India

Population: 1.1 billion (UN, 2005)
Capital: New Delhi
Area: 3.1 million sq km (1.2 million sq miles), excluding Indian-administered Kashmir (100,569 sq km/38,830 sq miles)
Major languages: Hindi, English and 17 other official languages
Major religions: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism
Life expectancy: 62 years (men), 65 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: 1 Indian Rupee = 100 paise

Road Junky has 54 India articles. Scroll down to view.

India Travel Guide Online

India is a huge place and seems about three times as large when you try to travel through it by train and bus. It’s home to more than a billion ...

India Culture Guide

If ever there was a headache for the anthropologist it’s the complex culture of India. With one of the world’s oldest religions and a tendency to absorb every social, political ...

Zen At Work – Vipassana - An Indian Meditation Bootcamp

It’s 4.35 in the morning. Not a time of day with which I am particularly well acquainted. Outside it’s raining heavily. But I’m indoors, in a large, dimly lit hall ...

Disco Dancing in India

I found myself in Pune, my first time in India since 2001 and now I was back to close some circles. I had spent years here on and off from ...

Falling off a Himalayan Cliff

By the time they’ve finished cleaning the blood from my face, the adrenaline’s nearly worn off. The numbing rush of endorphines that’s carried me through the last couple of hours ...

Motorbiking in Ladakh

My left leg is hanging over a 3000-metre drop into a certain death. My right shoulder is touching a truck that we are trying to pass. I am sitting on ...

Slumdog Millionaire - Review of Danny Boyle's Mumbai Classic

There’s the contestant, the Slumdog Millionaire himself, having his head dunked in a bucket and then electrically shocked until he confesses. He’s been accused of cheating on the Indian version ...

The Bombay Blasts and Citizen Journalism

Once again tourists abroad have been seen as fair game by terrorist groups as gunmen opened fire in hotels across Mumbai (better known to Indians as Bombay) and explosions ...

Road Junky Hacked by Angry Indians

Fans of the site may have noticed that our server went down for a couple of days – as a result of a concerted effort by an Indian hacker organization ...

Why India is Crazy

This video pretty much says it all about India – crazy land of no logic.

India - An Overcrowded Continent

If it could be said that I lost my heart in Africa then it must be said that I found my soul in India. Now I know at least one ...

Begging Across the World

In India when one chooses to give a few rupees to a beggar by the side of the road it’s good etiquette to salute him at the same time. He, ...

Calcutta Travel Railroad Riot in India

“It is possible to grow up and mature in a culture with little or no knowledge of the basic laws that make it work and differentiate it from all other ...

India Travel Stories: Holy Cows

I remember having a strange conversation with Vijay, the second-hand book merchant on the central drag of the main bazaar in Delhi. We stood next to the piles of books ...

India Travel Story Sanjay Dutt in Tamil

This is a story about television and fame and begins in the unlikely setting of a humble eatery in South India. I was famished and stopped at the first street-side ...

Fake Visa in India Escape Story

How to avoid the nasty implications of overstaying your visa, some sweating it out required.

It was always a good idea in Goa to look down at your feet once ...

Dating Indian Girls & Guys

Are there any people quite so beautiful as the Indians?

Possibly not, however male-female relations in India are heavily defined by the religion and culture. In theory sex should only take ...

India Travel Story Rickshaw

It had just topped 45 °C, the sun was blazing high above us in a clear blue sky and a hot wind was blowing across the cracked dry plain drying ...

Road to Nowhere India Travel Story

Before I came here to India, my Mum said “You must go to Sujangarh where your father was born. And when you do, ask for the ‘Head Man’ – when ...

India Stories: Pahar Ganj World's Craziest Street

There is a very special street in Delhi that is a curious mixture of the old and the new, the best and the worst of what the city has ...

India Bus Nightmare Travel Story

Our bus is due to leave at 3.00 p.m. so we have made sure to arrive early, around 3.00 p.m. We inquire of the bus. “Ah!”, says one worthy, ...

Third World India

I remember clearly the panic that hit as I stepped outside Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi for the first time. Although it was night the sultry heat swallowed ...

BPO In India - Outsourcing Business and School Essays to Asia

The buzzword in major Indian cities these days is BPO, otherwise known as business processing outsourcing. BPO is accredited for the growth in the economy, increased spending power in the ...

Motorbiking India: The Dangerous and Irresponsible Way

Every red blooded man dreams of be-striding a Royal Enfield Bullet and riding through the Rajasthan desert, a full tank of fuel, sans crash hat and a map that Long ...

Riding the Elephants

Riding elephants isn’t a new experience for me. Like most travelers with a spirit of adventure I have mounted a few in my time. Although they aren’t the cutest mammals, ...

The art of evasion on an Indian train

It was yet another long-haul train journey. I was heading south from Calcutta and can remember passing the time (and there was a lot of it) by talking to Ramesh. ...

Journey's end in Chennai

Many foreign tourists who visit Chennai (Madras) do not stay long. The crowds, traffic and the India-style chaos that typifies the subcontinent overwhelm and more than a few try to ...

Indian Odyssey on the Road to Nowhere

As a child in the 1960s the penetrating wail of the rag and bone man was a common occurrence. The what? you may ask. Well he was the local collector ...