was, I was really, um, a seeker.

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I was, I was, I had the

attitude and the approach.

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A seeker has when they go on

journeys, which was, I was

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just open to the experience.

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I didn't have any goals, I didn't

have any preconceived ideas.

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Everything that happened

was meant to happen.

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Everything was that

happened was a teacher.

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This was the, this was the kind of

attitude i, I took when I went to India.

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And so it, it turned that whole six

months into just a, you know, an

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incredible personal spiritual quest.

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I think travel is a great spiritual

adventure, spiritual practice as well.

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It's great to hear everything

that you had learned so far.

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You had landed, you didn't know

what you were doing, you went

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through these, , classes and such.

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How about these elephants?

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Tell us about this.

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When I was on my first journey

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I traveled across India and I, I I

went up and down and back and forth

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and, and I just, I was just, like

I said, very open to experience.

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So I was just like out there and,

you know, for, in, for instance, in

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this, this was Kechi Purum, which

is in Tamilnadu in South India.

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And I, I went to a, um.

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A temple where they had these temple

elephants and I just handed my phone.

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This is early days.

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I had a tiny little digital camera and

I handed it my, this was before phones.

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I handed my little tiny digital camera.

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Oh yeah.

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To someone.

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And, uh, I just asked him to take a

picture and it's just by just chance

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he snapped it exactly when this

elephant touched me on the head.

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And I didn't know this was gonna happen

because this is exact, this is how

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the elephants bless you, apparently.

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Oh, but I, I had, I had no idea.

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Nobody, you know, I didn't know.

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And I was just standing there

in front of the elephants and

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the elephant went to bless me.

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He just managed to grab it with

my little tiny digital camera.

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He just managed to grab the exact moment.

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And I think it's still, you know,

I probably have 50,000 photos of

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India at this point, and I think

this is probably my favorite.

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Yeah, I, I could see why, I mean,

being blessed by the elephant

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when you're so newly there.

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And look, it's 20 years later now, right?

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And 20 years.

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. And you're there..

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Have you lived there

continuously ever since?

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No, no, I traveled.

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After that first trip, I was really

hooked on travel on India and on blogging.

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I started blogging that first

trip I, with my little digital

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camera, and I'd go to a cyber cafe.

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Okay.

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And, um, it would take like 10

minutes to upload one tiny yes.

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Little, little low, little, small image.

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It was crazy times.

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And this was before social media.

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It was the beginning of blogging.

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It was practically the

beginning of the internet.

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Yeah.

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But it was the beginning of blogging.

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It was before social media.

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And, this was the trip that

just changed everything.

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I mean, I fell in love with

India, traveling, blogging.

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So then I kept going back

and forth between Canada and

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India for many years actually.

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Okay.

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I decided to move to India.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And this is a very familiar

looking place, the Mahal.

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It's beautiful.

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You know, interestingly, when I, when I,

you know, now that I'm a tour operator and

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I'm booking custom tours for people, you

know, every day practically, and everybody

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wants to see the Taj Mahal, I went,

I landed in India in on December 5th.

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I didn't see the Taj Mahal until March.

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Oh, really?

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That's how long, that's how

long it took me to get around

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to going to see the Taj Mahal,

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. Alright.

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This is very expansive.

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So where are you here?

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Ah, this is my new home.

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I'm sitting up at a fort on a

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plateau above the city of Jaipur.

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And that is Jaipur, uh, below me.

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And oddly enough, I was in this exact spot

about a week ago, once I had some friends

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visiting, and I now live in Jaipur.

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that one day I would be living in Jaipur.

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But here I am.

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Yeah.

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, I'm on a mission actually to promote

Jor and I offer customized, uh, tours,

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kind of, you know, behind the scenes,

hidden gems shopping crafts artisans.

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I offer these tours now and I'm

trying to get people to stay longer

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in Jaipur 'cause it's an amazing city.

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And how long were you in all of

India the first trip before you left?

