Indien

Dharamsala (also spelled Dharamshala) is known as the home of the Dalai Lama, though in fact the Tibetan spiritual leader is based about two miles up the hill in McLeod Ganj, and that's where most visitors are heading. Dharamsala proper is a market town mostly useful for bus connections.

When Swiss architect Le Corbusier was commissioned with the job of designing Chandigarh from scratch in 1950, he conceived a people-oriented city of sweeping boulevards, lakes, gardens and grand civic buildings, executed in his favourite material: reinforced concrete. Seventy years on and the parks, monuments and civic squares are all still here, albeit somewhat aged.

Ever since the Beatles visited the ashram of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the late '60s, Rishikesh has been a magnet for spiritual seekers. Today it styles itself as the ‘Yoga Capital of the World’, with masses of ashrams and all kinds of yoga and meditation classes. The action is mostly north of the main town, where the exquisite setting on the fast-flowing Ganges River, surrounded by forested hills, is conducive to meditation and mind expansion. In the evening, an almost supernatural breeze blows down the valley, setting temple bells ringing as sadhus ('holy' men), pilgrims and tourists prepare for the nightly ganga aarti (river worship ceremony). You can learn to play the sitar or tabla; try Hasya yoga (laughter therapy), practise meditation or take a punt on crystal healing.

For many visitors, particularly cashed-up young Indian tourists from Bangalore and Mumbai plus Europeans on package holidays, this is Goa’s party strip, where the raves and hippies have made way for modern thumping nightclubs and wall-to-wall drinking. The Calangute market area and the main Baga road can get very busy but everything you could ask for – from a Thai massage to a tattoo – is in close proximity and the beach is lined with an excellent selection of increasingly sophisticated restaurant shacks with sunbeds, wi-fi and attentive service.

Founded in 1577 by the fourth Sikh guru, Guru Ram Das, Amritsar is home to the spectacular Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine and one of India’s most serene and humbling sights. The hyperactive streets surrounding the temple have been calmed to some extent by recent urban landscaping, including graceful pedestrianised walkways, but duck into any side alley and you’ll soon discover Amritsar’s fantastically frenetic old-city bazaars, sheltering a sensory overload of sights, sounds and smells.

Myllrande marknader, minglande Bollywoodstjärnor, skyskrapor, hindutempel, coola kaféer och världens bästa gatumat. Följ med till SVT-reportern Malin Mendels Bombay.

The magnificent ruins of Hampi dot an unearthly landscape that has captivated travelers for centuries. Heaps of giant boulders perch precariously over miles of undulating terrain, their rusty hues offset by jade-green palm groves, banana plantations and paddy fields. While it’s possible to see this World Heritage Site in a day or two, plan on lingering for a while.

A thriving, vibrant metropolis, Pune is a centre of academia and business that epitomises ‘New India’ with its baffling mix of capitalism and spiritualism (ancient and modern). It’s also globally famous, or notorious, for an ashram, the Osho International Meditation Resort, founded by the late guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Indiska staden Calcutta är en megametropol otroligt mycket att se och göra – här tipsar vi dig om hur du tar dig runt, var du ska bo, äta och fika.

The cities and sites of eastern Rajasthan are easily accessible from Jaipur, as well as Agra and Delhi (all stops on the Golden Triangle). For immersion in history, see Alwar and Deeg’s evocative palaces, plus the magnificent forts at Bharatpur and Ranthambhore.