What initially attracted us to the country was the food, neither of us can get enough of it, be that the afternoon snacks of samosas, batata wadas or the endless curry dish options in the evening! So, for us a holiday where you can indulge in your favourite meals is perfect. It might seem strange to many but we are not beach people; we both love the idea of relaxing on a sunbed for hours on end, just reading or people watching, but the reality is that after two or three days of that we are bored and restless. The evenings we love, start the night off with some fantastic tasty food and follow that up visiting some great local bars serving ice cold beer and local spirits – ideal for just watching the world go by. Our biggest problem was how do we fill our days? For us, (and appreciate many may not agree), it is a long way to travel just to lay on a beach – especially when there are such incredible places a short internal flight (or train journey) away. We concluded that to enjoy the best of both worlds we would book a fortnights holiday to Goa, but then also have a ‘plan,’ something away from the coast for a few days that would also be a tick on the bucket list. A little bit of beach, exploration of somewhere new for a few days, and then back for more beach or pool to unwind seems to work well for us. 

Across the years we have visited the Golden Triangle, taking in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. We loved Jaipur so much that we subsequently made a second visit to Rajasthan and explored Jodhpur and Udaipur, an incredibly beautiful city that was quite serene and a pleasure to wander around. Changes to our return connecting flight in Mumbai meant that we had to tag on an additional day there! From Goa a single but long train journey into Karnataka to visit Hampi gave us another memorable few days away in a place we had never even heard of! Kerala was a tour and beach stay; a rice boat on the backwaters of Alleppey and the city of Cochin before heading to the hills to visit the tea plantations. We got to experience a home stay before moving on to visit Periyar National Park. From the beach resort of Kovalum we arranged ourselves a trip down to the Southernmost tip of India, Kanyakumari.  

The same year we also visited the other end of the country, Amritsar! What a place this is, most famous as the home of the Sikh pilgrimage site of the Golden Temple but also a place of shame from our colonial past, the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. Close to Amritsar is the most joyous place we have ever visited in India; the Wagah border ceremony is a must see. Every night is party night at this crazy border closing ceremony as Pakistan and Indian soldiers try to outdo each other in moustaches, high kicking marches and posturing – all in front of dancing, chanting high-energy crowds. Mysore and its stunning palace (via a one-night stay in Bangalore), was our destination to break up our stay another year. In 2016 we finally made our way to Varanasi, it had always been a tricky one to reach due to flight connection times, but in our two months stay we had no excuses not to make it. It more than lived up to expectations, a truly fascinating place.