Travel: India

Ahead lie three weeks of travels that will sweep me from the maelstrom of India’s cities, through to the elegance of her temples and on to bucolic national parks where tigers and leopards roam wild, as I attempt to make any sense of this vast nation of more than a billion souls.

Touching down in New Delhi, the snappy tourist slogan echoes around my head – “Incredible India”. After only a few hours in the chaotic, engaging capital it is clear that India is indeed incredible, not to mention iridescent, intoxicating and often downright infuriating.

It is no surprise that India can be hard to comprehend, as it feels to me more like a continent than a country. At Indira Gandhi Airport I survey an arrivals board awash with instantly exotic destinations – Goa, Mumbai and Kolkata. India is massive. It is also that instant assault on the senses of travel writing cliché. On the drive in from the airport I have already adopted the brace position twice as we career at high speed through a jungle of not only cars and heavy trucks, but myriad motorbikes and chugging tuk tuks. Then there are the sacred cows, the gutter scavenging pigs and the meandering monkeys, all somehow sharing the scraggy road.

My base in New Delhi is a sanctuary that speaks of India’s economic emergence since independence from Britain in 1947. The marble bathed ITC Maurya (www.itchotels.in) sports a sweep of fine restaurants – including Bukhara, arguably the city’s best – as well as a spa where a traditional ayurvedic massage promises to soothe both mind and body. Indian five star hotels are like the country, though – gloriously surreal. To welcome me, there is a pillow with my name embroidered on it on the bed and a picture frame awash with images of me that the staff have culled from the internet.

India is a 24/7 sort of country. There really is no respite. My visit coincides with wedding season and on most nights wherever I stay my bed rocks with the booming maelstrom of a lavish Hindu wedding. One moment India is noisy and in your face and the next it is noisy and in your face.

I do find some sense of serenity as I move on to Agra and the Taj Mahal. I am, of course, not alone at the country’s biggest tourist attraction, but the Taj is a global icon that does not disappoint. It is no exaggeration to say that it’s worth coming to India for alone. I venture out at sunset to watch the light play an ever-changing dance across the vastness of marble and precious stone that stand testament to one man (Mughal emperor Shah Jahan) and his love for his wife, whose tomb lies inside. I cannot resist coming back the next day at sunrise too.

Indian cities can be hard to fall in love with, though. I find the lack of pavements and the sheer threat to life involved in walking around cramps my usual exploration style in New Delhi and Agra. There is respite in Jaipur, Rajasthan’s largest city. I have an oasis here in the form of the lavish Fairmont Jaipur (www.fairmont.com/jaipur), where another massage eases travel-worn muscles and the chef cooks up a flurry of delicious Rajasthani dishes. At the opposite end of the scale I savour street food on a sunrise cycle tour of old Jaipur with Le Tour de India.

The next day I embark on a walking tour of Jaipur. I am lucky enough to join a group of locals who all work in design. Together we discover parts and arts of their city they didn’t even know existed. Like many Indians I meet, they are unfailingly friendly and at the same time treat me with a slightly bemused curiosity. And I spend quite a bit of time apologising for the stops we have to make so that random strangers can be photographed with me.

Escaping the cities, I venture out to the Ranthambore National Park. They have leopards and crocodiles here, but like most visitors I am in this wild vastness hunting for tigers. We find one on our first drive. He is trapped down a well in the buffer zone where man is allowed to coexist with these predators. We are the first safari jeep to arrive. A crowd have gathered to watch the madcap attempts to get down the well and tranquillise the tiger.

I don’t see any tigers on any of my game drives and I am disappointed again in Satpura National Park. The consolation is that Satpura enjoys the sort of spectacular mountain and jungle scenery with which India overflows, not to mention the serene calm of the Tawa Reservoir. It also offers the unusual chance to get out of the security of a safari jeep and on to two feet on a walking safari. We chance upon the spot where a large sloth bear has just battled a tiger to the death. The winner is clear from the mound of dark fur and the sloth bear skull. A more leisurely experience comes the next day with a sunrise trip in a canoe around a reservoir that is alive with crocodiles, who keep a watchful eye on us as we glide along in total silence.

My last few days are spent in the welcoming embrace of Ahilya Fort. This is another India again. There are few tourists around in the riverside town of Maheshwar, where this historic fort has been reinvented as a charming all inclusive heritage hotel. Rather than just cream off the profits the owners work with the local community and I visit a weaving workshop and a school that they have set up nearby.

My last night is spent being rowed out to the Baneshwar Temple. As the sun melts over this sacred river I sip a glass of the ridiculously sweet Indian chai that I have become accustomed to. I am knackered and still slightly bewildered, but beguiled too by India. As we slip back over the sleepy waters the bashing booms of a traditional wedding greet me as I hop on a tuk tuk and dodge the cows and chaos of what is unmistakably Incredible India.