India is a blur - arrival in the bustling city of Delhi

Welcome to India...
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India is a blur.

India becomes a deluge, an onslaught - a full assault on your sense that sends you reeling. The heat and the hot wind makes you groggy and lack of sleep due to jetlag and bad airconditioning makes you lightheaded. And to step out of my hotel and enter the bazaar is to enter another world.

Images jump out at you - moustached old men in stuffy shirts, fruits spread out on a pavement, cries of birds overhead, donkeys weaving their way around people, emaciated cows chewing leaves from rubbish bins,

Yes, the cows wernt impressed by my legs either..
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Images jump out at you - moustached old men in stuffy shirts, fruits spread out on a pavement, cries of birds overhead, donkeys weaving their way around people, emaciated cows chewing leaves from rubbish bins, the roar of autorickshaws, the tooting of buses..

This is the start of the holiday. Will India conquer me or will I embrace it? Thats the question every traveller asks themselves on arrival.

I thought at the age of thirty-one that I'd be experienced enough as a traveller to tackle India. I have always been fascinated by the country. Whether it was those early eighties mini-series like 'The Jewell in the Crown' or 'The Far Pavilions' or one of my favourites James Bond epics - "Octopussy". The place has always had a hold over me. So the year 2000 was marked out for a trip to India. I managed Thailand - now it was time for the big one.

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So I booked on an Aeroflot flight to Delhi for about £356. Aeroflot were fine and its not every day that you have chicken and apple borscht. So it was three hours to Moscow and I tracked us on a screen showing Holland, Germany, Poland and we came down to change planes at Severnaya airport outside Moscow. After the cabin crews curt goodbye (theres nothing false or ingratiating about the Russkis) I headed for the transit lounge and a wait of 2 1/2 hours.

It was myself and a contingent of Indian families on board the flight to Delhi. More borscht and chicken and I struggled to sleep on this flight and gave up about 3.00am as we were passing over Iran. An American backpacker was chatting to me and another Indian man while we were on the last legs. He warned us about the heat this time of year in Delhi. Thats OK, says the American, "it gets hot in Arizona". Nothing compared to India was the reply he received.

The summer heat is my big concern with India and it was confirmed when I took my first look and saw crisp dry plains covered in early morning fog. I followed the 'Welcome to India' signs and my visa was in order and I was through in record time. I changed up some money and went through the arrivals gate.

That was when India saw me and rushed towards me...