Last night we traveled to McLeod. The experience began before the journey. About half an hour before the cabs were to arrive the storm broke. For the next thirty minutes raindrops the size of marbles fell from the sky. Then marbles turned to ice and hail ensued. Wind swiftly followed sending hail and rain through the open upstairs windows of the volunteer house. Rain water was pouring down the stairs as the two girls upstairs struggled to close the windows against the pre-monsoon wind. And then as suddenly as it started the rains and hail and wind stopped, and the taxis arrived.
Worried about the roads we paid the drivers an extra 200 rupees to take the slower, safer way. Split four ways it worked out to a little less than a dollar to avoid the possibility of testing gravity in the foothills of the Himalayas. Climbing three thousand feet through the skinny Indian roads with the threat of another drenching we felt the money well spent.
The driving was beginning to shock me less. I'm not sure if this was a good thing. The driving itself had become no less chaotic. But order is beginning to become evident. Typically the largest vehicle has the right of way. Honking happens constantly, but not randomly and not as a means of conveying anger. Rounding blind turns, a honk alerts oncoming traffic. Passing a car, motorcycle, pedestrian, cow, etc. - a friendly beep. Just when I thought I'd grown accustomed to the chaos, all hell broke loose nearing McLeod. A little more than a kilometer away traffic came to a complete standstill. Ahead on the road, the skinny mountain road - cliff on the left, sheer drop of the right - a bus was a attempting to turn around. Three point turn yeah right. The driver was on about point forty and wasn't getting close. He was, however, effectively blocking both lanes of traffic as he'd gotten himself halfway around. A foot forward, crank it the other way, a foot in reverse, all the time being pounded on and yelled to by helpful assistants, the bus was going nowhere fast. And neither were we. Rather than witness a bus full of people topple over a cliff, and to avoid waiting an hour of more to travel a kilometer we left our taxis making note of the license plate as the same car and driver was responsible for taking us home later that evening.
During our five minute walk to McLeod traffic did not budge. Approaching the city center we discovered the reason the bus was attempting a life threatening U-turn to begin with. The city center itself marked the convergence of McLeod's main roads. Here was also the convergence of everything that was India. Cars, motorcycles, people, vendors, taxis, cows, goats, monks, tourists, dogs, garbage, and so many more things that my overloaded brain couldn't possibly record. And then the sounds, and the smells, and everything else. Movement through the mess of humanity and livestock was inversely related to size with the exception of the cows who moved where and when they wanted. Needless to say, we were pretty well sized to move through the congestion.
Exploring McLeod tapped skills I'd acquired after years of attending punk rock shows and would prove useful over and over again when navigating Indian crowds. The basics consist of three things.
(1) Always keep moving forward taking advantage of the little openings that occur between people.
(2) Look backward often to assure that your people are still with you (and to keep an eye out for potential pickpockets).
(3) Move to the side when you hear a horn blast. Okay - this skill has nothing to do with punk rock shows. At least that I've been to.
In addition to crowd navigation we also got a chance to work on our haggling skills. Angie was successful in bringing down the price on two different pairs of earrings after much back and forth. To this day I have no idea if we received a fair price or not, but it's a start.
The evening ended with dinner at a restaurant near the main city center. For how insanely busy the streets were, the restaurants were fairly empty. Cool beer, some random items from the menu - all good things.
Of course the night can't end on a calm note. After dinner we decided to grab ice cream at the shop below the restaurant at the street level. While waiting for our change the power in half of McLeod cut out leaving our shop and our entire side of the street in the dark. And the rain began to fall again. The crowd cheered. We took our change and looked for shelter from the rain.
We regrouped under the overhang of a building. It was time to find our taxi. We needed to find the same car that drove us - a seemingly impossible task. With all the people and taxis and rain and questionable power we doubted ever finding our man. But we turned the corner and there he was, waiting patiently. The return journey in the dark seemed like it took half the time. We arrived back at the volunteer houses safe and sound, racking up a total fare of 700 rupees.
 |
| Just a little pre-monsoon shower. |
Worried about the roads we paid the drivers an extra 200 rupees to take the slower, safer way. Split four ways it worked out to a little less than a dollar to avoid the possibility of testing gravity in the foothills of the Himalayas. Climbing three thousand feet through the skinny Indian roads with the threat of another drenching we felt the money well spent.
The driving was beginning to shock me less. I'm not sure if this was a good thing. The driving itself had become no less chaotic. But order is beginning to become evident. Typically the largest vehicle has the right of way. Honking happens constantly, but not randomly and not as a means of conveying anger. Rounding blind turns, a honk alerts oncoming traffic. Passing a car, motorcycle, pedestrian, cow, etc. - a friendly beep. Just when I thought I'd grown accustomed to the chaos, all hell broke loose nearing McLeod. A little more than a kilometer away traffic came to a complete standstill. Ahead on the road, the skinny mountain road - cliff on the left, sheer drop of the right - a bus was a attempting to turn around. Three point turn yeah right. The driver was on about point forty and wasn't getting close. He was, however, effectively blocking both lanes of traffic as he'd gotten himself halfway around. A foot forward, crank it the other way, a foot in reverse, all the time being pounded on and yelled to by helpful assistants, the bus was going nowhere fast. And neither were we. Rather than witness a bus full of people topple over a cliff, and to avoid waiting an hour of more to travel a kilometer we left our taxis making note of the license plate as the same car and driver was responsible for taking us home later that evening.
 |
| She looks how we felt. |
Exploring McLeod tapped skills I'd acquired after years of attending punk rock shows and would prove useful over and over again when navigating Indian crowds. The basics consist of three things.
 |
| Just more of the fun that is India. |
(2) Look backward often to assure that your people are still with you (and to keep an eye out for potential pickpockets).
(3) Move to the side when you hear a horn blast. Okay - this skill has nothing to do with punk rock shows. At least that I've been to.
In addition to crowd navigation we also got a chance to work on our haggling skills. Angie was successful in bringing down the price on two different pairs of earrings after much back and forth. To this day I have no idea if we received a fair price or not, but it's a start.
The evening ended with dinner at a restaurant near the main city center. For how insanely busy the streets were, the restaurants were fairly empty. Cool beer, some random items from the menu - all good things.
 |
| The CCS crowd. Note the bottled waters. Not an unecessary precaution as that glass of grape juice to my right contained some gut emptying critters that knocked the owner off her feet for a couple of days. |
We regrouped under the overhang of a building. It was time to find our taxi. We needed to find the same car that drove us - a seemingly impossible task. With all the people and taxis and rain and questionable power we doubted ever finding our man. But we turned the corner and there he was, waiting patiently. The return journey in the dark seemed like it took half the time. We arrived back at the volunteer houses safe and sound, racking up a total fare of 700 rupees.
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