Travelling by road in India is unique. It even outdoes the insane, fluid, and organised chaos traffic of Ho Chi Minh City. Not only are the streets commonly populated by motorbikes often with small children and severely lacking helmets, they are joined by a variety of animals, auto-rickshaws half the size of taxis, cars and SUVs, and the biggest and most overburdened trucks I have ever seen. Picture a massive truck with a even more voluminous canvas tarp tied all across its exterior, designed so it can transport far more than the prescribed amount of goods.
Approximately the clarity of Gudivara
The road is a cacophony of honking so that small vehicles can indicate their presence to avoid being crushed. Large vehicles use it to warn about lane changes and intention to pass. The noise is perpetual, almost unceasing, but you have to give the manufacturers credit for the few varieties of honks.
Though I didn’t expect to ride in an auto-rickshaw during this stay in India, when we paid a visit to one of the other villages the Association of Relief Volunteers has worked in we did indeed. It’s difficult to say it was a pleasant experience, feeling nauseous from food poisoning and the ride even triggering me to start puking out my guts, but it seemed nicer in the fresh air wilderness than my exhaust fume-filled memory of riding a tuc-tuc in Bangkok.
Interchange statue and motorbikes
Unlike Vietnam, traffic in the cities of India appears to be regulated by traffic lights, but once you get on to the highway it’s not very organised chaos. Lighter vehicles don’t seem phased by travelling the wrong way in the face of most traffic, and despite the danger and the massiveness of some vehicles even bicycles run down these roads, whether or not in the intended direction. Pedestrians and cows dare to cross them too, since there really isn’t an alternative.
This reality means that travelling in a large vehicle like a tourist bus tends to slow one down. It took about eight hours from Delhi Airport’s domestic terminal to get to Agra, the town around the Taj Mahal, on the bus and maybe a little over half that to return in a private car.
The efficiency, however, comes at a tangible cost of security, as there were more than a few close calls on the way where we might’ve been crushed by a truck or a bus with not particularly attentive or careful drivers. As it was, we saw eight traffic accidents on our way.
Incidentally, our driver explained that the tour company hasn’t taken Indian customers for quite some time now after he was shot in the neck and car-jacked by previous passengers years back. He may have used to be a tour guide, but since then he’s barely able to vocalise anything despite his English ability it’s no longer an option.
The town where the other volunteers and I stayed overnight after our days of working in the village had its fair share of traffic and all the different vehicles and living participants seen around Delhi.
A peek at Old Delhi.
The more interesting element of the roads, however, was the presence of wandering cows seemingly with no keeper but perhaps somewhere to go. I recall at least two occasions in the same spot a cow sleeping in the middle of a busy intersection, just in front of a small statue monument, with not a care in the world. All the locals seemed to think it was perfectly normal as well, so I figured it must be. The animals certainly seemed at ease.
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