Road Trip and Driving In India

     3 days in Delhi and time to move on to our next destination. Roadtrip!! H2H loves road trips 🙂  IVAT arranges everything so we have our mobile home for the trip and we also have Mohan and James with us the whole trip.  We feel so much safer having them with us

 

And not to worry, we have plenty plenty bottled water!!!

And we say good bye to Ravi and now have Raj as out tour guide.  It should have been one tourguide as well for the whole trip but Raj had a previous engagement and did not jive with our schedule so he came in already on day 3.  Raj is the tour guide of the stars 🙂  He told us that he has taken many VIPs and stars all around India like Germaine Jackson ( brother of Michael Jackson )  He showed us proof! 🙂

 

Well, now, he has an addition to his list!

 

This is how we are in the bus 🙂  It’s very comfortable as we were not full – I had two seats all to myself for me and my snacks 😉 Always fun to travel in a group of friends and/or family

 

Dad is the faithful agent of Tito Joe, he is always letting everyone listen to the new Christmas album of Tito Joe 

Previous entry:  Going Home to Christmas by Jose Mari Chan 

              

which he had already downloaded in his iPhone:-)

                                      

Driving in India is really a skill!!  They do not need a driver’s license to drive in India, so you can imagine.  But for some reason, they seem to be in control!  Inside the bus, we are all panicking because there were so many times when we thought we would bump another vehicle, but we were lucky nothing bad happened the whole trip. Look at this photo – i took this outside my window- I felt we were going to hit this rickshaw already – it was so close!!  

Ravi told us you have to have 3 good things when driving in India:

1.)  Good brakes

2.)  Good horn  

3.)  and GOOD LUCK! 🙂

 In India, you don’t have to have an engine, but you have to make sure you have a horn!  Everyone there blows your horn and if you do not blow your horn they will blame you for not blowing your horn.  That is their way of knowing you are coming or that you are behind them.  So you will see a lot of signs behind the trucks and buses in nice designs 🙂

 

 I saw this funny t-shirt in one of the stores 🙂   

 

You will see many of these type of photos!  Bikes bringing many many packages and delivering them.  I featured something like this before but in China and now I really believe it does exist as I saw it for myself

Previous entry:  Heavy Bicycle Loads January 10, 2011 

And that does not go only for packages, but also for people.  Many are in motorcycles and there are times you will see a whole family of 5 in one small motorcycle, I was not able to take a photo but I saw it! 

 

Or in a small car or jeep they will be super jam packed! I am not exaggerating!

And I am not kidding when I say you see all kinds of things on the road- cars, buses, trucks, bikes, motorcycles, pedestrian and ANIMALS!

Of course the sacred cows are plenty and sometimes they are just sitting on the road

 bulls

 And even camels

monkeys! but these were in the outskirts already

Sometimes the road is only one lane! and in the mountains!  So when there is a blind corner, the driver just blows his horn! 🙂

For me I just do not look anymore in front instead I look out my window.  There is not much scenery or beautiful views which you see in other countries, but there are many many interesting things to see in the road!  I wish I had brought my SLR camera so i could take the shots while the car was moving.  I really regret not having it with me.  Remember we are driving really fast so it is hard to take the shots but you will see a lot of people who are dressed in colorful outfits, and the scene is so picture perfect even if they are just sitting on the road or walking.  Some tourists even stop just to take the photo

 

This is our tour guide, Raj ( in the yellow vest ).  He went down to control and direct traffic as we were trying to make a turn due to traffic.  He saved us 2 hours by taking a detour to get to our hotel!  Amazing Raj!

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