Third World is calling but what to wear

I'm packing. It's exciting. In a few days my entire body will fizz with the adrenaline that can only possibly be generated in the brief moments before a large jet fires up all its engines then lets off the handbrake, throwing you back in the seat before lifting you into a weightless sky.

In a bid to inject some chaotic adventure into my pleasant but distinctly suburban life, I am going to India. I am searching for experiences that assault the senses and sights that make my soul soar. I want to be lifted from the comfort zone of First World living and dumped right into the beating heart and grubby underbelly of the rapacious Third World.

But what on Earth do I wear while I'm doing this?

The last time I went to India I was 14 years old and part of a spiritual pilgrimage to an ashram that saw me trussed up in starched white cotton from head to toe. For six weeks I slept on a thin mattress on a concrete floor inside a vast shed with 200 other females, all hell bent on self-improvement and 4am starts for morning prayers.

This time I'm a tourist, a free-wheeling traveller cruising the continent in search of good times. But as my empty suitcase sits on the ground waiting to be filled I am wondering how on earth one does this in a country so filled with contrasts - extreme heat and blistering cold, bright sunshine and monsoon rain, and - most perplexingly - a culture steeped in conservative tradition but increasingly infiltrated with corrupting Western influence.

While many tourists assume the world is now so small that anything goes, anywhere, at any time, I tend to be of the "when in Rome" mentality, and if the short skirt that looks modest in New Zealand makes me look like a hooker to an old man short on inspiration on the streets Mumbai then I'd rather not wear it.

In India, seeing a woman in the street showing her shoulders and legs is a little like us seeing a visitor shopping in their underwear. And so, in a leap of faith, I am flying with a near-empty suitcase, intending to fill it with local market clothes when I arrive. Apparently, the most acceptable casual wear for a woman in India is the kurta pyjama - which, ironically, is about the only item of clothing that can still be offensive in New Zealand these days, as anyone shopping at Pak'n Save of a Sunday afternoon will confirm.

Given that as a wee girl I always loved dressing up like a princess, I expect I'll be unable to resist the urge to buy a sari, even if I do look ridiculous in it and find myself walking the narrow streets with several metres of spangly fabric trailing in the dust behind me.

Like most tourists, I always get bewitched by local handicrafts and clothing and buy all sorts of irresistible tat that ends up looking foolishly eccentric the instant the plane hits the tarmac back home.

If a view of the beach makes all the difference between togs and undies, then rolling desert or crumbling Mughal architecture must surely be the defining factor between sari and silly.

Though I suspect that, when I'm trying to climb on the back of a frisky camel, the desert could stretch right across the Indian and Pacific oceans all the way home and I'll still manage to make my sari look silly.