Travel

On New Year’s Eve, we went to Turkey for a regatta with the Wind Power team. These guys organize yacht-related activities under the slogan “making yachting accessible.” Whether it is expensive in the end depends on what you compare it to, and I didn’t have anything to compare it to. It was my first time going on an organized vacation like this. The regatta started with meeting the team and buying food for the week....

My next arrival in Yerevan was in October, this time with the purpose of settling here. I wanted to start paying taxes and obtain a residence permit. In my case, the procedure was as follows: Find an accountant. Register as an individual entrepreneur (IE). Open a bank account. Apply for a residence permit. Obtain a social card. Obtain an IT certificate for a 0% tax rate. A crucial step in this process is finding an accountant....

We left the intensity of Indian cities and headed to the mountains. In Dharamkot, a Jewish tourist village in the state of Himachal Pradesh, near Dharamsala – the refuge of the Dalai Lama, you can feel the presence of Tibet even without prior knowledge. Monks wander in the local mountains, and in neighboring villages, Tibetans run small shops with signs saying ‘Free Tibet.’ Our village is a collection of tourist attractions: cafes offering European food and rooms for rent, jewelry stores offering handmade jewelry....

Here I spent 2.5 months, visiting four different cities in four northern states. The main conclusion is that India is very diverse from within and yet appears very homogeneous from the outside. Everywhere there’s a sense of madness, crowds, smells, sounds, and animals. But as you move within, in each new point, you think that everything here is completely different. Delhi is a huge city with 40 million people, the liveliest city among all that I have seen....

I came here because the Yerevan - Abu Dhabi - Delhi flight was cheap. The only cheaper option was through Tehran, but that route creates uncertainty in obtaining visas for some countries, so Iran remains only in plans for now. Upon arrival here, you experience two things. The first is scorching heat, and the second, intensifying with each day spent here, is the all-seeing eye of Allah, forgiving the tourist what should not be forgiven....