Travel Talk

Today has been great but really long and exhausting. My capacity here is about half of what it is at home, the heat and the noise and the travel just takes it out of you – it really does take most of your energy to just get from a to b. The travel is one of the things that is really different here. There isn’t really a city transport infrastructure; it’s quite informal so it takes a bit of inside knowledge to get anywhere. It would be quite difficult as a tourist to arrive and get your head around travel. Even if you were brave enough to jump on a rickshaw, if you didn’t know in quite a lot of detail where to direct the driver to go, he probably couldn’t’ get you there. It’s not like I imagined and they would all have ‘the knowledge’ and be able to get you anywhere you wanted. They are cheap though, between about 10p and 50p for up to a 30 minute journey and when they pick up a pace down a nice smooth road it can be a nice breeze on a hot day.

We tried an auto rickshaw for the first time yesterday which is a little three-wheeled petrol vehicle. I didn’t really like it. There were 4 of us in it and they probably only should have 2 so that maybe had something to do with it but you are really low down in the traffic and the fumes were horrible. It might be ok for a ten minute journey but we were in ours for about an hour trying to get back from the cricket and I was so glad to get out of it. The advantage is they have a meter so you have to barter less for the fare, to drive for an hour though it still only cost us the equivalent of about £1.20.

Our journey to work was via auto rickshaw this morning. Our office is about 45 minutes away from where we are staying at the moment so I was really glad when we were told we were going to get the bus home. It was so much nicer. A lot of the local buses you see are rammed full of people but the one to where we wanted to go was luxury in comparison. We all got a seat and there were fans in the ceiling the first three rows are reserved for women only which I can imagine is nice if you are a woman travelling on your own. Being the biggest thing on the road for a change was nice and we got home a lot quicker and with a lot less fumes in our lungs. It’s harder to see where you are though so you have to keep your wits about you to ask the driver to stop at the right place.

So travel is sometimes challenging, but it’s fun being rattled around on a rickshaw and coming head to head with a massive SUV, swerving to miss it just in time! (It’s quite safe mum honestly!)

Chloe