Part 3 - Traffic in India (not for the fainthearted)

To tuk, or not to tuk, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis Nobler on the butt to suffer
The Smog and Honks of outrageous Traffic,
Or to take Limos against a Sea of troublesome Vehicles,
And by opposing them: to Survive, to have the Occasion
To sleep once more (at one’s exorbitantly dear hotel).
Ah, ‘tis a Survival from Traffic devoutly to be wished.
For in that sleep, what dreams may come, of cows, and oxen,
And camels, and trucks, and carts of every sort, all shuffling
Through that mortal coil of one narrow roadway.
There’s the respect that makes Calamity and Chaos
Of so long life on Indian roads.

(With profound apologies to W. Shakespeare)


Ah, my friends, traffic in India, what a subject! Indeed, we do not think that we suffered anything like the worst available, as that seems to be the special feature of Mumbai. Nonetheless, we did certainly get a serious taste of the wild side of Indian travel by road.

In fact, we only rode in a tuk-tuk (called “auto-rickshaw” in India) once, and that was on a relatively un-crowded road leading up to a fortress near Agra. We did not use tuk-tuks in any large city, as we either walked where we wanted to go or had the use of our private car & driver. Frankly, we would not have felt particularly comfortable using tuk-tuks is busy cities, as they competed with every other sort of vehicle at extremely close quarters (literally, inches) for space on the roads.

As we traveled for many hours through Rajasthan and the neighboring states, we experienced the amazing traffic of India. At any moment, there would be trucks, buses, cars, motor scooters, oxcarts, horse carts, camel carts, bicycle carts, tuk tuks, wandering cows, wandering dogs, wandering goats, and wandering children, all sharing the same narrow roadway.

As we had the good fortune to have a superb driver, Ashok, we in fact enjoyed all of the road travel enormously, and never felt at the slightest risk.

Indeed, the least interesting road trip we had was the one from Agra to Delhi, most of which was on a limited access freeway. Simply, boring, as there were none of the usual crazy but delightful aspects of road travel in India.

As for other travel in India, we had the pleasure of one train trip (from Agra to Gwalior) to experience a “luxury” train. In fact, it was both comfortable and fast. We were happy, however, that we were not on the “local” train to Gwalior, which appeared to be not only quite grubby but also remarkably jammed with passengers.

All things considered, India just ain’t a place to go as a backpacker, as far as we are concerned.

(The photo attached is of a typically overloaded tuk-tuk on an atypically uncrowded street.)