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Six months.

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Six months, okay.

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Did people think you were

kind of crazy for going Yes.

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Yes, and they still do.

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I think travel's important.

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It really opens up our minds and

really, , bring something into us

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that we couldn't experience otherwise.

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So this looks like a very busy place.

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Yeah, so this was one of my, um, I

have this story on my blog actually.

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I would say of all the adventures

I've had in India over the years,

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I've probably spent 10 years in India.

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I, I stopped counting, but I think

I've been in India for about 10

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years, over the last 20 years.

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But I think this, that when I went to

the Cumba Meela, which is the largest.

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Gathering of humanity on earth.

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Um, when they had it, when they

had it in a different location.

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But this, in this location, it

wasn't quite as big, but it was

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still, there was, the day I went,

there was 40 million people.

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Wow.

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That's the, that's the population

of Canada, my home country.

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Wow.

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All, all gathered in one small town.

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That's crazy.

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Where did you even sleep that night?

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. Was there a room for everyone there?

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This, it's a whole long story on my blog,

but I was staying out about 17 kilometers

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out or 15 kilometers or something

outside of this town, har Hardwar.

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Um, and I was with a group, I was staying

at an ashram, and we, we got up before

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dawn, we got up in the dark and we walked

into hardware a among, you know, like

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with 40 million, 40 million other people.

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Wow.

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And, uh, no, there wasn't

40 million that exact day.

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Excuse me.

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There was 10 million that day.

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Wow.

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There was only 10 million.

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, We stayed all day and then I had to wait,

then we had to walk back, but I got lost.

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I got, I got separated from my

group and I had to find my way back.

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And I've written a whole long story

about that on my blog and why it

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was so spiritually transformative.

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where we can we find that

blog is that at the breathe.

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The dream, go, breathe, dream, go.

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Yeah, breathe.

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Dream Go is my travel blog.

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Okay.

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And uh, I've been blogging on

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So there's a lot of travel stories,

a lot of guides, a lot of helpful

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tips and recommendations and advice.

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Yeah, there is a lot there.

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this instrument's name I forget

in this moment, but you know, they

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have a lot of stringed instruments.

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India, the most famous one being the

sitar, but sitars of course are way,

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way bigger than this in my early days I

was very much drawn to the spirituality

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of India and I spent a lot of time

in RAs, a lot of time studying yoga.

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And um, that was a.

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An early phase for me that lasted

a long time, many years, and this

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picture was taken in an ashra.

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. And um, this was just a fun picture of

me, uh, posing with this instrument.

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'cause I have zero musical

talent like less than zero.

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Yeah.

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Fun picture.

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A big thing that I've always done

in India is go after experience.

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You know, I'm a, a kind of an experienced

junkie and I can see I, I just dream up

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these ideas, you know, these crazy ideas.

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And this is me having

one of my crazy ideas.

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So I had this, I had this idea.

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There was a big super

moon a few years ago.

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Well.

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I think it's quite a few years

ago now, maybe seven years ago.

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There was a, the, the, the, I heard

that there was this, you know,

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great big Super Moon was gonna rise.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Uh, and I just, I decided I wanted

to see the Super Moon from the

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ruins of Hampi, H-A-M-P-I, Hampi.

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Okay.

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And that's, that's a famous abandoned

city in South India that's very

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atmospheric and kind of crazy.

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And I'd never been there.

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So I just got this idea that

I was gonna climb up on them.

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On these, these old rocks and

watch the super moon rise.

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And I wasn't the only one

who had that, uh, that idea.

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There was other people there too,

including this du and, and, uh, I don't,

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I can't for the life of me remember

what we were laughing about here, but my

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guide, I had a guide with me and he just

snapped this picture of us laughing as

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we were, as we were getting, we settling

in to wait for the super moon to rise.

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Nice, nice.

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Yeah.

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There's probably a lot of sads.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Around.

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Some are real, some are not so real.

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Ah, it's hard to tell.

