Indien

Steeped in history yet overflowing with modern life, colorful, cacophonous Delhi pulsates with the relentless rhythms of humanity like few other cities on Earth.

Aurangabad laid low through most of the tumultuous history of medieval India and only hit the spotlight when the last Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, made the city his capital from 1653 to 1707. With the emperor’s death came the city’s rapid decline, but the brief period of glory saw the building of some fascinating monuments, including Bibi-qa-Maqbara, a Taj Mahal replica, and these continue to draw a steady trickle of visitors. Alongside other historic relics, such as a group of ancient Buddhist caves, these Mughal relics make Aurangabad a good choice for a weekend excursion from Mumbai. But the real reason for traipsing here is because the town is an excellent base for exploring the World Heritage Sites of Ellora and Ajanta.

Från valhajar i januari till leguaner i december. Vi listar spektakulära möten med vilda djur. Året runt!

The Taj Mahal rises from Agra's haze as though from a dream. You’ve seen it in pictures, but experiencing it in person, you'll understand that it's not just a famous monument, but a love poem composed of stone. When you first glimpse it through the arched entryway, you might find yourself breathless with awe. Many hail it as the most beautiful building on the planet.

Stretching 600km along the Brahmaputra River Valley, with a spur down to the hilly southeast, Assam is the largest and most accessible of the Northeast States. Well known for its national parks abounding in rhinoceroses, elephants, deer and primates (with respectable tiger numbers too), it welcomes visitors with a subtly flavoured cuisine and a hospitable population with a vibrant artistic heritage. The archetypal Assamese landscape is a golden-green panorama of rice fields and manicured tea estates, framed by the blue mountains of Arunachal Pradesh in the north and the highlands of Meghalaya and Nagaland to the south. The birthplace of Indian tea, Assam has more than 3000 sq km of land carpeted in bright-green tea gardens, and visits to these estates are high on many travellers' itineraries.

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.

Den före detta portugisiska kolonin Diu ligger utanför delstaten Gujarat i nordvästra Indien. Tack vare sina liberala alkoholregler är Diu känd som en party-ö.

The quiet, leafy, largely affluent neighborhood of South Delhi is where many expats and middle-class Delhiites choose to make their homes. For tourists, it makes a nice escape from the mayhem of the city centre, with most visitors focusing their attentions on the boutique shops, cafes and restaurants of Hauz Khas or Shahpur Jat Village.

A Portuguese colony for 426 years, tiny Diu island, linked by a bridge to Gujarat’s southern coast, is still infused with the history, architecture and, in some places, the cultural remnants of its European colonizers. The streets of the main town are clean, colorful and quiet once you get off the tourist-packed waterfront strip, and there are numerous crumbling Portuguese villas and churches. Although it's often thought of as being part of Gujarat, this is incorrect. With Daman it's actually a separate union territory known as Daman and Diu, and it has its own rules and government.

Kachchh, India’s wild west, is a geographic phenomenon. The flat, tortoise-shaped land, edged by the Gulf of Kachchh and Great and Little Ranns, is a seasonal island. During the dry season, the Ranns are vast expanses of dried mud and blinding-white salt. Come the monsoon, they’re flooded first by seawater, then by fresh river water. The salt in the soil makes the low-lying marsh area almost completely barren. Only on scattered ‘islands’ above the salt level is there coarse grass, which provides fodder for the region’s wildlife.