Indian Traffic and no Sleep

Well I got my luggage this morning which was nice. Finally feel cleaned up and ready to go. On the drive over to the office I learned a little about the area my hotel is in, primarily that the area was affected by the tsunami in 2005. There is still an area near the hotel where “temporary” housing is being utilized while long term fixes are being made. It is strange to see an area that was affected, given that the hotel is probably 30 vertical feet from the ocean and 500 yards away. If anyone hears about an earthquake in the Pacific while I’m here call me so I can evacuate.

I went for a run this morning on the beach. It was just as the sun was coming out. I saw a snake in the sand, a crab and numerous local fishermen.

Some people were just throwing nets out to sea as waves came in hoping to catch fish. Not sure if they had any luck at all. There were also a good number of people out in small boats. The boats more resemble a canoe from my perspective. I don’t know how people could go out, fish and control their boats with the waves crashing in on them. Given the number of people out fishing it must not be to dangerous.

Driving in this town is crazy, well I can’t really say driving since I’m only a passenger, but the rides I’ve been on are pure chaos. First, the cars/driving is on the reverse side, like in England. Second the roads all seem to be narrow, approximately one lane; however, traffic goes in both directions. Third the various size and types of vehicles are varied: trucks, buses, cars, rickshaws, cattle, bikes, motorcycles and pedestrians all travel on the same road at the same time. Fourth, there are apparently no traffic signals in India, I’ve as yet seen a stoplight, stop sign, yield sign at all. At seemingly random points on the road there are barricades placed about 50 feet apart from each other, creating a “S” shaped obstacle for traffic to navigate through. What the purpose of these barricades is for I haven’t figured out. They all have signs that tell the driver they are entering an “accident prone zone” but the only reason I can figure for these being accident prone zones is because of the barricades. When traffic wants to pass one vehicle (or person, or whatever is slowest) pulls to the left while the faster vehicle passes on the right, if traffic is coming it pulls over to its left, unless it is a bigger vehicle or a crazier driver. I’ve yet to see any accidents, but honestly don’t know how given how crazy the traffic is.

It's now 5:30 am on Friday and I've been up since 2:30, after getting to sleep about 11:00. Today is going to suck. I guess there is something to jet lag. Hopefully I can leave work early today and get an afternoon nap in and try to get on some type of schedule here.