India is the global equivalent of Marmite. You love it or you hate it.

People who have traveled in India very rarely perch on the proverbial . Nobody quite likes Dharamsala or rates Udaipur a nice place on a pretty lake. Nope, when it comes to India, opinions are as hot as lime pickle. Dharamsala is either worshipped as the spiritual centre of cosmic forces or dismissed as the pre-shower armpit of the earth. Udaipur is paradise or a crumpling palace atop an open sewer. Mark Twain called it the 'cradle of humankind'. My mate Steve said he would rather 'chew on his own limbs' than go back.

I've lost count of the jumpy backpackers that I've met on overnight buses in India, clutching belongings with white knuckles, horrified that they have not been given the so-called Deluxe Sleeper for which they paid. Most of them have either already been laid up for a few days, or they are too frightened to eat anything except crisps (which were probably packaged before Indian liberation) for fear of the fabled belly.

These guys are visibly wishing that they had never opted for India as the first stop on their Round the World Trip. They're unsuspecting kids, cargo pockets crammed with waterless soap, determined only to survive India long enough to pose on the Diana bench at the Taj Mahal and hightail it the hell out of there. Many make a beeline for Thailand, where their retrospective aversion to India grows with each bucket on Ko Pha Ngan. These travellers will probably never return to India, a large percentage becoming spearheads of the India-as-armpit movement.

But then there's the flipside. For some people, life after India is never the same. Mother India grabs them by the dreadlocks and works her way into their blood like a monsoon leech. These travellers connect with her magic and mystery and fall instantly in love with her, resplendent as she is with quite phenomenal flaws. Often, they stay forever, migrating dreamily from the Himalayan foothills in summer to the tiny Goan coastline in winter.

None of the frustrations or daily deceits of India are deal-breakers for these people. Hit-and-run gropings and 24 hour train delays are accepted with a patience that St.Christopher would admire. Shampoo bought in good faith can turn out to be washing liquid up every time. Armies of panting men on the beach can close in with camera phones. Tuk tuk drivers can claim that every single hotel in Delhi has burned down except, as luck would have it, the one owned by their second cousin. None of it makes any difference. These people are hooked - and not just on bhang lassis.

India is, quite simply, a land of highs and lows. It lacks a middle ground, and thank Ganesha for it. I loved India because I loved it. However, I also loved India because I made it there and back in one piece without killing myself or, indeed, anyone employed by the Indian bus network.

There's a sense of achievement that comes from travelling in India that makes it unlike anywhere else in the world. Your photo of sunset at the Taj Mahal may gather dust on your mantelpiece, and your intestines may even make a full recovery (although I wouldn't count on it), but the memory of your own independence and capability will remain.

Groping/plotting/overcharging aside, Indian people are quite wonderful. There's a cheekiness that you just can't help but admire, a glint in the eye that lets you know in good humour that you're about to be taken for every spare rupee you've got. It's like a big game, and you've got to throw yourself into it. You'll probably lose a little along the way - the house always wins - but who really cares and, anyway, look at the exchange rate. The fun is in the playing, so just waggle your head and get on with it.

These highs and lows follow each other with quite alarming speed in India. I remember very clearly my one and only first class train journey. It was the day after Diwali and, coincidentally, the day after my birthday. I had a hangover squared. My Indian friend Vinnie drove me to the station in Delhi and placed me on the train to Goa . The journey should have been 25 hours but it took 36. My advice? Suck up the price and get on a plane - it only costs £40.

Vinnie asked the guard to take good care of me. The guard clearly had ideas about just how he was going to do this - namely by trying to remove my clothes. This course of action was, as you can imagine, not particularly popular with me. Eventually, I ended up beating him away with my sequinned flip flops (not the most threatening of mental images, I realise). The episode left me feeling nervous, more than faintly ridiculous, and not a little tired of Indian men.

Moments like this one made me want to leave the country before they destroyed everything I had come to love about India. They also undermined my travelling confidence and made me somehow colder - encrusted with a steely cynicism and a defensive determination to avoid any such situations in future. Clammed up, you experience nothing - it really isn't the way to travel at all.

But, with typical topsy turviness, a young family boarded at the next stop. They bundled into my carriage with more luggage than I have seen on entire airport carousels and then offered me the lion's share of a delicious homecooked meal. I played Nintendo DS with their kids - both wearing shirts so furiously ironed that they looked like fresh paper - and I ended up visiting them in Dehra Dun. They gave me phone numbers of people that they knew in almost every state in India, just in case I ran into any trouble.

Well. This is a long way from London life, where you could forget to Mind The Gap and your fellow commuters would use your head as a ramp between train and platform. Just when I was hanging upside down, with the end of my tether gripped between my ankles, my faith in humanity was immediately restored and, even better, redoubled.

As I stepped off that train I couldn't believe how lucky I was to be in India, beating old men with flip flops and feeding chapattis to the mice in first class. It is never going to be an easy destination - you'll realise this as you come to fill in the visa forms - but it will be more rewarding and more inspiring than a month of drinking buckets on Ko Pha Ngan.

Just stick with it. You'll probably come back through UK customs as a tropical bacteria mule, but you'll do it with a smile.

Need a hand planning independent travel in India? Feel free to get in touch.

Bryony Holland
India Travel Plan
http://www.indiatravelplan.co.uk