In June/July 2010 I spent ten days travelling in Rajasthan, India with friends; this is my diary of the trip (full list of entries here).

Friday 25 July

Flew out from Heathrow at 20.30 with Jet Airways, bound for New Delhi. A pretty decent (for 30,000 feet) Indian meal for dinner, then fell asleep over Russia after watching James Bond. India is 4.5 hours ahead of BST, so we'll arive at about 9AM if all goes according to plan. All of us have had the relevant jabs and are carrying industrial quantities of suncream and insect repellent.

The trip was suggested by my friend K who was born in India and lived there for 15 years, and we plan to start by staying with his grandparents who live in Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan. Currently it's reported to be 40 degrees centigrade in New Delhi; here's hoping my system can cope...

Editor's note: it gets a lot more exciting than the above, I promise. Parts 1 to 10 coming over the next week when I get time to write them up.