One of the craziest and most awesome places on the planet for sure. Tigers, castles, leopards, forts, Maharajas, palaces, amazing food, this place has everything. It’s even home to the Dalai Lama. A land of contrasts; so beautiful, but overpopulated. Rich in history and culture, but stricken with poverty. Full of colour and splendour, but dirty. Peaceful, but chaotic. It’s not for everyone, but if you look beyond the poverty and chaos this country has so much to offer. I’ve been three times, first time to play in a sporting competition, second time as a backpacker and third time as a normal tourist as recent as 2018…. and absolutely loved it.

Either as a backpacker or a normal tourist your money is going to go a lot further here than most other countries around the globe. To date I have only been in the northern half of the country, but there is so much to do in that area I still haven’t grown tired of it.

India is one of the few places on the planet you can still see wild tigers and I highly recommend you go to their national parks if you get the chance and have the budget. As with any safari it’s down to fate or luck as to whether you see a tiger or not, but I have seen one on every game drive I have done so far. The last time I was there we visited Ranthambore National Park and stayed two nights. First game drive we took we saw a tiger almost immediately then the second day we shared a jeep with four Indians, one of whom said he’d been to every national park in India and never seen a tiger in the wild! I reassured him that he was sharing a jeep with two very lucky people and not to fret. We had been driving for over three hours and still not seen anything, but with half an hour left I rallied everyone back into the jeep and told the driver to keep looking …. 100 yards up the track this baby jumped out in front of us with a fresh kill!!

Something we only discovered last year was that India is one of the best leopard spotting countries in the world, in particular in a an area called Bera in Rajasthan. Not only did we see pretty much guaranteed sightings of leopards every day, but the scenery was out of this world too, almost like another planet.

The leopard hills of Jawai, Bera with Prince Yaduveer

We’ve spent a lot of our time in the state of Rajasthan. There are quite a lot of tourists there, but that’s because there is so much to see and do. In the few weeks we travelled round there recently we rode camels in the desert, visited and even stayed in some of the many castles, palaces and forts, visited elephant and bear rehabilitation centres, various animal charities, took some boat trips and even watched a Bollywood film being made.

Some of the places we stayed at were truly spectacular and they needn’t cost the earth. Take a place called Sardar Samand for example located between Udaipur and Jodhpur, it’s an art deco palace owned and used as a city getaway for the Maharaja of Jodhpur himself and when we stayed there it was only us and him there. And the place itself was just awesome. The price ….. about £70 a night.

The Indian Railway is the biggest employer in the world with over a million employees and even if the system that runs it isn’t the most advanced in the world it works like total clockwork. So if you’re visiting India on a budget then the trains are the best way to get around. And cheap as chips too. Last time I went there however we’d decided to have the flexibility of going where we want, when we want, by hiring a driver, which for about £50 a day you can have on tap 24 hours a day. If you have the budget I highly recommend it and I can put you in touch with the driver we used.

Eating in India is amazing. We went vegetarian for the whole month we were there last year and it was some of the best food we’ve ever eaten. You must remember that upset tummies are common place in India, or Delhi Belly as it’s called, but it all depends on how careful you are with where you eat and washing your hands, or even swallowing water from the shower or swimming pool. You also improve your chances by not eating street food and obviously the nicer places you stay the better the chances you have of staying healthy. We survived a month without a single upset tummy, but then again we stayed in quite nice places while we were there. You also need to consider whether the place serving your drinks have used tap water for your ice cubes too, the more expensive places will use filter water.

India is a Marmite country. You’ll either love it or hate it. The traffic is totally bonkers. Cars, bikes, trucks swerving round the cattle who just lay in the middle of the road and dogs running out in front of you constantly. It’s a very dangerous place to drive for sure, I would not recommend driving there yourself. On average there are approximately 2,000 road traffic fatalities every day in India. Be also prepared for seeing mountains of rubbish piled up around town, it’s dirty, really dirty. A lot of places look like the binman hasn’t been round for 30 years or so. The pollution too, Delhi is the most polluted city on the planet. But …. if you can see past these things then you will be richly rewarded with culture, nature, wildlife, cuisine, very friendly people and some of the best places to stay on the planet. And it’s not exactly every day you can both meet and stay with real royal families.

The amazing hotels of Rajasthan

In brief, the places I would recommend visiting are:-

• Udaipur – the romantic city on the lake
• Jodhpur – the fort on the hill
• Jaipur – forts, palaces and shopping
• Jaisalmer – the desert fort and camel safaris
• Bera – leopard spotting
• Agra – the Taj Mahal
• Varanasi – morning prayers on the Ganges
• Daramsala – home of the Dalai Lama
• Any national park to see tigers
• Animal Aid Unlimited – fantastic charity that works with injured animals
• Wildlife SOS India – another amazing animal charity working with elephants and black bears
• Amritsar – the Golden Temple
• Delhi and Bombay – but only if you like crazy cities