This will sound pretty obvious, but part of the many, many pleasures of being able to travel around the country is the chance to unashamedly gorge on different kinds of food. Yes, there are other delights too – natural splendour, dazzling architecture, tangible history, dusty by-lanes, amusing characters and suchlike, but I’d have to say food is of paramount importance. Apart from the basic bodily need for sustenance, there’s a similarly basic desire for culinary indulgence that I believe is in all of us: it’s in me, that’s for sure. There’s a particular thrill in discovering a little eatery (or, indeed, in going to a famous one, just for the ‘I’ve-been-there’ touch), in being suddenly ambushed with an unexpected aroma or taste and even in the surroundings in which you find yourself eating. Take, for example, the time that I had gone to Kaziranga, in Assam. I was staying in a lovely resort abutting the national park and, one morning, was invited into the kitchens to have breakfast with the staff. As I entered, the smell of wood smoke enveloped me, with strong whiffs of pungent potato curry and freshly fried puris thrown in. My mouth watered instantly; by the time I had settled in among the staff at the communal table, my back being warmed by the winter sun, I could’ve eaten a horse. Needless to say, it was a breakfast I’ll never forget – oh, those fluffy puris, that sweet-salty potato curry, the sheer-genius bamboo shoot pickle, that strong Assam tea! There’s a lesson here, folks. Want the real McCoy? Head to the source.

Another time, a friend and I had gone to Bhopal, where we had been assured that the food stalls on one particular street were to die for. This wasn’t too far from the truth; we took one look at the appalling lack of hygiene there and had graphic visions of dying of dysentery. Deeply disappointed and ravenous in the extreme, we wandered around until, out of sheer exhaustion, we selected a new-ish eatery and plonked ourselves down. It was spotlessly clean and quite cheerful, but looked like your typical pizza/burger/sandwich joint rather than a disburser of authentic kabab/biryani/kheer. You know what follows, of course; those wizards dished out some of the best kababs and biryani I’ve ever had – and I do mean ever. It isn’t often that a new kid on the block comprehensively outguns the old guard, but it bloody well happened in Bhopal. If I ever go back there, it’ll be to visit that restaurant.

Highway dhabas are, of course, part and parcel of a traveller’s life, but one particular dhaba I selected at random, about 150 km outside Delhi, will remain etched in my memory. Firstly, they conjured up the best (yes, the absolute best) chane ki dal I’ve ever had the good fortune to taste. Secondly, the elderly owner hitched a lift with me to Delhi and kept me in a near-hysterical state of mirth with stories from his childhood and about various visitors to his establishment. Oh, and no narrative about food and travel can be complete without mention of the tea and jalebi shop that a colleague and I stopped at in Baran, Madhya Pradesh, on a Mumbai-Gangtok drive. Granted, we were tired and hungry, but there can be no taking away from the simple fact that those jalebis, hot off the stove, were like the proverbial manna from heaven. They were crisp, squirted just the right amount of sugar syrup with every bite and strode the fine line between being eye-openingly and hair-raisingly sweet. After a couple of plates each, we felt we could drive to the ends of the earth and back without so much as a pause. I haven’t been on a road trip in a while, and one of the reasons I’ll be setting out again very soon is to satisfy my stomach’s cravings for culinary variety and adventure.