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Hard to tell the difference.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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I'm sure there's stories in all of this.

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We could probably, you know, go

for a very long time talking about

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it, but Well, yeah, it's true.

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Yeah.

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Uh, this is the, um, the, the

very brief version of your life

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in India, I guess is what it is.

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And, and for expansion, we can talk more,

people can go look at your blog, but, uh,

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the, I love the beautiful arch cutout.

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Archways here is this,

um, where's this at?

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This is in luck now, and it's a place

that tourists don't generally go to.

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Um, but there's some very famous sites

there, like this particular site.

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And I was, I was, I did a, again,

one of my crazy, crazy, um, trips.

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I, I, I pitched the people who run the

maharajas Express, it's considered the

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most luxurious train ride in the world.

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And, uh, I pitched them with myself

and a photographer to do the journey.

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The 10, it's a like a 10 or 12

day journey around North India on

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this incredibly luxurious train.

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And you stop and go to

these beautiful places.

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And I had a photographer with me,

so this was just one, one picture

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that . That he took from that journey,.

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Another crazy adventure.

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What fun though, you're very smart.

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Getting grants and, and pitching

things that people will cover for you.

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Companies will cover.

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Well, I, I just wanna say

something about that, you know.

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This is probably something that, you

know, you're, you, you yourself will

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understand and I probably people who

follow you and who listen to your

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podcast, but you know, when you kind

of, , leave the well traveled path, when,

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when you leave that and when you, when

you go off on your own and when you,

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you find your own path things happen.

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You know, you're, you're working on a

different set of paradigms, different.

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Different different energies.

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It's a different way

of being in the world.

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And I know the, the mythologist Joseph

Campbell said that when you follow your

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own path, doors would open for you.

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That would never open for anyone else.

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And I have found this

completely to be true.

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Like I used to live , as

a , fairly conventional life.

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that was, that was the end of that.

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I just started following my, like

you said, my heart's desire, the

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call of my soul, and I started

listening to different, to different

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voices and different ideas, and

I, I started dreaming up my life.

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I, I just, I've been literally

dreaming up my life, which I

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never did when I was younger.

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I didn't know you could do it right.

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That's an important,

important thing to learn.

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And you're right, we can plan out all

the travel we want, but when we start on

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that trip, magical things can happen if

we allow it, you know, if we allow it.

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Yeah.

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I think there's a, there's a question of

surrendering to it to a certain degree.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And, and, and being open to it.

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I tell people that about safaris too.

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It's like, don't try to control

what we're going to see or when

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we're going to see it, but, we see

what we see and, and magical things

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will happen, and they always do.

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my ma my mantra, when I go into

a Tiger Reserve in India, my

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little mantra is, you know, please

show me what you want me to see.

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Mm, yeah.

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That's beautiful.

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Look at these beautiful colors

these women are wearing.

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Yeah, that's one thing I love

about India is all the colors.

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It's true, especially in this state,

Rajes Stan, where I'm living now.

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And this picture was taken in

Beacon Ear, which is in Rajes Stan.

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The women here wear the most beautiful

color clothes, even if they're, no

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matter what they're doing, you'll

see women working in construction

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wearing beautiful colored saris.

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Oh, that's nicely framed.

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Look at that.

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That's beautiful.

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Another abandoned city

that nobody knows about.

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If this city was in, if this place

was in any other country, Mondu, it

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would be like, you know, uh, famous.

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A famous site that people would flock

to, but there's so many of these

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historic monuments and cultural riches

in India that it's crazy people.

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We, uh, most people have

probably never even heard of

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Mondu, but it's the same, right?

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Crazy, beautiful, abandoned

city in Maja Pradesh, which is

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in the center of the country.

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Uh, even I didn't know about it

until, you know, I, I went on this

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tour, um, local tour with some

local people to discover this place.

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It was mind blowing.

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. This was my former, uh, this

is my spiritual home Ash, I

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lived there for four years.

