Subject: Re: MOTORING IN INDIA - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
From: [email-masked] (Shyamal Prasad)

In article <[email-masked]>,  <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>I plan to travel from Delhi to Kathmandu.  Air is quickest, but perhaps
>not the most interesting mode of transportation.
>
>I may be able to transport my 1984 Honda 700S Nighthawk from US to India
>and back from Nepal at very low cost.  Am considering a route from Delhi
>to Kathmandu which would take me through Patna (Bihar) and Varanasi (U.P.)and

I have seen most of India by car and would recommend it to any one who
is a good driver (in a "rally" sense :-) and is prepared for a few
unpleasant surprises.

First, driving in India is TOUGH. There are no expressways, and few
dual carriageways, and when the latter exists they are not
great. Drivers in urban areas are uniformly bad, the larger the city
the worse the driving. Driving is on the LEFT, if you have a LHD car
(like a US car) I would suggest you not use it. On two lane roads
passing is a nighmare (I drove a Toyota Crown LHD in south India for a
while, its no fun).

Accident rates are high, emergency care poor. I know - we (my family)
went through one bad accident (Tumkur, near Bangalore on NH 4 c.1976)
where my parents nearly died. A horse shoe (yes, I said horse shoe) on
the road burst a front tire, the car skidded 200 yards on wet road and
hit the side of a bridge at about 30 mph. Please use seat belts! Its
only now that Indian cars have seat belts fitted on but no one uses
them. Poor fools.

Driving in India is different because there are lots of people/animals
out at all times everywhere. There will be many, many times when you
will find your self screeching to a halt from 100 kmh to zero. Driving
in cities is always a nightmare - there is no simple advice I can
give you. Its something you *have* to learn from experience.

Driving at night is harsh - it is also the best time to drive long
distance IMHO. At night roads clear out, but it is hard driving - most
roads will not have a center stripe or any reflective guides to help
you see. Every once in a while you will find livestock on the road,
keep wide awake. Head lights will blind you. Its not for the weak
hearted. Don't drive at night in most parts of Bihar - its simply not
safe. At least it used to be that way - there were cases of banditry
on some roads (usually minor ones). 

Roads around Delhi and in Rajasthan are in pretty good shape. I have
not been to Patna by road nearly 10 years now - but it was an okay
drive. Roads in Bihar vary from passable to poor. It can be slow
going, but 3 years ago we drove from Ranchi to Jamshedpur in about 90
minutes (117 kms/ 73 miles). On the other hand we used to take 70
minutes to go 63 kms from home to the nearest city in Bihar 10 years
ago. Be patient, drive carefully - driving in India can be great fun
if you have the right attitude. The roads there have no shoulder at
all - so it takes some getting used to.

To give you an idea of what good time is - we used to do Belgaum -
Bangalore (in South India, Karnataka) quite regularly in about 7 hours
(480 kms, 300 miles on NH4) driving time.  However expect to drive 40
mph on most roads, 65 on better ones. India has a unenforced 100 km/h
speed limit on most roads, but its really not required. Take the
speed/distance numbers in the USA and use them in kilometers and you
have a rough idea of the times involved.

The worst driving I have seen was in UP on the way up north from Delhi
to Mussorie in 1990. I was not driving this time - but its a wide two
lane road and it operates like this: everyone speeds up, our car would
hit about 70 mph, the buses get upto 55 or 60. Then on both sides
everyone tries to overtake who ever is going slower. Then everyone
finds that there is no space so everyone slows down, works out who
goes where and then every one speeds up again!

Petrol is available, fill up when you see a pump. When I used to
travel pumps expected cash payment (gas is expensive, at about $2.50 a
gallon) but on my last visit to India I found pumps in urban areas
accepted a Visa/Mastercard. I don't know what happens in remote
regions. 

Your Honda better be reliable - if it breaks down service will be a
problem outside of large towns. At the same time you will find that
little shacks have tools inside them that peform unbelievable
engineering feats ;-)

I have not driven in Mexico, but I can't believe it will be as tough
as driving in India. If you have driven in Ireland you have seen a a
version of good Indian roads (drivers in Ireland are much, much
better, its the road surface and quality I am talking about).

If you have more specific questions don't hesitate to email me. I have
not driven in India almost two years now, but I have really seen most
of it by car.

Cheers!
Shyamal
-- 
Shyamal Prasad, Department of Computer Science
Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX 75275, USA

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From: [email-masked] (Ravi Narayan)
Subject: Re: MOTORING IN INDIA - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
Distribution: world

In article <>, [email-masked] (Shyamal Prasad) writes:
= In article <> wrote:
= >
= >I plan to travel from Delhi to Kathmandu.  Air is quickest, but perhaps
= >not the most interesting mode of transportation.
= >I may be able to transport my 1984 Honda 700S Nighthawk from US to India
= >and back from Nepal at very low cost.  Am considering a route from Delhi
= >to Kathmandu which would take me through Patna (Bihar) and Varanasi (U.P.)and
= 
= I have seen most of India by car and would recommend it to any one who
= is a good driver (in a "rally" sense :-) and is prepared for a few
= unpleasant surprises.
= 

    i wont say much on this thread since i have already written a
    whole bunch of articles on driving/riding in india, and
    unfortunately havent archived them, and am too tired to repeat.
    shyamal paints a pretty true picture and i will add a few words to
    that:

    chances of accidents, as he rightly points out, are much more. but
    fortunately speeds are much much lower, and so is traffic, outside
    of cities. damage, therefore, may not be as much.

