India is a chaotic country with its own unique atmosphere. It is so big and diverse that it can be appeared to the traveller with multiple faces. The north consists of fabulous mountainous scenes on the Himalayan Range with gorgeous Buddhist monasteries. There, the life is influenced a lot by Tibet. Because of the less tourists in those places in comparison with Tibet, the traveller can experience better the fascinating customs of Tibet there, than he can experience them in Tibet. The region is ideal for some trekking and I dedicated a few days on that.

Here is my route in North India and most of the places I visited.

   The endless plains are full of impressive Hinduistic temples, palaces, forts and other sights. Who is not amazed at the view of Taj Mahal, Khajuraho’s temples or the Sun Temple of Konark? All these become much more glamorous when the traveller tries to discover the unique and mysterious Indian culture, which is met in every turn.

   The Indian cities have their own madding character. Pollution, traffic and all other characteristics of the cities are at a huge scale there because of overpopulation. I was only visiting the interesting sights in cities and I was finishing the jobs I had to do without spending many days there.

Here is my route in Central India and most of the places I visited.

   Unfortunately, after the perfect opinion I had formed about the people in the Muslim countries I visited, Indians disappointed me. After eight months in India nobody came to invite me for a lunch or to sleep in his house (except one, actually). That’s, of course, their own right and it doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that a lot of times when they were finding me somewhere camping, despite I was never camping in fields or other private land, they were asking me to go away! They send me away successfully three times and one of them they called the police! Hospitality is unthinkable there. They didn’t even want me in their region.

   The only Indians I met and they were an exception, were some friends I made through the websites http://www.couchsurfing.org and http://www.hospitalityclub.org Those ones were very friendly, they hosted me, they helped me and we built friendships. I thank them a lot for that.

   Cheating of foreigners, which is happening almost everywhere in our world, is happening too much in India (less in the South). Even the government asks 0.33 euros from Indians for the ticket in Taj Mahal but it asks 12.50 euros from everyone else! So, there isn’t any reason for the individuals to avoid the same technique. They usually ask 2 to 10 times more money from foreigners. We have to bargain even for our food. Sometimes the prices are raised absurdly higher even from the prices in Europe. They invent, also, well planned scams to take money. Keep in mind that stealing by violence and generally the violence is not common in India.

   While you give money, the Indians are amazingly friendly. The amounts of money, of course, are nothing compare to the European standards. When you don’t give money, then they usually don’t help. I experienced one of the countless examples when my motorbike’s regulator / rectifier had broken down. About 50 people came around me, as usually. I was entertaining them, as they were enjoying watching me trying to fix the problem. One of them was capturing me by his video camera and he asked me to look at his camera and not at my motorcycle! When I began pushing the motorbike to start the engine, they were following me but nobody helped!!!

   Unfortunately, that’s not just a bad incident. It’s the worst example between a lot I had experienced. Another time, I was asking a lot of people to connect my motorcycle’s battery to their vehicle’s battery to start my motorcycle’s engine. Some of them were telling me that their vehicle doesn’t have any battery (that was a lie!) and some of them were telling me that they don’t have any time, although they were stopping to stare on me. When I was asking them for help, they were leaving!

   However, don’t be prejudiced. Activate your defense system but try to smile to every new person you meet. It’s worth! Maybe he is the exception…

   The temporary import of your vehicle in India is not allowed for a duration longer than six months. Even if you export it to Nepal or any other country, when you re-import it in India, they will count the period that the vehicle was in another country as if the vehicle was in India, except if the vehicle was out of India for more than six months. Before I entered in India, I had asked at the customs and at embassies and everyone was telling me that the limit for the importation is not valid at all. However, when I exited from India, it was clearly written in the form I signed :

“In case the vehicle has been exported out of India after the first import and re-imported within 6 months retention after such re-import shall be added to the period of its retention in India after the first importation.”

   I was in India for 8 months and in between I was in Nepal for another 2 months. It was just a matter of luck that I exited from India without having any trouble with that law that the custom and embassy officers were telling me is non existent. In case they name you illegal, you need a special permission to export your vehicle, which probably means fines and / or bribes.

   I traveled in India from North to South and from West to East, covering the whole country in almost 8 months (231 days) and riding 26,291 km. (16,337 miles)

Here is my route in South India and most of the places I visited.