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So this is the ganga.

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Otherwise known as the Ganges,

which is okay, wrong, wrong.

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It is the Ganga, the Gunga River.

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I didn't know that.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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That's the proper name of it.

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And, uh, the Ganga forms way

up in the Himalaya region.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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And it, and, and then, you know,

it's glacial water, basically.

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It's freezing cold and it comes, it

comes down, uh, outta the mountains and.

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At this place in Rishikesh is the

foothills of the Himalaya, and it's the

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very last place where it, it's leaving

the mountains and then it right after

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this, like literally 10 kilometers later,

it enters the planes and travels all

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across India, down to the Bay of Bengal.

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. I lived there for four years and, uh,

and it, it, it felt like a blessing

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to, to live on the banks of the Ganga.

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Yeah.

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It must be pretty clean there too.

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At this point it is.

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But after this, no, it's not clean.

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After, after this, uh, it some, some

of your viewers may, may recognize

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the name Rishikesh because it's known

as the yoga capital of the world.

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Right.

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it kind of came into consciousness in the

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Yeah.

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. Here's the Taj Mahal again, right?

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Yeah.

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That's a more recent picture.

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I have lots of pictures

of me at the Taj Mahal.

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. Okay.

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So that, just while I was

at a Jungle Lodge, you know,

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and they have this lovely.

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Way of setting up little surprises for

you where, where, you know, they'll take

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you somewhere and set up a little, chai

and snacks for you and things like that.

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But a lot of people, when they think

of India, they think of the cities and

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they don't realize that there's a lot

of incredible nature in India as well.

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I mean, obviously the Himalaya region

runs down the one side of India, so

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you've got incredible mountains that

you can visit, but there's also.

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More than 50 tiger reserves,

and some of them are huge.

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I mean, they've got huge national

parks that you can visit.

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, You don't have to just go from city.

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Everybody thinks you have to go

from city to city, but you don't.

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You can get out and you can find these.

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Peaceful places and, uh,

yeah, beautiful nature.

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Incredible animals.

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They have, again, another thing

people don't know about India

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is it ha it has an extremely

vigorous, wildlife Protection Act.

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Oh.

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And they're very, they're

very serious about it.

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Nice.

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That's good to know.

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They, they, they, they brought the Wild

Tigers back from the brink of extinction.

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That's wonderful.

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As I think about going taking people

and I want to see the Tigers of

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course, but there's so many things

I wanna see, but I'm not sure people

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wanna be on that long of a trip with

me, so it's gonna be really hard to

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narrow it down to what areas we go to.

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This is, this is at the Beatles Ashram.

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Okay.

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You know, I have a question.

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Um, a lot of people probably know

of Ashrams from Eat, pray, love.

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Have you been to that particular

ashram that she No, no.

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I have, I haven't.

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And uh, okay.

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I have a vague idea of where it is, but

it's not in a, it's not in a popular area.

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Oh, it's not in an area where people

would, would normally, there's

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some sort of well known areas where

foreigners go to RAs, but that is

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not in, that's not a well known one.

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. Okay.

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And here you are out,

out in the mountains.

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Yeah.

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You can just see the Himalaya

in the background there.

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Um, this is from a beautiful

little place called De Dune,

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and it was a British cantonment.

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It's got incredible atmosphere.

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One of my favorite places in India.

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Oh, and holy right.

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Holy.

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Yeah.

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Holy is fun.

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Yes.

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Uh, a lot of people wanna come to

India for holy and um, uh, it is fun.

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It can be very intense.

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I have a blog about it and I

really warn people to only,

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only only go to a private party.

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This is me at.

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A party at that same ashra in Rishikesh.

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They have an amazing private party every

year with music and sweets, and we throw

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color like crazy and it's absolutely fun.

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But you're, you're playing with

people you know who respect you.

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So, you know, okay, nothing, nothing

untoward happens, but I really

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recommend that foreign women do not go

out into the street during holy Wow.