= Driving at night is harsh - it is also the best time to drive long
= distance IMHO.

    i wouldnt agree with this. as you point out later, there is the
    fear of banditry. there is also very poor lighting. and roads have
    all kinds of obstacles: riding to tirupati from madras (both in
    the south) one night, i came upon huge blocks of concrete on the
    road... too late to brake. just went over some. skipped others.
    lived to tell ;-). remember, should you go down, there is no 911
    that will rush to your rescue. you will adorn the countryside for
    a few hours before some passing motorist may stop and help.
    another time, riding back from bangalore to madras, came upon some
    4 feet wide and about 5 feet deep trenches in the middle of the
    road, facilitated by some warring caste demanding higher
    reservation in educational insitutions. yet another time,
    chugging along peacefully on what i thought was nh 4, i came upon
    a fork in the road, with no signs to indicate where which goes,
    took the broader road, and found to my dismay that it abruptly
    ended in a field about 15 kilometres further down!!! most truckers
    drive drunk especially in the night. add to that the crazy long
    distance buses and everything else... its not at all a good idea
    to tackle these things by night. oh, i forgot to mention, farmers
    have this unique method of threshing their grains by laying out
    the harvested crops on the highways and letting the passing cars
    and trucks do the rest ;-).

    the roads arent exactly twisty and fun in the "biking as a sport"
    sense. but i enjoy doing those routes... you pass through hundreds
    of different landscapes. the wonderfully friendly people of rural
    india. the little kids standing on the roadsides waving to you as
    you pass. keeping up with the train on the track parallel to your
    road... makes riding in india worth it.

    - ravi

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ravi Narayan		AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ.	89 Suzuki GS500E
H: 908-353-5405		W: 908-949-5822			92 Ducati 750SS
[email-masked]  _______ http://cs.wpi.edu/~ravi _______ DoD Squid #1  _____

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From: [email-masked] (Kevin Volkan)
Subject: Re: MOTORING IN INDIA - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Hi Bernie,

After reading the last couple of posts I thought i would add some stories 
of my driving experience in India to the other stuff I told about via 
email. I can pretty much agree with what everyone else is saying, even 
though they obviously have spent more time in the country than I have. 
In my experiene Indians are not the worst drivers, that distinction would 
have to belong to drivers in either rome or Naples. They were just 
unbelievable -- passing on crowded sidewalks, etc, etc. The Indians were 
tame by comparison, maybe because the consequences of hitting someone are 
more dire. I heard a number of stories about India in which a driver had 
accidently hit a child or a cow and was subsequently mobbed by an angry 
crowd bent on revenge. I have no idea whether any of these stories were 
true, but I would take it easy just the same

With regards to accidents in the cities, I can attest to this as I saw a 
few and was in one. 

I was getting a ride in a motorized rickshaw with a driver who was 
nodding out on smack on something. At one point he lost consciousness and 
careened into a bicycle, a car and various passerbys. Luckily no one was 
injured beyond a few bruises and scrapes. Very quickly a crowd gathered 
and began yelling at the driver, who looked about vacantly and glassy 
eyed. Some ofther rickshaw drivers stopped to give their fellow driver 
support but they were soon shouted down by the crowd. The crowd then 
started yelling at us as we sat there in shock. Finally another rickshaw 
driver grabbed us and put us in his machine and drove away. He said
the crowd would have mauled us if we hadn't got away. I don't know if    
this was true as this rickshaw driver then took us to his uncle's shop to
try and sell us some jewlry. In general the rickshaw drivers don't have a
great reputation for being good drivers. A few weeks later in Delhi,    
after one of these fellows tried to rip me off and then said lewd thing
to my girlfriend I almost ended up getting in a fight with him. About 20 
other rickshaw drivers showed up instantly and began to threaten me. I
yelled at the top of my voice that i would take them all on and began
walking towards them. They must have thought I was crazy because they 
all split -- what fun! Don't get the wrong idea though, India was a 
wonderous place and most of the people were very friendly and helpful. As 
far as the truck drivers are concerned, they did seem to be a little 
drunk at times and I wouldn't want to be driving around them, as they 
have full size trucks and India's roads tend toward the smallish side. 
Nevertheless, the truck drivers (and cab drivers) we met were nice 
fellows - cheerful and willing to help out a foriegner. I have very fond 
memories of eating in an all night truck stop with some truck drivers -- 
drinking brown sweet chai and eating some of the best and hottest Indian 
food I have ever tasted, while the drivers drank beer and laughed. In the 
morning they would light small fires under the engines of their diesel 
trucks to warm them up! -- what a sight.

Have fun,

Kevin