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Originally Posted by Snakeboy
I have lose plans about riding one country at a time in the future of those countries I didnt get to travel in during my RTW trip. And of such India is high up on the list.
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I decided that last winter I'd take an extended trip to India and Nepal, having only previously ridden briefly in Ladakh, Zanskar, J & K and parts of Himachal Pradesh 2 decades ago. Despite many mechanical mishaps in 2003 I enjoyed my 2 visits in 2003 and 2004.
Below is my full summary (from which I had previously extracted the Yezdi specific info). The bits about my experience of India and Indians might be interest? Or not. Of course the language is somewhat "flowery", but I stand by all of it.
I rode a lot of kms in southern India and also in northern West Bengal and Sikkim, as well as Nepal. While the bike was in the back of a truck from northern Tamil Nadu towards Sikkim, I took public transport around Rajasthan for a week.
Everything can be found on FB at brightysjollys
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To borrow The Fast Show's Swiss Toni's catchphrase: Riding an old rally replica Honda Africa Twin is like making love to a beautiful woman....
This is a review and wrap, of MYRIDE '24. It's also episode 32. Divided into 2 parts: The bike and the"Real India" (and Nepal) that I saw and felt on the "Mighty Yezdi Real India Discovery Expedition".
The Bike
.... but riding a Yezdi Adventure is like a swifty 4am knee trembler with a rather large female person called Astrid following the annual university May Ball in 1990
. It seemed like a good idea at the time and satisfied a need, but half way through you realise what you're doing. I think here Jimmy Barnes is describing his ex-wife:
https://youtu.be/R9ePvkocxHA?si=Sp1FgzZ_vPErfWC1 
The bike mainly ran ok for the 7500km I rode it. Except the time Astrid just stopped for no discernable reason, and that pretty much on every longer (more than a few km) and steeper up hill section, the water temperature warning light came on and it was time to stop for 10 or 15 minutes to wait for the motor to cool down. The radiator fan was on nearly all the time when the motor was running. Yes, the radiator was full of coolant, all the time! This bike needs a bigger/ better/ more efficient cooling system!
I won't mention the oil leak because the oil filter on a dealer service wasn't done up correctly. Having to top up the oil virtually daily before this situation was rectified, I learnt that you have to remove the right hand crash bar (!!!) and a cover over the side of the engine (that makes it looks physically bigger than the 334ccm motor it actually is... (Four 8mm bolts and slim socket and extender needed)) just to access the oil filler hole. Why?!
Why does the knuckle/linkage where the shock is connected to the swingarm protrude down to the approx. the level of the axles?! On any other dualsport/ adventure bike you roll over the a rock or bigger speed bumps and the back follows. On Astrid the knuckle bottoms out. Once I was rocking in mid air with both wheels off the ground! And dropped the bike... As gently as I could. There wasn't a scratch on the ample iron mongery that doubled as crashbars....
... and the left footpeg snapped off. Why? It's made of cast metal (Chineseium or Indianium?!, not sure ). Luckily the RE Himalayan peg is virtually identical (and not made of cast metal), so a replacement was soon available. In between I bolted the pillion peg up front. An aside: 12 years ago I threw a Honda Translap off a cliff in Kyrgyzstan: only the footpeg hanger bent a little... Nothing broke!
Why does this 334 ccm bike weigh in at nearly 190kg dry weight? My 25 year old design and technology Suzuki DRZ400 is135kg (also liquid cooled, single cylinder, only marginally bigger engine). And in the day, it was already too heavy to take on the KTM EXC competition in races. What is the purpose of the extra 50 or so kg? (However, the 411 Royal Enfield Himalayan is similarly Astrid-esque, and also popular at its price point in Europe and North America, so what do I really know ).
The Yezdi Adventure looks cosmetically identical to the 411 RE H. Why? Couldn't the designers at least have borrowed some aesthetic or design ideas from UK, Italian, German, American or Japanese bikes rather than being an identikit to the RE H?
Performance was gutless, unless you really revved the motor. Much more torque needed!
The uncomfortable seat condundrum was solved by bungeeing an abandoned armchair seat cushion from the furniture/ mattress dump around the back of my beach hut complex in Goa. Cushion # 11 (as was written on both sides in marker pen) treated my butt well.
Plus points included: Physically the bike is large, so my 6 foot frame wasn't doubled over and my back was straight and knees never hurt. A consumption of 25 to 30 km per litre of petrol, so very frugal.
The land and people
I must start by saying that I met many pleasant Indian and Nepali bikers, especially through attending the Enfield BOBMC RiderMania in Kanyakumari which is at the southern tip of the country, the Southern Jawa Yezdi Raid meeting in Pollachi in Tamil Nadu and on the Enfield Poker Run between Kathmandu and Pokhara. Despite being on the wrong brand, the Enfield club in Sikkim was incredibly welcoming when I passed through. Most regular Sikkimese and Nepalis behaved like reasonable human beings towards me. A lot were even very hospitable.
