Crosstown-Traffic

I know this is a day late, but this week has been pretty hectic and I haven't been as diligent getting a post up daily.

We finally received some rain on Thurday, thus the power outages have seized for now as I guess the hydroelectric power source is back up to speed. I mentioned in my previous post about Reggie being late to pick me up from the office the other day due to traffic. Well, this whole week traffic has been an absolute nightmare. It has taken us at least twice as long to get wherever we were going, if not longer. The stop and go traffic in a manual transmission car makes this very fact even more unappealing. One ironic tidbit-while in some serious crosstown-traffic, we passed Jimi's Beer Cafe. Yes, this place is really named after Jimi Hendrix and has a picture of him on the outside of the building.

My first week here I mentioned how I don't know how there aren't numerous traffic accidents here daily due to the amount of people on the roads and also the crazy driving and total disregard for traffic rules. Well, I experienced one first hand on Thursday when we got rear-ended by a guy in a volkswagon style van. Luckily, it was just a minor fender-bender, and actually didn't do any damage other than a scratched up bumper. My driver was hilarious about the whole thing though. Here's how it went down. We are sitting in traffic on one of the main roads, which has three lanes. Traffic is about five vehicles wide with motorcycles/scooters crammed in every nook and cranny possible leaving hardly any room to open a door up on either side of the car. When we ease up a little bit, the guy behind us drills us pretty hard. My driver throws up the parking brake, opens up his door almost knocking a motorcylist off his bike, and begins yelling at the guy who hit us. He was speaking Kannada, so I have no idea what he said, but it lasted all of 10 seconds, my driver kicks the guy's front fender, gets back in the car and says, "Sorry, sir". Then we sat in traffic for another hour. Just like the states, eh?

Also, since we've been bogged down in traffic all week, I've noticed something going on and my driver educated me a little more on the subject. There is a large number of 'bikers' that do not wear helmets on the roads, and there is actually a helmet law that is strictly enforced. I'm baffled at how no one receives traffic citations for all the other crazy stuff that goes on, yet if you don't have a helmet on and pass a traffic cop, they immediately flag you down and hit you with a Rs. 100 fine. Looks like they have their priorities in order, or rather, found a gravy train for making money.

Where were we going besides work in all this traffic, you ask? We headed over to Church Street on Thursday to try out one of the numerous restaurants there. We ended up choosing 20 Feet High, which boasted a full Continental menu. The cheeseburger and fries caught both our eyes, so we decided to go for it. Much to my dismay, the cheeseburger ended up being basically a steak sandwich with cheese, and really wasn't any good at all. I'm on a mission now to find a 'real' ground beef cheeseburger somewhere before I leave this place! One positive note about this place was that the total check was Rs. 620, or $12.50.