Last week, we spent some time exploring Tamil Nadu. We went to Tanjore, Point Calimere, Tranquebar, Pondicherry, Auroville and Trichy (on the map Tiruchirappally). Road quality varies a lot here, from four-lane highway (which you still find the odd ox cart on) to narrow, potholed roads with piles of hay at the edge. Because of this, you're never quite sure how long it will take you to get somewhere. There is also an extreme lack of signs so every so often you have to stop to ask a local which way to go. Even if there are signs, they're often in Tamil which only my aunt can read.
I'm going to write about a place a day but first I have to look through 300 pictures and try to remember what we saw where. These places varied widely from hippie colony to Chola temple town to smelly fishing village.
Since we did all that driving, I've made a list of the top ten most dangerous and annoying driving hazards in the country:
10. Speed bumps While they've been made with good intentions, speed bumps here are unmarked and tend to creep up on you. We've been airborne quite a few times as a result.
9. Farm workers People here like to save time by raking their harvest onto the road to that cars will drive over in and break it up. Usually the workers just get out of the way in time. After narrowly escaping death, they walk back onto the road and rearrange the grains for the next car to run over.
8. Tractors Tractors move extremely heavy loads here, often in two wagons. This makes them even slower and, when you're driving 60, kind of in the way. The solution is to honk the horn a few times and swerve into oncoming traffic.
7. Bullock Carts Same problem as the tractors. They drive too slow for the modern world of fast cars and lorries.
6. Pilgrims I've mentioned them before, pilgrims on their way to some important temple are a bit of a hazard. Only the hardcore walk but they often walk in big groups, on one highway they took up half the lane! No amount of honking could make them move over. Whichever god they're going to pray to must be taking good care of them!
5. Goats While the individual goat on the road usually isn't a problem, entire herds of them are often driven across a multi-lane highway. This can be an issue when you're driving 90 km/h.
4. Buses No only are they huge and slow, buses also have a tendency to miss their exits and drive the wrong way on a divided highway. While this is not such a big deal when a rickshaw or car does it, buses are considerably wider and a quick veer onto the shoulder is usually the only option.
3. Cows Cows may be holy but that doesn't make them smart. Their favourite spot for a breather seems to be the middle of the road. I often watch them watching me as we swerve past one.
2. Potholes These aren't the variety you find on King St in April, Indian potholes are bigger, wider and deeper. And they're everywhere. Mostly due to shoddy road construction and monsoon rains.
1. Miscellaneous road irregularities This may seem a bit vague, but it really is the worst problem on Indian roads. There are troughs, bad pothole patches, sewer pipes that are about to be put into the ground, ditches, piles of dirt, garbage, randomly unpaved patches and more.
I've also made an update to the Things on Bikes post. Next post is Tanjore, one of my favourite cities I've been to so far.
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