Helen Stephenson's India Trip - June-July, 2006 - Wheels

Saturday June 24^th

My first day off in India! I’d arranged for a driver to pick me up to go sight-seeing. I got my regular driver, who picks me up each morning and brings me back each evening. I thought that if I got the driver to pick me up at 10:00am that I would have time to go down and have breakfast, but as usual, I didn’t make it. I’ve only been down for breakfast once in nearly a week. I’ve been grabbing the health bar out of the mini bar and calling that breakfast. It’s a mango and cereal bar and very nice, and doesn’t take as long as going down to breakfast.

I saw so many sights in the course of the day that I’ll need my pictures to be able to remember all of them. Some of the sights were the things tourists are supposed to see, but I am also fascinated by the way in which motorcycles are ridden here. There are lots of motorcycles on the roads. The rider generally wears a helmet, but the pillion passenger or passengers (yes, I do include the plural in that!) often don’t. What is particularly amazing to a westerner such as myself is to see ladies riding the pillion seat sidesaddle. I’d be afraid of falling off, but they seem to do it quite commonly. Some have a footrest on the left of the motorcycle to rest their feet on, but others sit there with their feet just hanging down.

I think it’s usually women wearing traditional sarees who ride sidesaddle, as the other common form of female attire here (the punjabi) is a suit consisting of a pair of trousers, a long tunic top which comes to the knees or even lower, and a matching scarf, generally worn draped across the front of the collarbone with each end thrown over a shoulder so that it trails down the back. You can ride astride in this, but still need to take care that the trailing scarf doesn't get caught in the wheels! The punjabi is very common attire in the office for women, although sometimes they wear western trousers and a shirt. You don’t see Indian women wearing skirts in the office, although they wear them for going out.

My colleague Ashima chose to wear a skirt the day we visited the Taj Mahal.

There will be more pictures from that outing later on.

I've got some more pictures of wheeled transportation to share with you right now, starting with some pedal power.

The bicycle is the basis for a lot of light transportation. I do wonder about the balance of a contrivance like this one, though, with a milk can attached to one side!

This one looks much more stable, both on account of having three wheels, and also because its load area is balanced.

Speaking of three wheels, here are a couple of examples of the green and yellow three-wheel taxis to be found throughout Delhi.

Four wheeled taxis are also common, but are undoubtedly more expensive. Although more modern vehicles are also used, the Austin Ambassador is still in frequent use as a taxi.

Buses are also a common form of transportation, and Delhi is very proud that it runs its entire fleet of buses on biodiesel.

Lorries are another common sight on Indian roads. Most have signs on the rear saying "blow horn" and "use dipper at night".

The Indian way of driving, at least in Delhi, involves a lot of horn blowing. The horn is not used as an expression of anger or impatience, but as a method of letting drivers near you know that you are about to overtake. I hope the horn reinforces rather than replaces "mirror, signal, manoeuvre" as we are taught in the UK! I suppose that you could class it as a signal!

The humble tractor is another common sight. There is a lot of construction in the Gurgaon area, and a Massey Ferguson is a versatile workhorse.