Female biker’s solo India odyssey to show it’s safe for single women to travel and explore the country

Men were among Indrani Dahal’s biggest fears when she set out; an encounter with an AK-47-wielding soldier in a forest in central India left her trembling

Otherwise Dahal, who learned to ride a motorcycle at 16, has ‘been received everywhere with kindness’ on her 18,000km trip and had some beautiful experiences

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Indrani Dahal has covered at least 18,000km on her solo motorcycle journey across India. Photo: courtesy of Indrani Dahal

Kalpana Sunder

Published: 5:15pm, 20 Jun 2021Updated: 7:03pm, 21 Jun 2021

Late one evening, Indrani Dahal found herself in dangerous territory.

She was in Jharkhand, a province in Central India that is a stronghold of the Naxalite militant organisation. Her GPS was not working and she had no mobile phone reception.

As she rode deeper into a forest on her sturdy Royal Enfield 500CC motorcycle, an AK-47-wielding sentry appeared and suggested she would be better off retracing her path to the nearest highway.

“I was trembling as I rode away and prayed silently that I wouldn’t have a flat tyre. Only when I reached the highway and a roadside dhaba [restaurant] did I get my breath back,” she says with a smile.

The ruins of Dholavira, an ancient city in Kutch, in Gujarat. Dahal stayed with a friend’s friend nearby. Photo: Shutterstock

Men – with or without guns – were one of Dahal’s main concerns when she began exploring India on her Enfield, soon after most coronavirus restrictions in the country were lifted in November 2020.