Indian Journeys: The Bus to Chennai…..

This was not my bus. It’s a school bus, and a smarter version. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the one I travelled in.

…. was the sort you see in all the pictures. Unglazed windows with bars across, and an engine that had probably been put together c.1953.  If this coach had been a human body, you’d probably have called it ‘lived in’.  As it was in fact a bus, I’d say it had had a long history of ‘near misses’.  Oh, and it may not have been cleaned since 1953 either.

The gear box
The bus to Chennai
Bollywood DVD on the bus to Chennai

But the big excitement was a motorway.  Well, perhaps not a motorway, but a toll road anyway, with dual carriageway, a hard shoulder and a central reservation.  The road surface was indifferent, but so superior to anything I had met previously  that I could understand why everyone described it as ‘the fast road to Chennai’.  Here’s what I found out:

Goats eat breakfast in Thanjavur. They’d have done better on the fast lane of the motorway.
  • 2 lanes doesn’t mean slow and fast. Everyone uses both lanes indiscriminately and over or undertakes at will.
  • Goats use the ‘fast’ lane.
  • Cows use the central reservation.
  • Bicycles going the opposite way to the prevailing traffic use the hard shoulder. As do pedestrians.
  • Men pushing handcarts use the main highway.
  • The hard shoulder is also for bus stops.
  • There are zebra crossings. God knows why, nobody ever uses them.
  • Pedestrians cross whenever they want to. Not at the zebra crossings, obviously.
    A petrol tanker spotted en route.
    They don’t usually need reminding to ‘Sound Horn’. This truck is a close cousin of my bus.

Click on any image to view full size.

19 thoughts on “Indian Journeys: The Bus to Chennai…..”

  2. Oh my,you have nerves of steel, Margaret…. and the motorway sounds like the one in Cuba well over a decade ago…had very little traffic on then

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    1. Don’t forget that this was over ten years ago. I’m sure a lot has changed. I hope you’ll have as wonderful an experince as I did, and I’m looking forward to reading all about it.

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