India today is one of the most exciting anywhere. Its history and culture are not just packaged and brought out on show for the tourist, but lived. Its openness, friendliness and freedom from personal threat are increasingly rare among major travel destinations. All of this is readily accessible to travellers on virtually any budget, and travelling over almost any time scale. Thus, the major cities are all within easy range of exciting 'sight-seeing' trips of only two or three days, yet it is easily possible to spend the full six months backpacking around and touching only a fraction of the places worth visiting.

THE HEART OF INDIA

The heart of India beats in the densely populated plains of the River Ganges, settled and cultivated for millennia, and the home of great civilizations which shape the lives of nearly one billion people today. To the south lies the Peninsula, politically always more fragmented than the Plains and agriculturally less fertile, but with mineral resources which have supplied empires from the Indus Valley Civilization over 4, 000 years ago to the present. Beyond lies one of India's great natural frontiers, the palm-fringed Indian Ocean, stretching from the Arabian Sea in the west to the Bay of Bengal in the east, and offering nothing but scattered island chains between Kanniyakumari and Antarctica.

FROM SNOWFIELDS TO DESERTS

To the north of the plains stand the Himalayas, aptly described as "the finest natural combination of boundary and barrier that exists in the world. It stands alone. For the greater part of its length only the Himalayan eagle can trace it. It lies amidst the eternal silence of vast snowfield and icebound peaks." In the eastern foothills of the Himalayas, for example, are some of the wettest regions in the world, still covered in dense rainforest, while in their western ranges are the high altitude deserts of Ladakh. Similarly the Gangetic plains stretch from the fertile and wet delta of Bengal to the deserts of North Rajasthan. Even the Peninsula ranges from the tropical humid climate of the western coast across the beautiful hills of the Western Ghats to the dry plateaus inland.

LAND OF SACRED RIVERS

India's most holy river, the Ganges, runs across the vital heartland of the country and mentioned throughout the Hindu mythology. Joined by other holy rivers along its route, its waters are a vital source of irrigation. Its path is dotted with towns and settlements of great sanctity, and it is a vital economic asset as well as the focus of devotion for hundreds of millions. To the south the great rivers of the peninsula -the Narmada, Krishna, Tungabhadra and Kaveri to name only the largest-also have a spiritual significance to match their current role as providers of water and power.

GOLDEN SANDS

Goa's palm-fringed golden beaches on the sun-drenched tropical West Coast have long provided a magical getaway for travellers from around the world. There are also many less well known hideaways up and down the sandy coastline. Lushly vegetated and densely populated, Kerala in the far southwest adds idyllic backwaters to its coastal fringe, while offshore the almost unvisited Lakshadweep Islands offer a coral paradise for divers. Far to the east in the Bay of Bengal the Andaman’s add another dimension to the exotic character of India's coast, its scattered islands being home to some of the world's most primitive aboriginal tribes.

A VIVID HISTORY

On the diverse physical environment remains etched the evidence of a succession of political powers, religions and cultures going back to prehistoric times. Cave paintings, such as those at Bhimbetka, show the remains of advanced Stone Age cultures. The cities of the Indus Valley left the remains of one of the world's earliest urban civilizations scattered over northwestern India. As the heartland of Indian political life shifted east a succession of powers left their mark on India's cultural life. Buddhism and Jainism were born in the foothills of the Himalayas, while Hinduism subsequently spread to embrace the majority of India's people. Yet Christianity has also found a home here for nearly 2,000 years, and Islam and Sikhism have made their own vividly distinctive contribution to cities across India and to millions of lives.

FROM TRIBALS TO URBANITES

India's aboriginal peoples are no more than a tiny remnant of the first migrants to scatter out of Africa on their way to Austraila. Yet, living in the remote and forested hills of central India, they were precursors of a flow of peoples, which has continued to bring colour and variety to India's extraordinarily rich texture of settled peoples. The tribals of Orissa, Rajasthan or Andhra Pradesh for example may now be a small minority but they illustrate the melting pot of peoples that India has become. The dark skinned Dravidians of the south and their lighter skinned cousins in the north both originated in Central Asia, the former coming via the Mediterranean some thousands of years before their so-called Aryan successors, all brought together today within the packed and busy streets of India's rapidly growing cities.

MIRACLES IN STONE

The delicately fashioned stone carving of Buddhist inspired gateways at Sanchi or the almost lace-like fineness of windows in Fatehpur Sikri, the towering richly carved vimanas of Hindu temples and the minarets and domes of mosques have provided an extraordinary legacy of architectural skill and craftsmanship. Sites from every region all illustrate the flowering of those cultural traditions, whether in remarkable temples- from Konark in the east to Palitana in the west, or from Khajuraho in the north to Madurai in the south - or through to the grandiose of British-built New Delhi. Of all the world's great monuments the Taj must be one of the most photographed, written about, televised and talked about. Yet if nothing can quite touch it, others also command attention. Whether it is a lake-surrounded palace shimmering in the heat, a mountain top for with walls towering over a rugged precipice hundreds of meters above the plain, or an ornately carved temple miracle of latticed stone, every part of India has its treasures little known to the outside world.

MUSIC AND DANCE

The haunting tones of the sitar and brilliant rhythms of the tabla have become the universal sound, which captures the uniqueness and mystique of India. From its origins in the chants of the ancient scriptures Indian music has developed from its descending string of three notes to a complex 22-note scale. Interwoven with Muslim influences to create the Hindustani music of the north, the tradition diverged in 18^th century South India to produce Carnatic music, with its emphasis on extended compositions and the use of the distinctive vina in place of the sitar. While classical music was often associated with dance, if you get out into the villages you find the colourful diversity of local folk dance traditions, sometimes the vehicle of re-living the well loved stories of the Hindus epics.