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Uh, it, it, it's, it's really not safe.

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Oh wow.

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Good to know.

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You.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Oh yeah.

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This is just a fun picture in Jor again.

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It seems like all paths lead to Jor.

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I think I, I think I

was faded to come here.

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Yeah.

465

It's a very, very cool place.

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This is my Wes Anderson challenge.

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I don't know how many people know

about the Wes Anderson challenge.

468

Maybe it's just one of

those quirky things.

469

But Wes Anderson, of course,

is an American film Yeah.

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Director who has a certain, he

has a very specific style and

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a very, very specific vibe.

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And a couple of years ago, people were

taking photos, to match that vibe, the Wes

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Anderson vibe and I, I, and then tagging.

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Okay.

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You know, okay.

476

Wes Anderson challenge

or something like that.

477

And this was my, this

was my version of it.

478

And this was taken in Jor.

479

Nice.

480

Nice.

481

I haven't heard of the challenge,

but that makes sense now.

482

So, and look at that.

483

Palm trees.

484

Yeah, of course.

485

Well, most of India is either

subtropical or tropical.

486

The whole bottom half of

the country is tropical.

487

Yeah.

488

And so, um, a lot of people know

Kerala and Goa, they're two of the most

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popular places in India for tourists.

490

And I would say, uh, that side of the,

that's the Arabian Sea, um, that's the

491

west side of the west side of South India

has the best beaches in India for sure.

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Goa and Carala are the

most popular places.

493

So this is me and Goa.

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I, I do, uh, have a habit

of going down to Goa.

495

Or Kerala every winter because

actually North India gets cold.

496

Here's another thing people

don't realize about India.

497

You know, the temperature, there's

a very wide variance in temperature

498

and you really need to pay attention

to the weather and the, and

499

when you're planning your trip.

500

'cause like right now where

I am in Jaipur, like I'm

501

wearing a shawl, it's chilly.

502

Okay.

503

Okay.

504

And it's northern, um, hemisphere, so it's

gonna follow the same as the US or Canada.

505

Yep.

506

Yep.

507

Yeah, we're in the

Northern hemisphere here.

508

Okay.

509

That's a beautiful photo

that looks very carefree.

510

Yeah.

511

Yeah.

512

Except I actually, there's

a funny story here.

513

I actually it was a very hot day

and I was twirling in bare feet,

514

and I burned the bottom of my foot.

515

Oh my gosh.

516

And I was like, made a

lot of jokes about it.

517

I, because I was like, sort of, I'm

not, I'm not, I'm a travel blogger.

518

I'm a travel journalist.

519

I don't really consider myself an

influencer, but I was doing this

520

sort of influencer type move.

521

So my friend and I were joking about

how I had an influencer related injury.

522

So we, we had, we had quite a, we

had quite a few jokes about that.

523

But this was a, Delhi is, Delhi

gets a bad rap and I understand why.

524

I mean, the city is just, it's just become

too big and the traffic is, can be crazy.

525

The pollution at this time of year,

it's not polluted all year round.

526

People think it is, but it isn't.

527

But they have a pollution

season from November to January

528

it's polluted really badly.

529

Other times of the year it's

not, you know, but, uh, okay.

530

But it's still a crazy big city.

531

But it's an incredible city.

532

I mean, don't overlook Delhi.

533

Delhi is one of the most

historical cities on earth, right?

534

It's got, it's got monuments dating

back, you know, hundreds and thousands of

535

years, and they're, it's all over the, all

over the, uh, city because it's been the

536

capital city of many, many different Yeah.

537

Hippos, many different, you know,

invaders came in and made Deli the

538

capitol over and over and over again.

539

Bizarrely, including the British, they

540

Interesting.

541

Yeah.

542

Yeah.

543

A little bit of history there.

544

Wow.

545

Look at that.

546

Beautiful, beautiful.

547

It's that tile.

548

Ja, this is Jaipur again.

