I have been cosseted for three weeks at the home of one of India's leading educationalists and his mother but this will be my first day on the road, destination Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, 200km away. Temperature is 46C. Rules of the road don't exist: find the rhythm, adapt to it or die. Am I confident? Not very.

Escaping Delhi takes forever. Finally the traffic thins. The four-lane highway crosses flat parched farmland of small fields ploughed ready for the imminent monsoon, hamlets of tiny shacks, others a concrete strip with open-fronted shops the width of a doorway, advertisements for Nokia and Reliance, neatly heaped cowpats, parents and three children on a motorbike (only dads wear helmets), overloaded trucks, shaky tuk-tuks; every klaxon blares, every car driver imperious.

Vanquished by heat, I pull in at a truck stop for a soda, and again after a further 50km. Finally Agra and two nights at the Lauries Hotel. Our Queen and Prince Philip stayed here in 1961. Now it's a haunt for backpackers and aid workers. It costs £9.50 a night, including taxes, but not air-conditioning: instead, there are ineffective ceiling fans and wall fans as noisy as express trains. Big rooms, big bathrooms, large garden … lolling on the lawns must be backpacker perfection in spring or autumn; in June it is the fiery gates to hell.

In India, with temples, forts and palaces ad infinitum, beware becoming satiated or a list-ticker. Better experience a single treasure. Mine, in Agra, is the magical tomb of I'timad-ud-Daulah in white marble and known as the Baby Taj. Surely tears are inevitable when faced with a beauty that speaks of such tender love? Seated at dawn above the river, I watch a solitary fisherman cast his net into a golden reflection.

Onward to Gwalior and a spooky fort complex housing a magnificent museum of antiquities and early sculpture, a maharaja's palace of unbridled vulgarity and a sybaritic hotel. Avoid mid-range and save your pennies with 10 days of Backpacker Land, then splurge on Paradise. Such is Gwalior's Usha Kiran Palace hotel, an escape from the tourist bedlam of Agra, less than 90 minutes away by road.

Beautiful rooms, delightful swimming pool and, in summer, there's a discount: two nights at £50 a night for two, including a great breakfast. Built by the maharaja and visited by King George V, it lies behind the maharaja's palace. Behind is where the servants live. Three thousand trees planted in the hotel's park attest commitment to the ecology. Should I survive, I shall return, aged 85, though not on a bike. Today, I paddle sedately up and down the pool. Tomorrow, I head south to Orcha and the Betwa river. The heatwave continues. I pray for rain ...