Out on the town, part 1

Earlier this year, a few friends and I visited Varadero (Cuba) for a week. During our stay, we discovered a relatively new addition to the scene. In addition to the buses and other modes of transportation that dot the peninsula, there are now bright orange cocoa taxis. On the outside, they resemble large lemons, but closer inspection shows that they are actually a version of a souped up golf cart.

Well that was then ... and this is now. Welcome to the land of rickshaws, both the traditional type, drawn by a wallah and the motorized variety, I suppose driven by a wallah. Close inspection reveals enough space in the back seat for a maximum of two persons, depending on physiology and a whole host of other characteristics, and a metre, not unlike any other officially sanctioned taxi might contain. Passengers in these motorized creations, along with the driver, are for all intents and purposes still in the open air, since there are no doors on these vehicles, although they do have a windshield (unlike their Cuban cousins).

On the roads of Delhi, the modern rickshaw resembles a kind of beetle that speeds along from place to place (if it is at all possible to speed in traffic that is so congested). During daylight hours, and even in some of the night-time ones, most roads in this cosmopolitan hub appear to be more than just a bit congested. Modes of transportation include the rickshaw (both the hand-pulled and the motorized varieties), but also a multitude of cars (most of them are considerably smaller in size than their counterparts in Canada might be), vans, trucks ... motorcycles, humans, cows, goats, dogs and even the odd wild boar and her expanding family.

Into this cacophony we thrust ourselves today. Our sanctuary was a rented van, complete with chauffeur who ferried us along these avenues while we relaxed in the relative comfort of air conditioned lux and closed windows which revealed a world that is anything but familiar to most of us.

Moving on the broad avenues and byways appears uncomplicated, but driving is best left to the locals, for what appears to the untrained eye to be a three-laned highway can magically be transformed into a four-, five- or even six-laned thoroughfare with little or no warning. Intersections can be relatively menacing since they hold the potential for merging of two or three more lanes of traffic into the already congested main thoroughfares, and if by chance an unwitting passenger should find him or herself sitting in a car which has stopped at a traffic light, or been bidden to stop by a police officer, there is a very real possibility that a poor beggar might appear at the window and begin knocking, or even consign this task to a child in arms.

At the height of rush hour, one would wonder as to the safety of an emergency vehicle if it were to appear, but as a rule, there are relatively few incidents which might require such intervention. Having said so, we did encounter a tow truck (Indian style). It consisted of one car, tied to another and making its way through the unceasing flow of traffic, across multiple lanes and merging with traffic on roads that seemed to materialize from places unknown, all with just a jute strip to hold them together. Yes, there was a driver in the second car, perhaps to make sure that he or she kept up with the samaritan who was towing its neighbour to safety, or perhaps just to make sure that the two cars did not collide in the process.