There are too many things to blog.
Ok so my plan was to just keep blogging as I go about every insane thing that I see. The problem is, it's all insane. So much so I can't write things down fast enough, it's so crazy half of the people I tell either won't believe me or will think I'm exaggerating but I promise you all of this is true. Indians reading this (hi Marcus) will probably find it funny how baffled I am by all of this. So here some things that are just.. crazy though the eyes of an Englishman. People on the roads here WANT to die, it would appear. - People are very.. creative with how they find these fastest routes. Whether it's driving on the pavement or even the wrong side of the road, they'll find it. - Stay alert because you'll find anything in the middle of the road, including motorways. Some of these items include: a stray tire, a sleeping dog, a sleeping person, someone selling anything from coconuts to a foot massager, a rickshaw being repaired, a goat, pretty much anything you can think of. - Motorbikers have the biggest death-wishes of all. They ride helmet-less, as fast as possible and weaving though traffic like they're in The Matrix. Strangely with a helmet hanging off the handlebars! - How to cross the road as a pedestrian: Step out blindly into the traffic. Seeing as this is what everyone does, the drivers have got a lot of practice at avoiding people and as they will never let you out, you just step out and they avoid you. Trains are even crazier than the roads. - People, as you will have seen on TV, hang out of the train doors while in transit. - People jump on and off of the trains while it's still moving. Moving at such speeds a lot of people have to have a running stop and there are regular occurrences of people hitting poles and today I read about someone dying from it. But hey, got to shave off those few extra seconds I guess! - People walk around on the tracks, including children. - People live on the tracks. When on the train you go past entire communities, all living in between trains hurtling past. - People have farms on the tracks. Yes, farms. There are small areas, that appear to be crops, in any long gap where no one is living beside the tracks. - The trains are optimum "stare at the foreigner" time. I have people sit on the seat opposite me, a mere few feet away, and just stare. Not even slyly. I was on a train for at least half an hour and I'm sure they guy sat opposite me didn't even blink the whole journey. - Tickets cost 5 pence! 30 pence is you're a first-class snob. People who don't understand English, understand English with an Indian accent. Seriously, it sounds like a borderline racist joke but it's absolutely true. In my work I have to do 'media follow-ups', meaning I call various journalists to see if they will carry the press releases we send them. I called one guy, started talking and got interrupted with "ummm, sorry.. I.. umm.. no understand.. the.. umm.. English.". So I clearly and slowly told him my colleague who spoke Hindi would call back. She calls and speaks only English, and quickly, but with her strong Indian accent. He understood perfectly and the conversation lasted a good 10 minutes IN ENGLISH. This worked with a rickshaw driver too. I was requesting he took me to "Bandra, Hill Road.". I must have said it 4 times to only receive a shrug, I thought "sod it" and asked in the most stereotypical Indian accent I could and sure enough, he knew exactly where I meant. There is ALWAYS a celebration of some sort happening. You'll always be late for work because there was 100 people walking behind a sculpture on a float singling and waving flags. In fact just this morning, to my absolute delight (notice the sarcasm), I was awoken at 6.30am by what must have been 1000 people and 50 horses, walking down the road right outside my window, singing though a megaphone, setting off the loudest fireworks possible and shaking a couple hundred tambourines because apparently, and I'm quoting this, "they were marrying a young girl to some basil". There are people playing cricket absolutely everywhere. There are kids playing cricket in every street, using anything from bricks to buckets for a wicket, playing cricket from dusk till dawn. It's nice to see because they're having fun but I can't help but laugh just because it's so stereotypical.







