Driving yourself around India can be challenging. (Shutterstock.com)

NEW DELHI, India -- You've got to be intrepid, curious and willing to accept both the rough alongside the luxuriously smooth. You must quite like driving, but you also must be a driver with sang-froid, and I mean the sort of cold blood that can cope with an oncoming truck driving on the wrong side of the road, or an entire herd of cattle wandering over both sides.

It's the perfect holiday for those who were once backpackers and loved the independence, but who now want a bit of five-star luxury alongside the Joni Mitchell CDs and enamel camping mugs. It is taking a self-drive holiday. In India.

Driving yourself around India at first seems impossible. There are not many signposts on Indian roads, and the only decent map of the sub-continent was written in the colonial 1940s and deposited at the Royal Geographical Society in London. So how can you drive about in India without getting hopelessly lost?

John Brigden, British petrol-head, devotee of the sub-continent, and car rally expert has the answer. Having driven around India for 20 years, he has come up with a perfect solution using the satellite-driven GPS system. Brigden has devised two routes, one in Rajasthan, North West India, and one up to the Himalayas.

The idea is you simply use the GPS to follow the way points already saved by Brigden as they roll across the screen of the tiny hand-held device. There's back-up in the form of a large booklet listing all the way points and mileage, and giving fine detail such as "Left at the temple" or "Right beside the level crossing. Warning, road is very bad here."

Actually, the roads are mostly very bad throughout the journey we did, the so-called Golden Triangle through Rajasthan, starting from Delhi. And any stretch of road which wasn't bad was only good for about five minutes. Yet they were bad in such ingenious ways you simply had to love them for it. I mean, who could not adore the sight of an elephant being ridden on the slow lane in a motorway, or a camel pulling a wagon full of cotton along a pot-holed half-built track?

And just as you are admiring the camel you have to swerve sharply to avoid colliding into one of several ancient brightly coloured big Indian lorries with "USE DIPPER AT NIGHT" painted on them in fairground colours.

Is it a dangerous jaunt? Not really. Any Western motorist will be so relieved to drive comparably empty roads and at a much lower average speed than at home that such local hiccups should be taken in the spirit of the journey.

There is luxury in this trip, but not on the road. The Himalaya route is done in 4x4 jeeps, but for the Rajasthan jaunt you are given that most iconic of Indian cars, the Ambassador. This saloon, hardly changed since its 1958 arrival as the Indian incarnation of the British-designed Morris Oxford, is actually the perfect car in which to chug across the mighty Thar desert in Rajasthan. It is generally reliable, has decent suspension and a simple engine which tends not to break down. If it does then almost any village mechanic in India will know how to fix it.

Comfortable it is not, but that enhances the spirit of adventure. Having an utterly numb backside, and thighs stuck to a vinyl seat certainly enhances the sense of joy when you at last complete that day's leg and sweep dustily into one of the pre-booked hotels. You are expected to drive around 200 km per day, which will take you six hours. The journey takes in the desert fortresses of Bikaner, Jaisalmer and Jodhpur, before driving up through the mountains to reach the fairy-tale lakeside city of Udaipur and back across to Agra and the Taj Mahal.

And your stays will be in places nothing short of historical and magnificent. With the pragmatism typical in this most dynamic of global powers, the Indian aristocracy has seen nothing wrong in turning its sumptuous residences partially over to the hotel industry. RoadTrip India drivers will find themselves guests at the gorgeous Art Deco Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, the painted and carved desert fortress of Castle Mandawa, and the glittering, white marble Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur.

There's a chance to ride out on camels in the desert at sunset, and to see the Taj Mahal in the misty dawn. You can dictate how long you stay at each hotel (two nights is the norm), and whether you have half board, or choose to eat out in the local towns. Furthermore, the travel agency on the ground, Le Passage to India, has agents at each destination and can arrange personally guided tours in a variety of languages.

I did the trip with my husband (a co-driver and navigator is a must-have). What we liked more than anything was to leave these sumptuous palaces and hit the road in our trusty Ambassador very early in the day. When we filled up with gas at a local garage, curious locals would come across to us wrapped in blankets against the cold desert mornings. First, they would smile at the sight of the "Amby," and then they would ask what on earth we were doing. When they found out, they would smile even more.

As we drove along the roads, bystanders would stand and wave, their brightly coloured clothes appearing like jewels in the dusty desert scenery. At one point, three young men on a single moped, all clad in turquoise school shirts, decided to make a short film about us in our car, and rode beside us, shooting for about 20 minutes.

Another time we almost drove right through the middle of an Indian wedding, with a giant brass band and the proud bridegroom atop a beautiful grey steed covered with flowers. Throughout our 10-day trip I saw a lot of road madness during which car horns were liberally and loudly used, but I never witnessed a single moment of road rage.

Street food, from tear-inducing samosas to white balls made of sweet condensed milk was hot, fresh and utterly delicious, and we both became hooked on the Masala tea or "chai," hot, spicy and sweet, which is served in small paper cups right across India.

Occasionally when we stopped at a village to have a snack, a huge tourist coach with tinted windows and a distant air would rumble past. You could just make out the passengers inside. Half asleep, high above the action, insulated in their giant cocooning vehicle, these tourists were in another place altogether.

Yes, we may have felt every pothole of the entire 1,200-km journey, but we also saw the leaping monkeys, strutting peacocks, crazily jam-packed three-wheeler taxis, and the whole riveting theatre of Indian life, because we drove right through it.

Highly recommended.

MORE INFORMATION

Full details of RoadTrip India vehicles, itineraries, and costs can be found at roadtripindia.co.uk. Drivers must be at least 23 years old, and should be able to cope both with a manual gearbox and driving on the left-hand side of the road.

The trip price includes rental of an appropriate vehicle and pre-programmed GPS equipment, luxury accommodation with breakfast and optional dinners, several guided tours and outings, airport transfers and local assistance.

Gratuities, meals on the road, parking, road tolls and fuel are not included. Fuel for this trip averaged around $50 per day in rupees. Parking charges and road tolls were negligible.