When I found out
I was going to India for a month, I decided to make the best of
it and plan various trips around the part of the country I'd be in.
Considering Delhi/Gurgaon are in the north, I decided I'd shoot for
the Himalayas. I found this company in San Fransico called Himalayan High Treks that puts
together custom trekking trips for you. While designing my trips to
the Himalayans, they offered to do a trip for me to see the Taj
Mahal (a few hours south of Delhi). I said sure and am glad I did.
The trip was great. They coordinated everything from a driver
picking me up at my residence, to booking my hotel, locating/hiring
local guides and taking me back safe to my doorstep. It was great.
All the local (India) credit goes to a company called Mosaic India Tours out of New Delhi
if anyone's interested.
The only glitch was the driver
showing up at my place at 6:30am instead of the 7:30am agreed time.
Whatever. I was out of the shower and only needed to throw on
clothes to leave.
I had been looking forward to the trip as
it would be by car. So far my most favorite thing was to ride in
cars and watch all the activity outsie too and from work. This trip
would provide 5 hours (one way) of watching.
And
watching I did. We went from Gurgaon, to Delhi, then down through
Faridabad to Agra. Half asleep, it took me a minute to realize we
were driving through New Delhi. It's a lot more dense then Gurgaon,
but greener too. This is where I saw my first monkeys. This is also
where I noticed the famous Inidian smell. It's nasty (combination of
rotting garbage and raw sewage), but not completely prevasive. It
would come and go as we were driving. I'm sure walking around in
those areas would have been very unpleasant.
As we were
driving, I was taking all kinds of pictures - enough to regret
not bringing my camera battery charger. This is one of the
first. If there's room, no matter what it is, guys will ride.
Usually they're on top of the trucks sitting over the front. This
was different to see them in the
back
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Not
sure what this was, but it looked like something out of Indiana
Jones
.
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All the public
transaportation in and around New Delhi is run on Natural Gas. The
emissions from these things might be clean, but there's no way i'm
getting on one. They're totally hammered. I was told there are
even natural gas cars in India. That's kind of funny. The US says
they can't do natural gas cars due to a lack of infrastructure.
India can't get their electricity to stay on for a solid 24hrs, but
they can get natural gas to the cars.
Hmmm?
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This was probably on the outskirts of New Delhi
or passing through Faridabad. That's a bull standing next to that
guy. I have no idea why the bulls here are so tame and I think I
offended half the office one day when I
asked.
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The
highway reminded me of highways from the old days in the US like rt.
1 down the coast or rt. 11 that follows rt 81 through PA and VA. For
decent stretches it was nice highway rolling through the rural
countryside, then you'd slow down through little towns with roadside
services, leave the town and hit the highway
again.
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This was the
intersection with the main drag of such a town. Closer to the
towns on the highways, you would see people walking, herding
cows or goats, bicycles, etc. All modes of transportation
getting to and from the
cities.
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The
roadside services I mentioned were pretty much the same in every
town. There were always roadside restaurants or snack shops, truck
repair, bike repair, tractor repair, motorized rickshaw
repair or motorcycle and moped repair shops. The repair
shops were all very similar and very
nasty. This picture
unfortunately (or fortunately) doesn't capture the true
essence. It appeared the main business was fixing flats. Each shop
had a selection of new, used, and semi used tires for whichever
kind of vehicle they were repairing out front. At most shops there
was at least one vehicle up on jacks with one wheel off getting
fixed. At the truck and tractor shops there was usually a lot more
going on. Oh yeah, all of this was outside in the dirt in front of
the shop. Nothing was big enough to have a garage or some other
facility to pull the vehicle into.
The tractor and truck
shops usually had some other vehicles in various states of
disrepair. I saw a bunch of trucks getting new leaf springs, axles
or radiators. The tractors usually had their hoods pulled up with
some kind of work being done to the motor. Most of what was removed
from a vehicle was simply piled in the dirt in front of the shop.
Old axles, engines and transmissions were everywhere. I suppose,
with the right buyer, the old stuff would be refurbished and
reused.
The laborers were filthy. If nothing was going on,
they laid around on shaded lounges (not chairs, more like woven beds
or just wood platforms on stilts) that sat off the ground.
Otherwise they were in, under or over whatever it was they were
working on - covered in grease and grime. In many places the dirt
(or what used to be dirt) was black and oily from years of
mechanical discharge.
I don't mean to paint an ugly picture,
but these places were what I was most curious about. I sort of grew
up with tires, engines and whatnot stacked in various places in the
yard. Not that it reminds me of home, but these are scenes I'm
with which I'm more familiar.
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Along the way, in the middle of nowhere, there
would be facilities like this that were schools. Some looked
abandoned, others under construction. I saw everything from law
schools, to management and technology. I guess this is where India's
"educated worker" explosion is coming
from.
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You'll see everything and anything on the roads
in India. There was an entire caravan of combines. Each had the
heads removed and setup to be towed (you can just see it behind this
one). On the front, as you can see, they had a spare wheel and
motorcycle for traveling locally. You've got to give them credit for
being super resourceful and
adaptable.
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Of
course another bike. This one is the rickshaw variety. Notice the
real wheels are wooden? I really wouldn't mind having one of
these. The brand name on most of them is Neelam. I wonder if they import to the
US?
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