I wonder where that video was taken? The roads are SO quiet. It’s like early Sunday morning in the English countryside! Try riding normal / busy roads there, it’ll make your head explode!
I road the coast road along the Bay of Bengal once.
Sounds romantic huh?
It was the most frightening experience of my life!
Riding in the cities is amazing cos of the chaos, but you're never going fast enough to be in any real danger, you spend most of the time laughing about it! Same on the dirt roads, not going fast enough to be in any danger and you get a soft landing, again, most of the time is spent laughing! Out on the coastal road the traffic was fast, and scary. Not so funny any more…
It was just me and a mate though, no guides etc. And that’s the learning point for me. If anyone wants to ride in India I would say DO IT, its such a different place. But I’d also say do it with a pro outfit. They know the safe routes, and the interesting routes. They’ll also be well prepared to deal with things in the event of an accident. You’ve a much better chance of having a magical time AND living to tell the tale.
Road dangers in India are no joke. Death rates are horrendous and culturally motorcycles are close to the bottom of the hierarchy, so forget western ideas of ‘fair play’ or ‘rights of way’ cos they’ll get you killed!
And FWIW I predict it’s gonna get much worse over the next decade as the volume of traffic grows exponentially. Also the road network is expanding exponentially, which is a good thing, as most of India is little more than dirt tracks, but dirt tracks naturally limit the speeds, so in the short term, it’s just going to allow old cultural driving habits onto much faster roads. Inevitably resulting in increased fatalities.