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Daily mileage Southern India? Daily mileage Southern India?
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  #1  
Old 16 Sep 2015
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Daily mileage Southern India?
Hi,
I'm heading off in early 2016 for a ~2 week trip around Southern India, flying in to Kochi and hiring....you guessed it, a 500 Enfield EFI

How far could I hope to average each day? I realise this depends on me so for comparison, when I rode around East Africa, I was doing 150-250 miles in an 8 hour day. I guess the roads are similar but presumably, India has much more traffic.

Oh and can anyone suggest where I might get a good paper map of Southern India? I've bought a Nelles 1:1,500,000. Is that the best paper I'll get?

Thanks

Pike
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Old 17 Sep 2015
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pikestnt View Post
How far could I hope to average each day? I realise this depends on me so for comparison, when I rode around East Africa, I was doing 150-250 miles in an 8 hour day. I guess the roads are similar but presumably, India has much more traffic.
I´ve ridden in northern, western & southern India, and a long time ago in parts of southern Africa. At least for me, India was way more congested, and in general, way slower. I remember thinking after one day, when I had ridden 250 miles (somewhere along the west coast of India), that this was my absolute maximum for 1 day, and it felt like doing +600 miles on a highway back home!

The mountain roads (ghat roads) in southern India are very nice, though, with the scenery and everything, and there was less traffic (still a lot, but not the kind of constant jam, that you saw on the National Highways on the plains - those were REALLY terrible!!)

Just keep in mind, that 2-3 trucks or buses could appear side-by-side from behind any corner at any time, so be prepared to temporarily leave the road with a very short notice, and you´ll (usually!) be okay....
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Old 17 Sep 2015
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Thanks for the reply. That's very encouraging because it gives me a trip distance in 14 days of 3000-4000km which should allow me to see a fair bit.

Yes, I'm expecting the congestion to be horrendous compared to East Africa. Mind you, the 3-lorries-overtaking-each-other is very familiar

"Yeh Bullet Meri Jaan Manzilon ka Nishaan", as they say on the adverts

Thanks again for the reply

Pike
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Old 18 Sep 2015
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I rode 2-up on a 500 and 350 bullet,still own that last one, but 200 km a day is a good distance. In the years I covered most of India, apart from the extreme NE and advice to stay south of the line Cochin - Mysore- Chennai.(forget Bangalore) Too much to see there from wildlife, wonderfull sceneryin the Ghats to wonderful temples as Madurai, Chidambaram, Rameshwar.
I use for many years the EICHER ROAD ATLAS. and Garmin GPS.
Take care and have fun
Metita
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  #5  
Old 20 Sep 2015
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Metita

Thanks for the info. I'll look into the Eicher atlas - sounds ideal
And thanks for the list of places to go. I usually travel with no particular itinerary but India is a big country so maybe I need to plan this one a bit more !
I might head for the mountains and I'd like to see one of the railways up there

I can't wait to get started now

Thanks again

Pike
Last edited by pikestnt; 20 Sep 2015 at 11:24. Reason: Spelling
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