A country teeming with over a billion people who voice over a million concerns in fifteen hundred different languages, India is where people live with variety, thrive on diversity and are too familiar with largeness to let it boggle them.

Here visitors throng for a variety of purposes, be it the wealth of sights, cultural exuberance, diversity of terrain or something very special, India promises and delivers… with an extra punch!

Its diversity is beyond comparison, from the smoky mangroves of the Sunderbans to the steaming Thar Desert, sizzling cities like Mumbai and Delhi to the scintillating villages of Khajuraho and Hampi, from the heights of the Himalayas to the deep blue waters around the Andamans… to name a few. A country where Mud huts and mansions face off across city streets. Lurid luxury and limp living are inhabitants of the same lane! Experiencing this travel haven is demanding as well as rewarding.

Many a surprises await the travelers, say, the crowds at Pushkar, for pushy mendicants at Haridwar, for high commercialism at spiritual retreats, etc., plus, the overwhelming warmth in the people, ease of conversation, stunning beauteous locations - manmade and natural.

But what exactly is it that gets two and a half million people to pack their bags, book their tickets, buy industrial size cans of suntan lotion and enough toilet paper to supply the entire population of Liechtenstein for a month, and wing their way to India?

Given that this is the land of the Taj, granted too that tea, tobacco, tempestuous democracy and terrific travel are a great combination but surely that is not the reason enough. There must be more because between truths and half truths. India has inspired more than any one place(s) fair share of travel lore. And, perhaps that is what it is, the legends of India that is what inspires people from far and near to travel here, to sort out for themselves what is true and what is just a whole lot of tourism pamphlet hype.