Indian road traffic and attempts on lives
Words by - Johnny Bang
"The new normal" |
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The morning sun had transformed our well-hidden camping spot into a highway spectacle for passing morning Indian road traffic. I swear to god we were alone in a field and I blinked, and there was a dude looking over Shaun’s shoulder watching him navigate a smartphone. I swear this guy just kinda spawned from the earth like baddies do in some computer games.
The road condition was ok, dual carriageway and light traffic. The ride was soured somewhat by the constant attempts at our life, but it was ok, and we were getting used to it.
We had done 295 k's by 11:30 and stopped for lunch and mango juice. Lunch was a pretty good Butter chicken with roti and rice. The service was great. Dan took a picture and unbeknownst to me put it on the twnetyonehorses website. This annoyed me as there is nothing more I hate than people putting their food on Facebook. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for said post and assure all our Facebook friends (both of them) that it will not happen again.
The road remained pretty good for the rest of the day, except for occasional section when it was the worst road in the world.
We reached Lucknow at around 3:00pm, and it was our first experience in a truly big Indian city. I don’t know how to describe it so here are the adjectives from my notebook (uncensored) – crazy, dirty, big, rubbish, people, cars, danger, smelly, roads, pollution. We rode past another cow on the road eating from a rubbish pile and I missed home.
They don’t seem to build new highways here, just upgrade the existing road network. This means when a road runs through a town they just turn the main street into a flyover. If you miss the flyover you have to ride under it through all the bikes, people, traffic, and rubbish. When the traffic is not moving here it’s just too many people fighting over not enough road and it all turns to shit. I call it a clusterfuck. Dan calls it a shitfight. Shaun seems to bottle his frustration like a crazy person. We missed the flyover. It was a clusterfuck.
Dan stopped me with the message 'Shaun needs water'. Well, we needed an ATM, then water. We found both and an insta-crowd which we are now accustomed to. I want to be friendly to everyone, and I try, but it’s hard when you have just been dodging death for 8 hours on a bike, and your tired, and stressed, and all you want is a drink of water, and 20 people are blocking your path asking you questions like how much money I make, what my bike is worth and what religion I am. I remind myself how lucky I am to even be here, fake a smile and answer questions. Eventually we make it to a stall where we can smash unlimited water, mango juices, eat some melted chocolate bars and stock up on some dinner chips.
Heading out of town we found a place to camp next to the highway behind some bushes. We had done 817 k's for the day, which is a dam good achievement on Indian roads.
The road condition was ok, dual carriageway and light traffic. The ride was soured somewhat by the constant attempts at our life, but it was ok, and we were getting used to it.
We had done 295 k's by 11:30 and stopped for lunch and mango juice. Lunch was a pretty good Butter chicken with roti and rice. The service was great. Dan took a picture and unbeknownst to me put it on the twnetyonehorses website. This annoyed me as there is nothing more I hate than people putting their food on Facebook. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for said post and assure all our Facebook friends (both of them) that it will not happen again.
The road remained pretty good for the rest of the day, except for occasional section when it was the worst road in the world.
We reached Lucknow at around 3:00pm, and it was our first experience in a truly big Indian city. I don’t know how to describe it so here are the adjectives from my notebook (uncensored) – crazy, dirty, big, rubbish, people, cars, danger, smelly, roads, pollution. We rode past another cow on the road eating from a rubbish pile and I missed home.
They don’t seem to build new highways here, just upgrade the existing road network. This means when a road runs through a town they just turn the main street into a flyover. If you miss the flyover you have to ride under it through all the bikes, people, traffic, and rubbish. When the traffic is not moving here it’s just too many people fighting over not enough road and it all turns to shit. I call it a clusterfuck. Dan calls it a shitfight. Shaun seems to bottle his frustration like a crazy person. We missed the flyover. It was a clusterfuck.
Dan stopped me with the message 'Shaun needs water'. Well, we needed an ATM, then water. We found both and an insta-crowd which we are now accustomed to. I want to be friendly to everyone, and I try, but it’s hard when you have just been dodging death for 8 hours on a bike, and your tired, and stressed, and all you want is a drink of water, and 20 people are blocking your path asking you questions like how much money I make, what my bike is worth and what religion I am. I remind myself how lucky I am to even be here, fake a smile and answer questions. Eventually we make it to a stall where we can smash unlimited water, mango juices, eat some melted chocolate bars and stock up on some dinner chips.
Heading out of town we found a place to camp next to the highway behind some bushes. We had done 817 k's for the day, which is a dam good achievement on Indian roads.
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