I’m going up to the country…going to some place where I've never been before....

16 Jun 2013

  

With apologies to Canned Heat for truncating the lyrics of one of the great road trip songs of all times, that is kind of what I thought when I heard earlier in the week that someone needed to go meet with a group of our students in Jaipur. If you know me, you probably know I love a road trip. I will go out of my way to take a road trip. So, this seemed right up my alley. Further, since it needed to be on a Saturday, and I sometimes am at a loss as to how to keep gainfully occupied on Saturday, I thought, “I’ll go and then someone else won’t have to give up a Saturday; besides, what else am I going to do?” Finally, Jaipur is a city I have always wanted to visit so I thought I would kill several birds with that one stone.

(This is foreshadowing for all of you English majors) Well, let me just say, as the day went on, I thought I should change the musical title of this entry to the theme song to Thunderdome and then later in the evening I thought maybe Welcome to My Nightmare.

When I have discussed traffic in previous posts, I have been accused of glossing over the harsh reality of Indian traffic; of being too polite. I will try to make amends in this post without being so graphic that Rae decides she doesn’t want to come after all!

First some background. Jaipur is the capital of a state, Rajasthan, two states over from Delhi. It is a major city with a long history. You may know it from such movies as The Jungle Book, The Jewel in the Crown, or most recently, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. (Bonus points for the first person who gets the catch phrase alluded to in the last sentence. HINT “Hi, this is Troy McClure…). Jaipur is known as the Pink City. Now I always thought that must be because the fort located there had pink stucco (very manly and intimidating in certain circles). But no, it turns out the whole city was painted pink in 1876 to celebrate the visit of Edward, Prince of Wales. That seems like a long time ago to us, but it’s recent history in a country that goes back 3000 years. Some of the tourist attractions in Jaipur include the aforementioned fort and a palace that is in the middle of a lake. The general area looks a lot like Western Arizona. Pictures below (two "touristy" shots courtesy of Wikipedia.

I, however, didn’t see any tourist attractions. I came, did my business, and left trying to get as many miles as possible behind us whilst there was still daylight (more foreshadowing.)

So now let me tell you about my drive. How best to describe it? You might think of it as 160 miles of NASCAR racing, but in a straight line. With the NASCAR cars collocated with hundreds, nay thousand of trucks, tractors pulling wagons, cattle, and camel drawn carts (see picture below; I quit counting the camels at thirty. I must have seen 50 or 60 of them). 

You might envision it as three dimensional Tetris, with each vehicle as a self-directed Tetris piece propelled forward as fast as possible challenging each other to fit into the tightest of spaces. You might consider what it would be like to be inside a three dimensional video game like Gran Turismo except knowing the crashes would be real and there are no reset buttons.

Any of those might be apt visuals to hold as I describe our trip. I have mentioned before that lanes have no meaning in India. This can be a bit disconcerting in city traffic as cars, bikes, carts, motorcycles and pedestrians cram 10 wide in what was meant to be 3 lanes. However, as I have also mentioned, usually traffic in the city is slow enough there really is no great danger. The one unfortunate fatal accident I mentioned previously notwithstanding, usually a fender bender is the worst that could happen. Not so on the open road. At 80 miles an hour, those same tendencies still exist, so what you have is cars that at break neck speed (literally) are jockeying for position, cutting each other off, and squeezing into spaces really not intended for a car. Now, you add to that mix the assortment of large, slow moving vehicles and sundry livestock and you have the makings of a good time. Oh I should also say that periodically, say every 10 minutes or so, the traffic will suddenly come to a dead stop, often for no apparent reason. Then all of a sudden the green flag is waived and it’s off to the races! The stops were frequent enough and long enough that despite the daredevil driving in between it took five hours to drive from New Delhi to Jaipur; seven on the way back (more foreshadowing).

The above milieu is challenging if the road conditions are good. Verging on insanity if the road conditions are, let’s say, less than ideal. Before taking on this road trip, I asked, “How’s the road?” and received assurances it is a good road. This is partly true. There are stretches of the road, sometimes as much as a quarter mile at a time, that are three lanes wide, which suddenly go to two and then to one with no warning. for every mile of smooth road their is five of pocked, patched, something akin to war zone road. My favorite was a stretch of a three lane road in which, with no warning, and with only the most cursory of barriers a two hundred yard section of the outside lane just vanished. There was just a rectangular hole. I noticed as we drove by (we had to suddenly jut into the middle lane to avoid falling down that hole so I had a pretty good look at it) that the hole went down quite a ways, 60 or 80 feet I’d guess, to a river bottom. Wouldn’t you like to miss THAT  lane change?

All in all, despite the above, the drive down there wasn’t that bad. Mehndi is a good and experienced driver. He gives as good as he gets and is used to driving in this madness. It occurred to me, however the return trip might be a lot more challenging if we had to do it at night. All of those sudden changes would be a lot more difficult to see. This led to my decision to skip eating (for me; Mehndi ate whilst I was in my meeting), jump in the car, and get as far as we could before the sun set.

This was pretty critical because all of the lane changes I mentioned before are not very well marked. A little paint here, an arrow there, and that really should be enough. Further, although the cattle do tend to go to ground and sleep, there are always the trucks. And the tractors. It’s an interesting thing about trucks in India. Not all have tail lights. It is MUCH better than it used to be but there are still an amazing number with no lights at all. Oh some have added reflective tape (which actually helps a lot) but many have nothing. Further, virtually no tractors have tail lights and certainly the wagons they are pulling don’t. So imagine the above break neck, full speed, competitive jockeying for position, with “patchy” road conditions. At night. With large slow moving obstacles that you can’t see well until you are practically on top of them. I think you can get the picture. Now let me add a couple of more elements: a dust storm, followed by torrential rain. You might see why I was considering Welcome to My Nightmare as the musical title for this post.

Our break neck speed was delayed for two hours because of a truck that rolled, tumbling across the highway. That of course meant everyone tried to drive even faster after their car cleared the wreck.

Oh fun. We had been sitting there about an hour when an ambulance  came driving towards us on the left side of the road. Well maybe not “driving” so much. He made it to about where we were and then stopped. He couldn't go any further. He was at a dead stop for ten minutes, going the wrong way on the dirt shoulder of the road. Given that he was leaving the rollover, saying he was at a dead stop was perhaps indelicate of me. I did think, “Well, I would rather be sitting waiting in my car than in the back of that ambulance."

I will say this is not the most afraid I have been on a road in India, not close actually. That honor also goes to a night drive from Mysore to Bangalore that I took last year. Now that I think about it, however, the biggest difference is that I was sitting in the front seat that time. There was really no way to avert my eyes from the mayhem all around us. Sitting in the backseat, I was occasionally able to close my eyes and go to my happy place. I will say that was probably the only time since I arrived in India that I didn’t wish Rae was with me. I wouldn’t want to put her through that.

Lesson learned: from now on I am going to plan my trips so I drive only during the daytime. Or fly. Or take the train. Honest, Rae, it will be okay. Please come!

One last note. When we were here in February, we saw an elephant. Well, I saw it. Elephants are grey, the night was grey, we were moving kinda fast, and Rae says she never saw it. She has intimated, in fact, that I made it up. Just to prove that elephants are still used  to carry loads, when we saw this on the side of the road, I asked Mehndi to stop so I could get a picture. No picture, but the video is below.

Namaste.