Driving in India

We had a car and driver for the first six days to take us around southern India, up to the time we left for Goa.  The driver was a very nice man named John.  He was very courteous and helpful.  He also drove like an insane man with delusions of being Richard Petty who had bet his very soul on his willingness to play chicken with absolutely every vehicle, pedestrian, animal and natural obstacle such as a landslide that we encountered.  I believe the word "careening" must have been invented to describe Indian traffic patterns, since every time we dared open our eyes we saw trucks and cars zooming right at us.  The center dividing line in the roads is merely a waste of paint here.  Coming from Afghanistan, we thought the condition of the roads was actually pretty good - there were parts that were paved - though heavy rains and frequent mudslides had taken a toll, and there were many places in the winding mountain roads where the path narrowed precipitously and the potholes threatened to take the axle.  In the tea hills, the lone road crossed over a stream and was encouragingly marked, "Danger: Weak Bridge."  Since there were no other road options, I'm not sure what we were supposed to do with that information.  And nearly all the trucks had slogans or names emblazoned on the front, with the most frequent being "My God," "My Lord," "Allah," etc, presumably the last words of the drivers in the cars they were aiming straight at.

We drove past monkeys climbing the banana trees, rubber trees with cuts to extract the latex, the Eastern Curry Powder Company factory down in one valley, and thousands of election campaign posters.  The most prevalent sign we saw was for the Communist Party, though often the hammer in the hammer and sickle would be replaced by stalks of corn.