India: A Guide to the Experience

Author David Stuart Ryan first spent a year in India in 1968-9 and has made regular visits back there ever since.

This is why he is able to give you an informative guide, illustrated with dozens of original color pictures, to the places that most tourists miss.

By exploring further, off the beaten track of the sites the formal tours take you, you will be able to get a real grasp, insight and feel for what India is all about.

In the Hindu holy city of Varanasi you can discover what it is like to be by the sacred Ganges river as the sun comes up and the emerging holymen make their morning worship, perpetuating a tradition that goes back even further than when Alexander the Great visited this most ancient city, and consulted with the sadhus there.

Varanasi may well be the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth.

Your journey around the subcontinent will take you to Kathmandu and Nepal in the north, Rajgir Bihar in the east, Mumbai in the west, Kovalam beach in the south.

A visit to the golden shores of Goa is highly recommended, you can join the many thousands of Westerners who now flock there to enjoy the beauties of a still largely natural setting,
with a warm ocean lapping along miles of whitened, palm tree studded sand.

The major cities of Mumbai and Delhi, the deserts of Rajasthan, the calm backwaters of Kerala are other stops on your amazing journey.

If you are only visiting India for a fleeting visit, here is a guide that will unerringly take you to the most entrancing of places.

While for those who have more time to wander about, there are nuggets of information on every page that reveal more on how you can sample the unique Indian experience - safely and smoothly.

Combine these invaluable cultural insights and beautiful color shots of the people and places of India with some essential practical tips from a seasoned Indian traveler, and you have the ideal travel companion for your own journey of discovery.

You will see in stunning original photography the majesty of the Taj Mahal, the eerie calm of dawn breaking over the Ganges and the magic of the full moon in the desert of Rajesthan.