India <

If I was forced to choose a favourite destination, I think perhaps India would have to be just that.

I have travelled, holidayed and worked all over the incredible country, numerous times over the last three decades, from Goa in the South, to Kashmir up in the far North nestled in the lap of the Himalayas.

My last trip there was to Chail, a remote hill station in Himachal Pradesh, to shoot a documentary pilot for the BBC about an athlete training at high altitude. It’s home to the highest cricket ground in the world and not far from the beautiful Shimla, capital of the region. Regrettably I wasn’t able to take a decent stills camera with me on that trip and even if I had, I’m not sure I would have had much time to use it properly, such are the demands of busy documentary making, so most the images in this portfolio are from other trips.

One particular trip was in the 90s, travelling with friends. We had become a little obsessed with trying to get up to Kashmir from where we’d been staying in Delhi. At that point in time, maybe in hindsight it was a little ill advised as there had been reports of conflict in the area, the ongoing struggle for control of the region. But having navigated the surprisingly complicated process of buying train tickets at Delhi main station, an adventure in itself, we found ourselves on a busy sleeper train heading to Jammu. Arriving the following day, we secured the services of a plucky driver to take us the remaining 170 odd miles in his ubiquitous Austin Ambassador. I wouldn’t call the journey comfortable or particularly relaxing as we wound round mountain roads and on through the nearly 3km long Jawahar tunnel after dark, no mean feat in car with dodgy electrics and very temperamental headlights. We spent a very cold night at a hill station, the name of which I can’t remember and the following day, made our way back down and on to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. The journey was probably a few days in total, but the uncomfortable hours spent cramped in a car were worth it and arriving at one of the most magical places I have had the pleasure to visit, the majestic Dal lake, it was suddenly very clear why people made the effort.

Dal lake and the landscape around it are simply breathtaking. A land ‘between four rivers’ it is as legend has it, the place where the garden of Eden was situated.

There’s a large community who live on the water in houseboats and that’s where we were headed, to houseboat Lotus, as guests of Mr Ali Mohammed Pala and his charming family. I can’t remember how long we stayed in Srinagar, maybe no longer than a couple of weeks, but one day blended seamlessly with the next as we whiled away the hours playing chess or gliding around the lakes by boat.

Kashmir is a truly extraordinary place, marred only by sporadic armed conflict over its ownership, something we realised was still very much active when we were there and witnessed first hand, thankfully from the safety of the Lotus.

These days the lakes in Kashmir, Dal and Nagin are faced with additional challenges. Large scale pollution of both main lakes and others throughout the region poses a very serious threat to these once pristine environments.

There is so much to India and I’m lucky to have made the trips I have and plan to return in the next few years.