Accidents

So, I have now been in two automobile accidents since I arrived here in India. I'm amazed because the whole three weeks I vacationed here before I kept expecting to see an accident (because of the driving) but never did. Luckily, the traffic speeds here in India are generally lesser than those in the US, so the accidents tend cause minimal damage. Apparantly, the rules are that after you get into an accident and pull the cars over to the side of the road, the drivers of each car get out and yell at each other and try to pull bystanders and other drivers into the fray. :)

Today's accident was the more lively of the two. We were in a company cab, heading for the office around 6:30 PM. The traffic was pretty heavy. Along the way, a bus on the left-hand side pushed us (it was a small car) into a bus on the right-hand side. Like I stressed earlier, we were not moving fast enough to cause much damage, but the front doors on either side were scratched and dented. Our cab driver takes off, driving like a maniac-overtaking and weaving in and out of traffic at excessive (for the traffic) speeds. He managed to overtake the bus that initiated the accident, pulls to the side, jumps out and starts yelling at the bus driver (who replied in kind!) After a bit of this, our driver informed us that another cab was on it's way to pick us up and take us the rest of the way to the office. Liz & I decided to take a coffee break-in a very full cafe where we were the ONLY white people [probably within a 20 KM radius]. (Liz's comment: "Not like we stand out or anything") Upon returning back to the (original) cab, we discoverd more people (friends of the cab driver?) had appeared on motorcycles. The argument between the two drivers had escalated to the point that the newcomers were actually holding them apart. We actually thought it might come to blows, but luckily the second cab arrived and distracted the original cab driver a bit.

We thought this might be the end of our story...but alas, it was not. We drive a couple more minutes down the road in the new cab (still in heavy traffic.) At one point, the driver leans out the front passenger side window and looks down at the car. Liz and I are exchanging "uh-oh" glances in the back seat. The driver pulls over to the side of the road, gets out, inspects the car and declares that there is a puncture in the front passenger side tire. What could we do except laugh at this point? The driver proceeds to change the tire while we attempt to use the toilet at the nearby petrol station. (EEW! No more details needed there!)

All in all we were an hour and a half late getting to the office (what a way to make a first impression at our new site!) but we spent 3 hours traveling the 30ish KM from home to the office. I'm starting to feel that we weren't supposed to be out on the roads tonight-or that the universe is conspiring against us! :) :) :)