Country of contrast and colourfulness

WE'D been told that as you fly in to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) the first thing you see are the sprawling slums and that you smell the city before the aircraft doors are opened.

As the Airbus taxied to a standstill it seemed its wing-tips might swipe the roofs off several shanties, so close do they press up to the airport perimeter.

The smell of this cosmopolitan city didn't hit us until we left the terminal: traffic fumes and burning plastic, the smell of industry and human activity on a massive scale.

We stayed with friends Heather and Vivek Gupta in the Bandra district, an evocative blend of crumbling colonial villas and new development with a more laid-back feel than the rest of Mumbai.

Despite the fascinating echoes of Empire in the grand Victorian buildings and being looked after magnificently, we didn't like Mumbai.

Nothing to do with dire warnings about con tricks and begging nor the sight of people sleeping rough on the streets, but rather that Mumbai was too frantic, too big.

Even with the expert skills of driver Ali it took over an hour to reach the Gateway to India.

There's no sign of the terrorist atrocity that took place there, and everywhere there is the reassuring presence of soldiers and policemen. It seems to me there's never been a safer time to visit India.

At the glorious Victorian gothic Chhatrapati Shivaji (Victoria) Terminus we booked tickets on a 24-hour sleeper train to Colva in Goa.

This process took longer than it should as the clerk insisted we drink chai with him, the first of many instances of generous friendliness.

The train was old and battered but the carriage was clean and comfortable and a constant stream of vendors plied the corridors selling food and drinks: "Chai chai chai chai chai!".

I'd normally react badly to a slap on the head at 7am, but am indebted to my partner, Liz, for this rude awakening as I was greeted with a sight that will stay with me forever: the massive red ball of the sun rising over a landscape straight out of a picture book.

Our hotel in Colva had uniformed staff, a pool full of turtles in the foyer…and no other guests. The Mumbai terrorist attack has hit tourism hard.

Colva was not without charm and had a long, wide beach of sand that was fine enough to clean jewellery with and which squeaked when you walked on it, but we were keen to move further south.

At Om Beach in Gokarna we stayed at the Namaste guest house in a bungalow surrounded by wildlife, including monkeys, chipmunks, exotic birds, spiders of enhanced proportions, two small snakes and one very large one.

Being British, I naturally fetched my camera rather than a big stick.

Om Beach was beautiful, full of fascinating characters and had a bohemian island lifestyle feel. It was hard to leave, but we were moving inland.

Hampi is a World Heritage site dominated by the temples and statues of a city built between the 14th and 16th centuries.

It's beautifully preserved, and the carvings are as sharp and characterful as the day they were made.

We had the services of Mr Paul and his auto-rickshaw for a whole day to see the sights, and it cost us less than £10 with a generous tip.

But Hampi for us was the cool, clear dew-soaked mornings looking out over lush paddy fields to the impossible landscape of jumbled and balanced boulders beyond which looked, as another traveller pointed out, like The Flintstones' hometown of Bedrock.

To go straight back to the UK from this paradise would have been heartbreaking, so we returned to Mumbai via Colva.

On the train there, an Indian family shared their food with us. Wonderful people, wonderful country, which we saw only a fraction of. We even miss the teeming insanity of Mumbai.

Andy and Liz flew to Mumbai with Virgin Atlantic.