Mumbai (Bombay), India
The road from Agra back to Delhi was a life-or-death obstacle course.
At one point there was a cement truck that dumped its contents across the road, later a truck load of bricks was strewn about the highway, then our driver avoided the still smoldering frame of a farmer’s truck; next, three kids who had just crashed their motorbike sat there in shock—they appeared to be bleeding; there were farmers on tractors, multiple camel drawn carts, dogs (dead and alive), rickshaws, and bicycles. In addition, there was non motorized traffic consisting of men, women and children randomly darting across the highway, all seemingly oblivious to the traffic on the busy thoroughfare.
The 200 KM trip, or 124 miles, took nearly five hours of constant horn blowing and brake
smashing travel… for those that don’t want to do the math that’s an average of 25 miles/hour.
As we got closer to Delhi the three lanes of traffic turned into four. Cars straddled the lines; tuk-tuks drove on the shoulder as did the smaller cars. It seemed to be complete chaos a total free-for-all. We weaved our way through the bedlam and made a few stops at some of the tourist highlights in Delhi such as the Red Fort, the Lotus Temple and the India Gate before finally arriving at our hotel.
We decided to live it up a little in Delhi and booked a night at the Intercontinental. Our room, which was on the 27th floor, looked out over the city of Delhi, the train station and the main business district of Connaught Place. The view of the train station was
amazing. Watching the platform hum with activity was hypnotic; filling to maximum capacity, and emptying moments later as the train pulled away. Thousands of people just kept pouring into the station, almost materializing out of thin air; it was like watching ants cover a sugar cube.
The next morning, after reading in the local newspaper about India having the second highest number of traffic fatalities in the world (China is #1), our driver picked us up with his new wife to take us to the airport. His wife, who was visiting Delhi for her first time, comes from a remote village in northern India of only 500 people. Apparently, she was so exited about the day’s events she woke up at 4:00 AM in anticipation of making the journey to the airport to see the planes and meet her first Westerners.
We finally landed in Mumbai around 12:30 PM and set out for home in a taxi. As you know, home is where our backpacks are, and they were still at the Merchant home.
The traffic through Bombay was pretty thick in the middle of the day and the 20 KM journey took us an hour and a half. The wealth in Bombay is apparent during the day as various high end cars such as Porsches and Mercedes zipped by, we even saw a Bentley cruising down Marine Drive. Of course, at the same time, there were plenty of hawkers selling anything from magazines to newspapers to replicas of popular books such as
“Freakanomics” and “The Secret.”
The three days in Agra and Delhi went by quickly, but we were happy to be back in the comfort of the Merchant household. After the Delhi run around, we definitely felt more at home.
The road from Agra back to Delhi was a life-or-death obstacle course.
At one point there was a cement truck that dumped its contents across the road, later a truck load of bricks was strewn about the highway, then our driver avoided the still smoldering frame of a farmer’s truck; next, three kids who had just crashed their motorbike sat there in shock—they appeared to be bleeding; there were farmers on tractors, multiple camel drawn carts, dogs (dead and alive), rickshaws, and bicycles. In addition, there was non motorized traffic consisting of men, women and children randomly darting across the highway, all seemingly oblivious to the traffic on the busy thoroughfare.
The 200 KM trip, or 124 miles, took nearly five hours of constant horn blowing and brake
smashing travel… for those that don’t want to do the math that’s an average of 25 miles/hour.As we got closer to Delhi the three lanes of traffic turned into four. Cars straddled the lines; tuk-tuks drove on the shoulder as did the smaller cars. It seemed to be complete chaos a total free-for-all. We weaved our way through the bedlam and made a few stops at some of the tourist highlights in Delhi such as the Red Fort, the Lotus Temple and the India Gate before finally arriving at our hotel.
We decided to live it up a little in Delhi and booked a night at the Intercontinental. Our room, which was on the 27th floor, looked out over the city of Delhi, the train station and the main business district of Connaught Place. The view of the train station was
amazing. Watching the platform hum with activity was hypnotic; filling to maximum capacity, and emptying moments later as the train pulled away. Thousands of people just kept pouring into the station, almost materializing out of thin air; it was like watching ants cover a sugar cube.The next morning, after reading in the local newspaper about India having the second highest number of traffic fatalities in the world (China is #1), our driver picked us up with his new wife to take us to the airport. His wife, who was visiting Delhi for her first time, comes from a remote village in northern India of only 500 people. Apparently, she was so exited about the day’s events she woke up at 4:00 AM in anticipation of making the journey to the airport to see the planes and meet her first Westerners.
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We finally landed in Mumbai around 12:30 PM and set out for home in a taxi. As you know, home is where our backpacks are, and they were still at the Merchant home.
The traffic through Bombay was pretty thick in the middle of the day and the 20 KM journey took us an hour and a half. The wealth in Bombay is apparent during the day as various high end cars such as Porsches and Mercedes zipped by, we even saw a Bentley cruising down Marine Drive. Of course, at the same time, there were plenty of hawkers selling anything from magazines to newspapers to replicas of popular books such as
“Freakanomics” and “The Secret.”The three days in Agra and Delhi went by quickly, but we were happy to be back in the comfort of the Merchant household. After the Delhi run around, we definitely felt more at home.
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