Cycling India/South East Asia

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Have any of you chickies cycled through India or South East Asia?

I'm planning on cycling that way on my bike ride home from London to NZ.

Are there any major safety concerns for a lone female cyclist?

I spent the summer in India, and went to Tibet with a couple of cyclists who had just spent 4 mo. cycling India.

Risks:
Indian drivers--especially truck drivers. The do NOT give the right of way to anything smaller. Stay out of their way.

Road conditions are often deplorable.

As to crime or any type of sexual harrassment, it will be less in India than in most other parts of the world. Indians tend to believe that women should dress conservatively. You'll have less trouble if you avoid shorts, don't show any skin, and overall, try to avoid looking too glamourous.

Originally posted by msrw
I spent the summer in India, and went to Tibet with a couple of cyclists who had just spent 4 mo. cycling India.

Risks:
Indian drivers--especially truck drivers. The do NOT give the right of way to anything smaller. Stay out of their way.

Road conditions are often deplorable.

As to crime or any type of sexual harrassment, it will be less in India than in most other parts of the world. Indians tend to believe that women should dress conservatively. You'll have less trouble if you avoid shorts, don't show any skin, and overall, try to avoid looking too glamourous.

Great! Thanks for your advice.

What did you do for accommodation in India? I'm planning on taking a tent and camping during most of my journey to save money. Is that too risky? ......are there places to camp out on the side of the road?

I come from an India background but was born and raised in NZ. I am a little worried about my safety because of my background....do you think that would be a problem?

I'm an old friend of the Oberoi family, so we were staying in various of their hotels--five star hotels in India are extremely inexpensive--around US$ 50 a night. But there are many other options, especially outside the main cities, which can cost US$ 1 a night.

My cyclist friends camped and stayed in modest accomodations.

The main problem they mentioned with camping, especially in the villages, was being such an object of curiosity that they never were able to be alone, were followed everywhere by crowds of people, would go out, arrive back at their tent, and find a crowd of people waiting for them at their tent, would wake up and find a crowd of people waiting for them to wake up etc. It was all very innocent, but after the 50th night of that, it tended to get to them.

It's an interesting mystery how the villagers will relate to a female cyclist of Indian heritage. I suspect people will be a touch less intimidated. What that will mean I'm not sure. If it were me, and I wanted to camp, I'd experiment a bit in areas that appeared especially safe. I would probably not camp by the side of the road, but rather take advantage of the over the top hospitality that's part of being in India, and politely ask to camp in someone's back yard or something.