Hi al,
I was riding my own bike but I can answer a few questions.
I had no troubles wild camping in India. I was found a couple of times by locals and I got stared at for a while but they were friendly and eventually left. Often the population was so dense that there was just nowhere to wild camp. Local Guest houses were cheap if you looked around a bit - 200 to 300 rupees, but they were pretty basic. 500 or 600 rupees for a cheap hotel with your own bathroom.
The only issue I heard with moving around with a rental bike was getting into some of the valleys around Leh, they want you to have a locally rented bike. That's because they have literally thousands of bikers coming with bikes rented from manali. If you were to ride a little later (around June/July) you could ride up there. I totally recommend it, it was incredibly beautiful and my favorite part of my time there.
Cheers,
Jason
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