Instead of just PMing Chanderjeet I figured I'd ask. I read somewhere (but of course can't find it) the name of a good Indian road atlas. What's the name of it and is there a bookstore in Delhi that has it? I've been going to book stores asking for a map book but haven't had any luck. I like maps more than GPS because I like taking notes on the book. It's nice to flip through them after the trip and remember bits. --Dave
Eicher India Road Atlas. You will find one in Connaught Place. Lots of good bookstores there. About 370 INR.
I've got the Lonely Planet's travel atlas for India & Bangladesh. Scale is 1:250,000, so good for a general road plan, but pretty hopeless for any details. For most of India, it's a good map, but for the North-West it's - to my opinion - not good: due to the altitude the pages are pretty dark orange-brown, with the small roads also in brown, which makes it difficult to read, and the detail is very poor. For the Kashmir, Ladakh, Lahaul, Spiti, Kinnaur regions, the most detailed maps I have found are the (very old) topomaps of the ex-USSR army. You can download them free from www.poehali.org Although 30 years old, the roads/tracks are still there, with a lot improved (from dirt road to tarmac), but nearly on the same place (as there's not much place for movement in these deep valleys). So if you can manage to read the Cyrillic alphabet, they are a good choice. For the regions mentioned above, I have drawn (and still drawing) pretty detailed maps myself, based on all available info (maps, sat images, road stories, etc.). They are georeferenced for GPS use (on laptop/PDA/smart phone), and are available free (until the end of 2009). I plan to research the area in July/August 2009 (correcting coordinates, road condition and adding POIs), after which they will be brought out against a small fee. I understand your reluctance on using GPS maps, but I still love it for navigation. Have a PDA connected to the bikes batttery, and add waypoints while moving on. I do carry a small paper notebook to take notes (referring to the entered waypoints), and work out the notes on a small laptop in the evening. This gives me the best of both worlds. I tried using a small voice recorder instead of a paper notebook, but am not all too satisfied with this, although it saves time. Hope this can help you a bit.
