The Fight For the Road

A lot of my readers have been asking me, "Robbie, what was it like out there on the road? Was it hard to drive?"

Actually, no one has asked me that. Such a question would be ridiculous, because everyone knows I'm the best driver, of any vehicle, in the world. Everyone knows.

What has been happening, however, is that my boss Vana has been explaining to lots of Indian folks, sort of as a way of bragging, that I did the Rickshaw Run, only he usually says I went from Kerala to Kashmir, which is technically geographically inaccurate (I think he like the alliteration) as I went from Hyderabad to Darjeeling. But the question remains. What were the perils? The pitfalls? The threats of bodily harm? The blunders, blips, and obstacles?

One was, we often got lost:



Rogier, the superstitious Dutchman, used to say I was a jinx to the Run, because the first day I joined the Run, we lost our best map. I'll not comment on that affair, but I will say that I was responsible for discovering what turned out to be the smoothest, fastest road of the whole trip, the Parama-Moregram highway, which was not on any map we found (we bought two replacements) and which we took after Bishnupur one hundred percent on confidence from a stranger in the road, in whom we should have, by all rights, had no confidence at all. It went between an oil refinery and an airforce base and took us straight through the middle of Bengal to Highway 31, which rode all the way to Darjeeling (see upcoming posts)

We also had to deal with MASSIVE F*%$ING TRUCKS like this one, loaded way beyond capacity with god knows what. Ground nuts, probably. Or sleeveless t-shirts with Bollywood stars screen-printed on them. Indians love them some sleeveless t-shirts...



This is the ingenious method by which these sundries were fastened to these looming, off-kilter trucks. Good old reliable rope...



Sometimes these were loaded with hay, and totally impossible to see around...



Other times it was sticks, which led me to envision horrible, yet hilarious accidents that were remiscent of certain episodes of Looney Tunes in which various animals throw logs in the paths of other animals, who run in place on the logs, comically...



Near cities, there was terrible traffic. This guy is saying, "*sigh* Now I'll never make it to Swami Vishnukamnadamurthi's house in time... Alas!"

Or at least, that's what his face is saying...



Often, Benji stalled out, and we had to carry his incompetent ass...



Usually, the traffic jam was caused by something stupid like a guy with a massive cart of bananas. So it goes in the Subcontinent.



So momma, be glad. We didn't end up looking like this...



In a gruesome wreck like this one...