Friday, December 23, 2005

Order and Chaos

Driving in India is absolutely insane. There are occasionally lines in the road, but they're pretty pointless in actuality, as people drive similarly regardless of their existence. Its very common for motorbikes and rickshaws to cross each other within a few centimetres in every direction and there are no seat belts in any backseats. As far as I can tell, I've been in about 764 near-miss accidents today, although I bet our drivers think its closer to zero. And no I will not drive anything with wheels in this country. My grandmother is over 80 and she's better at both bargaining with market vendors and crossing the street than me. Its quite hilarious.

We took a ridiculously crowded bus today from
Calangute to Panjim, where I finally gave in and used my Marriott points (about 20,000) to get one night at an amazing hotel -- the Goa Marriott, Panjim -- with an amazing view (normally we stay with my grandparents in their amazing house in Siolim). And since I'm a platinum member, I arranged for a billion and ten upgrades, so I've got free broadband internet AND I'm drinking for free -- and this stuff is Cashew Feni!

My sister is calling me, so I have to go... actually I think I'll ignore her for a few minutes and check my email again!

Daniel

4 comments:

Daniel said...

Didn't I say I was staying at my grandparents in the middle of nowhere in my last post?? Pay attention Isaac!! Just one night at the Marriott and you're PFFT-ing me! Sheesh!

Patrick said...

If you can bring any of the Cashew stuff back I'd think I'd love to try some!

Were you at the hotle by youself or did any relatives/friends/others go with you?

Cheers and merry elexmas!,
P

Anonymous said...

Hey, now you are ready to drive on German Autobahns. :-p
Enjoy your trip! Happy New Year!

Anonymous said...

Training not criticism is the need.

This site http://driving-india.blogspot.com/ has been created with the purpose of providing driver education and training to all Indian road users. It is by far the most comprehensive website providing training in defensive driving. Learning simple road habits can make our roads safe and also free up congestion caused by traffic chaos.

At present 17 driver education videos aimed at changing the driving culture on Indian roads are available. The video are unique in that the footage is real life action from streets of London. We have copied the Western habits: Replaced the dhoti with denim, high rise buildings for Indian cottages, burgers and coke instead of Indian breads and perhaps sugarcane juice. Surely we can copy the Western ways of travelling too.

To watch the videos, interested readers may visit: http://driving-india.blogspot.com/

The videos cover the following topics:

Video 1: Covers the concept of Blind spots
Video 2: Introduces the principle of Mirrors, Signal and Manoeuvre
Video 3: At red lights, stop behind the stop line
Video 4: At red lights there are no free left turns
Video 5: The Zebra belongs to pedestrians
Video 6: Tyres and Tarmac (rather than bumper to bumper)
Video 7: Merging with the Main road
Video 8: Leaving The Main Road
Video 9: Never Cut Corners
Video 10: Show Courtesy on roads
Video 11: 5 Rules that help deal with Roundabouts
Video 12: Speed limits, stopping distances, tailgating & 2 seconds rule
Video 13: Lane discipline and overtaking
Video 14: Low beam or high beam?
Video 15: Parallel (reverse parking) made easy
Video 16: Give the cyclist the respect of a car
Video 17: Dealing with in-car condensation