549

This is the city palace.

550

This is one of the co so-called

Royal Rooms of the City Palace.

551

And, um, yeah, I mean this is so

typical of this part of India.

552

The decor, the colors, the vibe,

you know, it's, it's beautiful.

553

Nice.

554

Yeah, really beautiful.

555

Oh, there's me with Umesh.

556

Umesh is one of my favorite guides,

and he leads people through the narrow.

557

He, okay.

558

This is, this is somebody one.

559

I, I love this type, this type of guide.

560

I really love like Umesh, although

Umesh is completely unique, but, um,

561

he takes people into hidden corners

back alleys, and you're traveling,

562

you're, you're like climbing over things

and you're going through people's.

563

You know Ellis and you're Wow.

564

Eating street food and you're ha he'll,

he umesh will take you on an adventure.

565

And we work together.

566

A lot of my, my clients

go on tour with umes.

567

Okay, wonderful.

568

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

569

Umesh took this picture of me actually,

and it's just getting the, the vibe

570

of, uh, Jaipur, the vibe of Stan.

571

. This is recent.

572

This was just a couple weeks ago.

573

Um, one of the things I love to do

is to take people shopping in Jaipur.

574

It is the shopping capital of India.

575

And Jaipur's famous for many things

'cause it's a city of artisans.

576

And it is actually the, not only

is Japer the gem capital of India,

577

it's the gem capital of the world.

578

Oh wow.

579

I didn't realize that.

580

90 to 95%.

581

Of colored gemstones are

cut and polished in Jaipur.

582

Wow.

583

There's a jewelry store on every corner.

584

Wow.

585

That looks beautiful.

586

I mean, oh yeah.

587

Mag, these are magnificent.

588

These are, this is like a

million dollar necklace.

589

What's That's a, that is an emerald.

590

That massive thing there that I'm

writing really is actually an emerald.

591

Wow.

592

That's amazing.

593

Alright, well if you want

to work with Mary Ellen,

594

india for beginners.

595

I love that.

596

I think it's so great.

597

I know until I started looking through

your websites, I, I've kind of been afraid

598

and intimidated but we have you now.

599

So yeah, I, it's true.

600

A lot of people feel intimidated

to go to India and it, and I

601

mean, some people recognize that

obviously India is probably not as.

602

Bad as some, sometimes the media

makes it out to be, which it isn't.

603

It gets a bad rap in the

media, that's for sure.

604

But at the very least it is intimidating.

605

Um, there's no question.

606

It's, you know, it's, it's a very

intimidating place to travel.

607

It's overwhelming.

608

There's a steep learning curve to

figuring out how to travel here.

609

And you, you're liable to make a lot

of mistakes and waste time and money.

610

And so that's why I started India for

beginners to, to offer, especially

611

women an ethical, reliable choice.

612

To, to hold your hand in India.

613

And we do mostly private

tours, custom tours.

614

So we customize it, you know, for you

based on your interests and based on

615

your dates and budget and all of that.

616

Wonderful.

617

And so people can find you listed out.

618

All the socials that you have will

be listed out in the show notes, so I

619

encourage everyone to go, look at those,

or just go to her website, check it out.

620

I do plan to travel with Mary Ellen in

a year or two seeing the, I hope so.

621

And I don't know what else, but so be sure

to follow and, you know, keep up on that

622

if that's something that's interesting.

623

Thank you so much for being

here today, Mary Ellen.

624

It's been wonderful.

625

And I, I, I wish you much success..

626

Any, any last words people might

want to know about visiting India?

627

You, you cater to women 'cause

you wanna make it safe for

628

women, which I think is great.

629

Yeah.

630

Is there anything we should leave at home

and not even bring to India or something?

631

Yes, absolutely.

632

Leave your preconceived ideas at home.

633

There we go.

634

Awesome.

635

Alright, thank you so much.

636

And listeners watchers, thank you

so much for being here and I look

637

forward to connecting with you again.