India for First-Timers: Bangalore to Goa in 16 Days

India is the country your friends warn you about. "Oh you'll love it, but" (a beat) "you'll get sick" (a longer beat) "you'll get scammed." All three things are roughly true. None of them should stop you going, because it's also one of the most genuinely thrilling places we've ever travelled.

Days 1 to 2: What to do in Bangalore

Bangalore is India's tech capital and makes for a soft landing: cooler air, lighter south Indian food, and Indiranagar's microbreweries.

Breakfast at Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR), the institution since 1924. The masala dosa: a fermented rice-and-lentil pancake the size of a forearm, stuffed with spiced potato, served with sambar and three chutneys. ₹150 (£1.40). You eat with your right hand. You don't speak for ten minutes after the first bite.

Lunch at Brahmin's Coffee Bar around the corner: idly-vada combination and filter coffee, ₹100/person. No chairs. You stand at metal counters. The food is perfect.

Days 3 to 6: What to do in Delhi

Fly from Bangalore (£60 each, 2.5 hours). Stay at The Manor in New Friends Colony (16 rooms, courtyard garden, £85/night).

Indian Accent for dinner night one: the modern Indian tasting menu that's the highest-rated restaurant in the country. £75/person with wine pairings. Order the blue cheese naan. Yes, blue cheese naan. Yes, it works.

Day four: Old Delhi with a guide. This is non-negotiable. Hire a guide (₹2,500 for a half-day, £25). Walk Jama Masjid (climb the south minaret, ₹100 for the view), the spice market at Khari Baoli, then paranthe wali gali (parantha alley). Lunch at Karim's, the Mughal-cuisine institution since 1913: the mutton burra and the seekh kebab, charred outside, slightly pink inside. ₹600 for two.

Days 7 to 8: What to do in Jaipur

Hire a driver (6 hours, ₹6,000/£60). The Pink City is the iconic walled district, painted terracotta-pink for Prince Albert's visit in 1876, now a UNESCO site. Hawa Mahal for the photograph. Amber Fort up the hill for a morning. Skip the elephant rides (the welfare conditions range from bad to genuinely awful, and the walk is fifteen minutes).

Dinner at Bar Palladio at the Narain Niwas Palace Hotel: an Italian restaurant inside a turquoise Rajasthani palace. £40/person. You're paying for the room as much as the food, and both are worth it.

Days 9 to 10: What to see in Agra

Five-hour drive from Jaipur. The Taj Mahal at sunrise (5:30am gate, £14 entry). Yes, the photographs are accurate. Yes, it's still extraordinary in person. Yes, you only need ninety minutes there. But those ninety minutes are unlike anything else.

Agra Fort in the late morning is the better fort in the country: more intact and more interesting than Delhi's Red Fort. Lunch on a rooftop with a Taj view at Esphahan at the Oberoi Amarvilas (expensive, but the view is unbeatable).

Days 11 to 14: What to do in Goa

After ten days of dust and concrete and crowds, you fly south, put on flip-flops, and do not move for four days. We stayed at Alila Diwa Goa in the south (£130/night with breakfast). The point of Goa is the food: Portuguese-Indian Goan cuisine, fish curry rice, vindaloo done properly, the whole crab in butter garlic.

Dinner at Tamil Table in Anjuna (southern Indian small plates with a sea view). Sublime in Morjim (the Australian-chef-run place, the prawn curry is among the best meals of the trip, £25/person). Cocktails at Thalassa on the cliff in Vagator for sunset.

Day trip: rent a moped, ride to Fontainhas in Old Goa, the UNESCO Portuguese quarter with yellow and blue painted houses.

How much does 16 days in India cost for two people?

You will get sick (we took two days of antibiotics in Delhi). You will get scammed (we overpaid for tuk-tuks three times before calibrating). None of this matters because you'll walk back into your kitchen at home and think the world looks too quiet.