Taj Mahal

An eighteenth-century observatory of nineteen masonry astronomical instruments, including the world's largest stone sundial.

A four-hundred-year palace complex built in stages along Lake Pichola, with courtyards, mirror rooms and a museum of the Mewar dynasty.

The artificial lake at the centre of Udaipur, created in 1362, with island palaces reached by boat from the city palace jetty.

The backwaters are a 900-kilometre network of canals, lagoons and lakes running parallel to the Arabian Sea coast, lined with villages, rice paddies and coir workshops. Converted rice barges, kettuvallam, are hired with crew for overnight trips from Alleppey and Kumarakom. Smaller canoes reach the narrow channels the barges cannot.

The main backwater town, built around canals and coir warehouses, and the usual departure point for houseboat trips.

Ladakh is a high-altitude desert in the Indian Himalaya, with Tibetan Buddhist monasteries on ridges above the Indus and passes over 5,000 metres. Leh, at 3,500 metres, is the base, and altitude acclimatisation is a real planning constraint rather than a formality. Road access from Manali and Srinagar is seasonal; flights operate year-round.