violetismycolor

India and traffic...

The only way I was able to stay sane in the intense Indian traffic was to look away...staring ahead and seeing that there were multiple vehicles headed straight for us was so scary, I just chose to read my Kindle books on my iPad or look out the side window and watch the masses go by. India is filled with so many people...1.3 billion in a space smaller than the U.S....that I felt as though I was in a hive. Everywhere, everywhere there were tons and tons of people, whether in the city or in the countryside. And those people have to get around, and they do...on bikes and scooters and in cars and in trucks. And there is not enough road for all these vehicles, going various speeds, to fit. So, you are constantly passing someone and there is oncoming traffic and there are blind curves, but this does not deter your driver from marching right ahead.

The good news is that drivers in India are not Americans.  The honking going on there is for courtesy, to say, "excuse me, I am about to pass you, okay?"  with an answering honk for "okay!" .  Traffic moves over to give the driver more room to pass.  Oncoming traffic slows down and moves over so that you don't crash headlong into each other.  People drive cooperatively.  What an idea?  

We Americans are in-your-face!-drivers.  We are agressive and competitive.  Indian drivers are not.  They are polite and work together to make the roads work.  This was a big eye-opener.  

Whole families of 5 or 6 people all sit on one scooter, helmetless, and zoom by.  Women in sarees sit sidesaddle behind their husbands, nursing babies on SCOOTERS!  It is scary to watch.  Thank goodness we didn't witness any accidents, though we did see the aftermath of a couple.  

I think we could learn some patience from these people, though I don't wish the driving conditions on anyone.

 

 

 

thoughts on India...part one...

This is one of my favorite India photos, mostly because there were hordes of Indian school children on field trips in many of the places we visited AND they seemed to just love us. 

This picture was taken in Kanyakumari, at the very tip of the Indian peninsula.  It is where the waters of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea all meet.  We ferried over a pair of small islands, one with a giant statue of the Indian poet-saint Thiruvalluvar.  On our ferry were these wonderful young schoolgirls, in their blue gingham blouses and navy blue skirts.  They waved at us and wanted to shake our hands.  This was not the first time this had happened to us.  We must have seemed to be very exotic; there were almost no other Caucasians around for most of our trip.

The girls were beautiful and friendly.  When we finally got back to the mainland, the entire group called out a loud "good-bye" to us as we disembarked from our ferry.  

Here are the schoolgirls that mobbed me in Mysore, further north.  We were visiting a temple and these girls all wanted to shake my hand and know my name.  They were really happy when John suggested I take a photo with them.  

All the people we met in India were so nice to us and interested in us.  Some of the time, it was hard to understand their English (their accents gave us trouble) but it was always worth the effort.