Agra India - Part I

Discussing traffic will get old. Eventually. In the mean time there appears to be no such thing as a simple outing. The national highway to Agra is roughly equivalent to an interstate in the US. This isn't the new expressway.



Tractors are normal on all roads. Missing from the picture are horse carts, camels, and people riding atop busses. All very normal here. A night time luminescent delight provided a nice regional reminder.



The best traffic treat to date was the drive from Firozabad to Agra on Saturday evening. One side of NH2 was closing for a classic car rally. I think of a rally as a race so that description didn't sit quite right. Whatever the ensuing calamity was sure to entertain. Either police or military were clearing the two left lanes which would generally be west bound traffic. Closing the lanes involved several levels of blockades. The first couple blockades were men with automatic weapons. That would be enough to convince me. People here are a bit more persistent. By the third intersection the authority figures were caning motorcyclists and cars in a friendly sort of manner somewhere above verbal reminders and below blows that would leave marks on the epidermal point of contact be it human or metal. After a few intersections of this there still remained a few persistent folks headed westbound in the left hand lanes. At the next intersection a lorry parked across the road seemed to deter the final stragglers. I'm surprised some enterprising souls didn't leverage the sidewalks to bypass the obstacle. Given the persistence otherwise I find myself hoping they did and just outside the narrow window of visibility available to me.

So both westbound lanes are clear - where does all that traffic go? Why head on into the eastbound lanes of course - with no indication to eastbound drivers. I never saw a road sign, police escort, or any indication to eastbound drivers to expect head on traffic. The first indication was the head on westbound traffic itself. And being winter it was dark and foggy. These are the makings of a thrilling drive. Heading westbound in eastbound lanes going headon into traffic rounding a blind curve to the left and staring into the headlights of at best a motorcycle and at worst a lorry. Then the land of diversity sprinkled in a few more variables. Intermittently we were passing vehicles (liberal usage) on the left and right heading both eastbound and westbound. Vehicles shrouded in darkness included bicycles, human propelled four wheeled carts, horse carts, camels, and a few pedestrians sprinkled in for good measure.



Under good conditions we followed a lorry. Other times we followed another car or a motorcycle. Talk about nerves of steel - riding a motorcycle into head on traffic at night with limited visibility. I heard someone use the word "brave". We'll just go with that.

Oh, and the rally? Approximately a dozen classic cars of various international origin cruising along around 40kph intermingled with multiple modern support vehicles. More Sunday cruise and less Baja 1000. I was wondering what they would do about pedestrians walking in the road when rally racers came tearing through. Eventually the road closing idea broke down and we all cruised along together.


Out and about on the roads otherwise we found some of the most ferocious speed bumps I have ever encountered. They clustered in groups of three to five and unlike the recently described stone steps well worn by foot traffic these somehow retained mountainous jagged edges. I've cycled and jeeped through rock gardens that were smoother than these speed breaking mountain ranges. The speed bumps are a response to a recent accident where a lorry driver plowed through town over speed bumps and killed around a dozen people. This is another sample that suggests immense value placed on human life.

I have to wonder if local horse/mule/camel advocates conspired to erect these speed mountains in an effort equalize the rate of travel and pace of progress. This sounds outlandish to write; I can only imagine your skepticism at reading it; still I think you'd find it similarly viable after being here for a while. This is squarely in the realm of plausible relative to other conspiracies featured daily in regional newspapers.


I guessed marks on the camel neck were a form of branding. It was described to me as :customization". PotAto/potato. Ground effects on your car, carvings on your camel.

Away from all of this is the welcome serenity of an agrarian culture. One may own up to 12.5 acres of irrigated land and no more. The rules about irrigated vs. non-irrigated (residential) and composite totals got confusing but I *think* residential land does not count against the 12.5 acres. I steered clear of the nuances of backyard and container gardening. It was time to step away from complexity and revel in the simplicity of the natural growing season.





People monitor the land to chase away roaming herds of wild buffalo. These beasts are allegedly a nuisance to people and danger to crops despite what their size might suggest. I was told it is illegal to kill most wild animals and punishable by stiff fines. So people monitor the land and chase away the beasts. This doesn't sound like a bad retirement job.



Look at that nice consistent planting. An elder near my father's age reported that mechanized farming arrived in his generation. I saw some older tractors but no three wheel tractors so I suspect only a few decades delayed from the US. A quick easy answer from Google isn't as readily available here. And besides it is fun to observe, converse, and inquire. Ideas, opinions, and perceptions are part of the adventure and frequently come at the cost of only a simple question.

There are several brands of local tractors which I do not recognize. There is the occasional familiar Farmtrac or Massy Ferguson.

Its nice to see the simple mechanical efficacy of the hand pump still employed.



Every pump prior to this was actively in use. This idle one just happened to be the first photo opportunity.

Amid a much simpler life I still found DishTV (two satellites in the picture below). The allure of moving onscreen images appears universal.



Kids and adults alike appreciated games and photos from a world away displayed on a small iPhone screen. Two boys, Abhishek and Arun, were brave enough to take up the touch screen game controls and become the first to bridge the gap between our worlds. Photos from around India were particularly popular. Rebecca the Ironwoman was the most shocking drawing visible and audible gasps. Pictures, in this case, were worth two thousand words - one thousand for each of our languages.

This reminds me of the visitor/host arrangement from bike touring. A visitor shares what they can typically in the form of stories, pictures, and novel gadgets. A host shares what they can typically in the form of hospitality and accommodation. Ever opposing human desires for adventure and stability grease the skids of negotiation.