There are nearly as many ways to recap Northern Indian travels as there are styles of tunics or types of flatbread in a single state. But for my cycling-centric self, the best way theme for telling about the past half month is transportation—it amazed and scared the daylights out of me. (Full disclosure: I’ve badly hit two parked cars behind the wheel, so I’m driving shy to begin with, making the traffic circles, right side setup and complete chaos even more amazing to me). A brief rundown of the options includes:
Autorickshaw.
I’m mildly obsessed with these, no question. At 30 to 70 rupees ($1.50 at the most) for an average city trip, they’re a fun way to get around and see a lot. (Run a quick Flickr search for “tuk tuk, India” to see why—these doorless wonders are the ideal way to get through tight spots.) An autorickshaw gave a friend and I a fantastic nighttime trip through a fort built from stone and ghee (butter fat—and it’s been standing for more than 400 years; just don’t think what it does to your arteries).
Ambassador.
These white beauties are the official government car in the state of Rajasthan and made my eyes pop when I was picked up in one my first morning in Delhi. The driver/guide Raj was a great accomplice for a day of Gandhi memorials, naan overeating, and Suni temples. The best feature of his Ambassador was the speed with which the windows can be rolled up—one minute I was enjoying the nice late winter temperatures with the window down and the next four English magazines for sale would be nearly jammed inside at a stop light (when they were being observed).
Bus.
I was delighted to see a request for “horn please” on the first bus I saw, only to discover that this was redundant—in a place where people turn their car and motorcycle mirrors in to keep them from being knocked off, horns are the best way to tell other drivers about impending turns, frustration, and general greetings. NPR ran a great piece, “New Delhi motorists drive with their ears,” shortly after I returned stateside about Indian horn use that’s well worth a listen.
Blinkers are also used infrequently, which my friend Jyoti and I discovered when we were riding in an Ambassador that was hit by an autorickshaw mid-turn. (The accident wasn’t surprising—it was bound to happen in 14 days of travel—but the fact that our driver had actually used his turn signal was.) He was so upset with the red paint on the side of his pearly white car that he took the autorickshaw driver’s keys and sped away, leaving him stranded on the side of the road with passerbys who came to see the scuffle. Simply one of the most amazing moves I’ve seen ever.
Scooter.
Not a moped and not a motorcycle, this pink Scooty (brand name, not a painful abbreviation) was the #1 method of transport for two days in Bhilai. Quick and colorful, it’s great for running errands of the scarf buying variety and costs less than $3 to fill up.
(These are better than the Domino’s and McDonald’s motorcycles that deliver pizza and paneer sandwiches, slightly.)
On foot.
The single most intriguing thing I saw happen while walking were women carrying large light-up boxes on their heads for a birath, the walk that a groom and his friends and family make to his bride’s house before their wedding ceremony. My friend Pooja and I participated for an hour and a half of firecrackers and dancing, which was only one portion of the walking journey before her co-worker’s nuptials and a total blast. I was slightly concerned about the necks of the eight women carrying the massive boxes on their heads (one glance at th
e electrical outlets shows why), but we all arrived alive after the warm up to Punjabi music on the dance floor at the wedding hall. Quite a Wednesday night—it’s wedding season now so grooms on white horses and elephants can be seen walking down the street of Jaipur and Raipur* (unrelated city stops) every night of the week.
Plane.
After having my Air India flight oversold and showing up at the airport too late (knowing whether to show up two hours or 20 minutes before a flight is debatable depending on who you ask), I’d rather gloss over air travel.
Camel.
If you’re able to get past the main form of traffic (bovine), you’ll discover the second most endearing form of animal transport—camels in the desert outside Jaiselmer. After the initial two minutes of “gee whiz,” I came to the conclusion that I don’t need to ride another one of these—the ascent and descent is jarring and they make a Delhi bus station seem like a great smelling experience comparatively. (When they weren’t selecting ringtones between sand dunes, our camel handlers told us that one of the camels we were riding was named Michael Jackson.)
It’s clear that trains are missing from this list—an embarrassing thing to admit, even though 99% of them don’t compare with those glamorized in Darjeeling Limited. It just means that another trip to the subcontinent needs to happen before my five-year visa expires.
*While writing this post I’ve spent $12 on soundtracks for the two Bollywood films we saw at megaplexes, the terrifically titled Luck by Chance and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (in which megastar Shah Rukh Khan plays both an electric company teller and a dance competition sleezeball to win a girl), which is more than I spent on a hotel room in either Raipur or Agra.
The company, which I first noticed for their SMS-driven 
The four-person Headline crew (with specialties in design, technology and operations but who all work on customer service) will move above Weird Fish on Mission Street in July, where they’ll remain founding members of the “Mission Garmentos Association,” a nod to their relatively lengthy experience (and survival) in fashion retail.
