Republic Day
(I haven’t had a chance to get to a computer so I’ve been writing blog entries on paper… so the posts might come in big clumps but they were written back a few days ago)
Imagine this… 10’s of thousands of people and every kind of military imaginable lining the streets. A pretty rank smell that I can’t really describe, garbage in almost every corner you look in, people accidentally touching your ass, and hundreds of people trying to sell you anything from one sandal to “real gold”. All of this crowding is to see a parade that runs about 5 blocks to celebrate Republic Day. Not exactly the most desireable place to be……… which is why we didn’t go… haha.
We actually had to start our drive to Amritsar pretty early so we didn’t stick around in Delhi for the Republic Day parade… but our driver (Prakesh) said we didn’t miss out on much. He was like an hour late because the army checks vehicles randomly everywhere on this day and he got stopped a few times. So, as Prakesh said, he was running on Indian time….. “India is great but we are always late”.
So, we finally got on our way out of Delhi for the long drive to Amritsar (about 8 hours). However, this drive is nothing like the boring drive to Calgary from Edmonton. We were lucky if there was a divided highway… otherwise, it was hours of dodging oncoming traffic in a 8 hour game of chicken. There were a few times where I thought I might need to change my underwear because Prakesh’s little Geo Metro-like care happens to only be about 5 feet wide… which leaves plenty of space to pass a semi while there is another oncoming semi… that’s right… apparently riding the centerline is on a highway is the most efficient way to get to your destination because you can fit between both lanes of traffic moving in opposite directions! All I know is that I’m pretty sure I lost a few years of my life from my heart missing so many beats.
8 hours later, we arrived in Amritsar… I guess Prakesh didn’t know where the hotel was so we drove around in the dark… that was probably the only thing scarier than driving around India during the day… But, we finally found the hotel and not a minute too soon because I think I was developing chest pains from the stress…. man…. 18 more days of this…
Tags: India
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