India – the land to travel to, a heaven of tourism delights, a civilization to tour through. Tourists come to India for its wealth of sights, cultural exuberance, diversity of terrain and in search of that special something, an extra punch that only India promises and delivers. 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. Mud huts and mansions face off across city streets. Lurid luxury and limp living are inhabitants of the same lane.

      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, India is a travel haven – a tour package that frustrates and delights, as demanding as it is rewarding.

      It demands that the traveller be prepared for its own strange forms of tourism offerings - the crowds at Pushkar, for pushy mendicants at Haridwar, for high commercialism at spiritual retreats. But equally, it means that he be prepared for an overwhelming warmth in the people, ease of conversation, and to be stunned into speechlessness by the beauty, sometimes the manmade and often the 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's not reason enough.

     There must be more because between truisms and half-truths, India has inspired more than any one place's fair share of travel lore. And, perhaps that's what it is - the legends of India - that's what inspires people from far and near to travel here, to sort out for themselves what's true and what's just a whole lot of tourism pamphlet hype.

      The Indian subcontinent lies to the north of equator and is surrounded by the Arabian Sea on the west, Indian Ocean in South, Bay of Bengal in the East, the Himalayas in North to North – East and Pakistan on North West frontier. It measures 3214 km from north to south and 2933 from east to west with a total area of 3,287,263 sq km. It has a land frontier of 15200 km and a coastline of 7516.5 km. Andaman & Nicobar Islands and the Bay of Bengal and the Lakshadweep islands are also a part of India.

      India shares its political borders with Pakistan & Afghanistan on the west and Bangladesh & Burma in the east. The northern boundary is adjacent to China, Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan. India is separated from Sri Lanka by a narrow channel of sea.

Mountain ranges: There are seven mountain ranges namely 1) The Himalayas 2) the Patkai and other ranges bordering India in the north & north-east 3) the Vindhyas, which separate the Indo-Gangetic plain from the Deccan Plateau 4) the Satpura 5) the Aravalli, 6) the Sahayadri, which covers the eastern fringe of the West Coast plains and 7) the Eastern Ghats, irregularly scattered on the East Coast and forming the boundary of the East Coast plains.

Desert: Western India has a big desert region which can be divided into two parts – the great desert and the little desert. The great desert extends from the edge of Rann of Kutcch beyond the Luni river northward. The whole of Rajasthan – Sind Frontier runs through this. The little desert extends from the Luni between Jaisalmer and Jodhpur upto northern wastes.  

Rivers: There are many big rivers flowing through our country. The Indus (Sindhu), The Ganges, The Brahmaputra, the Deccan rivers (Godavari, Krishna, Cauvery, Pennar, Mahanadi, Damodar, Netravati, Periyar, Narmada & Tapti to name a few. The Gangetic basin forms the biggest fertile plains in India.