Taking a wheelchair spin in India

India needs a bit of thinking about, doesn't it? It's not somewhere you go on a whim, frankly - whether you take a wheelchair or not. You have to take anti-malaria tablets, stick to bottled water, peel your own fruit, all that malarkey. And the BBC was frank. This was a dry run: the tour operator would be learning as much about disabled people as we would be taking in the sights. Also, it would be a 12-day trip condensed into five, so I needn't plan on getting much of a suntan.

The leaflet promoted an "accessible" tour of the Taj Mahal, as well as the Pink City of Jaipur and several palaces and forts on the way. We knew we'd be travelling between Delhi, Agra and Jaipur in a converted van, and that a small band of Indians, led by Arun, had been preparing the ground for our visit. But beyond that, I - with fellow-raspberry Rachel, her assistant Emma and token able-body Jason - had little idea what to expect.

The local support was a plus from two points of view: first, that a way around some of the inevitable obstacles would already have been found and, second, that we wouldn't need manhandling by willing yet unskilled hands. There's nothing worse than trying to get by in a foreign country, with well-meaning locals trying to put in their threepenny's worth on how best to do it. Unless you can tell them exactly how to help you can end up on your backside, and that can cause problems far beyond a simple loss of dignity - especially for a tetraplegic like Rachel with limited upper-body strength.

After the inevitable delay at Delhi airport, when Air India lost our chairs, we met Arun in the late-evening heat. The air-conditioned van looked sturdy enough but the ramp was steep and, although the chairs could be lashed down securely, there was nothing to secure us to them. Perched line-astern behind the windscreen we felt vulnerable - especially given the suicidal tendencies of most Indian road-users.

However we soon jury-rigged a couple of belts and the proper harnesses are now back in place (a second van with a chair-lift is also on the cards). We met obstacles at every stage of our journey but overcame them all: not through any determination on our part but simply by having the others around to help. We quickly got used to being humped up flights of steps and across watercourses at the thoroughly inaccessible Taj Mahal; up ramps at the Amber Palace (originally built because the maharajah and his maharani wore too many jewelled robes for comfortable walking) and in and out of that van. We cheated a couple of times: transferring into the accompanying car (with the film crew we had a full house) for a more comfortable ride.

Arun had picked hotels which, if not specifically adapted for disabled guests, were better than

most. He'd thoughtfully laid a few ramps as well: any others we encountered were seriously steep - and obviously meant for luggage rather than people. The rooms were of a decent size and the bathrooms were hackable. Arun had provided plastic stools for the showers: these were fine for me, but didn't give Rachel anything like enough support.

As a fiercely independent sort of crip, I rather assumed that Rachel and Emma would be equally independent as a duo. But it doesn't work like that: tetraplegics have to weigh up the consequences of everything they do. If things aren't right for Rachel, Emma can't always overcome them using brute force, and the consequences of a mishap can be serious and long-term. So India was hard work for them, and I expected Rachel to say that she'd rather eat worms than go back. Not so. "I had a great time," she told me. "It's not for everyone: you have to accept that India isn't wheelchair-accessible and that you will need help - and English-speaking help at that. That makes tours like this the best way of getting around. Since we got back I've had long conversations with the operator, so tetraplegics should have a smoother time of it from now on. Just because something isn't perfect, doesn't mean you shouldn't have a go at it."

And me? Wouldn't have missed it for the world. It's not a family holiday, nor even a holiday come to that. It's an adventure.

? Summer Holiday will be shown on BBC1 at 7pm on Tuesday.

Andrew Healey travelled to India with Travelability (01452 740820, www.travelability.co.uk ) on its Taj Mahal Tour (two a week between September and April). The 12-day itinerary costs from £784 per person for six travellers in the wheelchair-accessible van, to £1,060 per person for two travelling in the wheelchair-accessible van. Air fares from London are not included but can be organised from around £500 return.