In India a minority of hoteliers and guest house owners were vaguely civilised. Goa and Sikkim in general and Munnar and Alleppey towns (both in Kerala) were my favourites. I really liked the house boat cruise from Alleppey. The majority of Indians in the hospitality business however are in the wrong profession. Maybe it's just racism towards foreigners or plain ignorance?! An aside: I estimate that more than 75% of Indian or Nepali booking dot com accommodation reviews, whether positive or negative, are utterly fake. I ended up just ignoring them all!
There's a reason why most bike tour company itineraries that work in India and Nepal only go to Kerala & Goa, Ladakh/ Jammu & Kashmir/ Himachal Pradesh (Dalai Lama-landia etc.) and Nepal. That's where much of the best riding is, there's a lot of culture and where the people in the hospitality industry make the effort to try to serve you food that isn't caustically spiced with masala, 3 times a day, every day for weeks on end! (I used to like visiting "curry houses" in the UK. It was often a rare treat...). And where there's a chance of actually buying a (still excessively overpriced, mind) cerveza.
Long distance AC sleeper buses (1 + 2 seating plan: Get an upstairs 1 bed) , especially during the day are excellent. Avoid trains: Your reception committee at the arrival station really isn't nice! (Learnt from my time on the buses in Rajasthan).
The Western Ghats inland in Kerala were a godsend to avoid the heat and humidity on the coast, despite it being mid winter. I enjoyed Goa, in spite of the pastey UK package tourist blubber flopped out on the beaches. The state has the class to handle it. Sikkim was excellent, as was Nepal, especially the Mustang region and in the far north east near Mounts Kanchanjunga and Makalu. Pokhara was unfortunately all smoked up, with "the burning".
Indian roads aren't bad, particularly compared to the main roads in Nepal which are the worse I've seen in many 10s of thousands of km. Indian driving "styles" are the second worst in the world (At least there are 2 rules: might is right and press your horn at everyone), only beaten by Nepal (No rules. Just a random free for all. And no police to pretend to enforce any alleged highway code). I really do already have a PhD in the art of "assertive riding", a.k.a. like a complete d1ck. But all day, every day? And the incessant unnecessary honking horns. It grinds you down. Why?
I found many youngish (18 to 25 y.o) Indian males, who unilaterally decided to try to interact with me, to be essentially very annoying. Hawkers and hand holding gormless grinning gawpers. The ones I came across clearly had no job, or concept of personal space or respect.
The roads less travelled, up in the hills/ mountains (thanks for sharing the (98% paved) The Great India Trail ) were pleasant: people, views, riding, lack of litter. But most Indian urban areas I passed through essentially looked like landfill sites with protruding buildings, criss crossed by tarmac, wall to wall people and black slime oozing from the dirt/ rubbish on the roadside. India has a huge trash and pollution problem!
I'll end this little missive when I arrived and my first hour in the country: The nice chap who arranged the bike for me (where it turned out dealing with the Yezdi company regarding necessary paperwork and where toys had to be expelled from the pram to make things happen were the most unholy p.i.t.a) collected me from the airport.
I got a lot more than I bargained for: With the airport still in the rearview mirror, approaching the first set of traffic lights, a mob of around a dozen taxi drivers ran into the road and aggressively threatened us because it would seems a local isn't allowed to pick up his western friend, as it's taking away business from the local taxi mafia! A mirror ripped off the car and 2 shaken up people later: Welcome to India...
After this little cunning stunt with these rabid taxi wombles, said friend informs me that recently a couple of Scandinavian bikers had been derogatory about India on social media (quel horreur!
) and he'd called Indian Immigration at Delhi airport to have them intercepted before they departed! Fortunately they'd already boarded the aircraft so "got away". A very charming welcome to India, n'est pas? And an implied threat towards a "friend"... Conveniently this missive is written from the other side of Indian immigration
.
PS. I've already mentioned the shysters from IndiGo, the Indian airline I flew with. UK and EU laws on how to treat human beings keep airlines in Europe in line.
PPS. Have also already mentioned the utterly educationally subnormal kn0b jockeys that are Delhi airport security who think a 15 or 20 year slow old hiking GPS (Garmin 60csx) is a problem on an aircraft. My main device (and and spare) have been with me on, I estimate, 25 + flights world wide over the past 15 or so years! In 2024 it's suddenly a problem, even though the Bulgarians at Sofia and Turks at Istanbul while flying to India didn't raise an eyebrow. Why would they?!
You're welcome!
For completeness, the "best" of Swiss Toni, for those who have no idea what the start of this final episode is about is at:
https://youtu.be/iBw-aEixWuo?si=lMzohE_1szu3xd_v
Roger Roger, wilco, over and out !
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It seemed like a good idea at the time and satisfied a need, but half way through you realise what you're doing. I think here Jimmy Barnes is describing his ex-wife: 
). Luckily the RE Himalayan peg is virtually identical (and not made of cast metal), so a replacement was soon available. In between I bolted the pillion peg up front. An aside: 12 years ago I threw a Honda Translap off a cliff in Kyrgyzstan: only the footpeg hanger bent a little... Nothing broke!
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