At the centre of South Asia and one of the world’s fastest developing economies, India is also one of the cradles of civilisation, with its cultural influence and peoples now spreading across the globe. An enormously diverse mass of humanity hosting multiple major religions and over one hundred languages, India became the world’s most populous country in 2023, overtaking China but with only one third of its area. India’s recent history was characterised by the separation of Burma in 1937, independence from Britain in 1947, quickly followed by partition and the emergence of Pakistan which itself further split off Bangladesh in 1971.

I visited India with friends in December 2007 for just under two weeks, starting with a circuit of the Golden Triangle from Delhi via Agra to Jaipur, then down south to the subtropical warmth of Mumbai and Goa. Following arrival in Delhi via Amsterdam with KLM, we travelled by train, car with driver, and upstart budget airline SpiceJet. Our luggage did not travel with us for the first five days, as KLM had lost it. Our accommodations ranged from cheap and basic, to dirt cheap and filthy. Re-writing these pages fifteen years after first publication, I’m reminded of what an incredible, noisy, mysterious, infuriating, delicious and crazy place it was to visit.