My girlfriend and I are planning a nine-week trip starting in Calcutta, going up to Delhi, and then into the Himalayas as far as Dalhousie (no farther because most high passes will still be closed). We are looking for advice on 3 questions:

1. What bike. We want reliability and ease of ride, as we are fairly new to motorcycles. As far as power goes, as long as it can get us up into the mountains at faster than a crawl, we'll be happy. We will be travelling very light (saddlebags only). It seems that reliability rules out the enfield, despite it being easy to find parts and repairpersons everywhere, as most posters have recommended Hondas or other smaller bikes. We want versatility and reliability.

2. Is it possible/recommended to buy our bikes in Calcutta, and what are some guesses as to the price for a used bike there? Our other choice is to take the train to Delhi, and buy our bikes there.

3. Since our trip is only two months, would it be possible to rent a motorcycle in either Calcutta or Delhi for this amount of time, and does anyone know the going rates?

We fly into Calcutta the first week of march, and out of Calcutta in mid-May, and want to spend most of our time further north. Does anyone know how long it will take us to ride from Calcutta to Delhi at a medium to slow pace? Would this eat up too much of our time?

Hope someone out there can give us some good advice... we're really excited about the trip but still don't know exactly how we're going to pull it off

Thanks,
Conor and Tricie