BUSES!

We leave Kollam (near Varkala) to Alleppey by bus, our first.

How to describe the madness of these trips? First let me list the types of vehicles: you have the big trucks, painted golds and reds, given names like LOAD KING, OM SHIVA, or such things. Then the buses, filled to the gills with passengers. Then normal sedan cars (quite rare). The microvans that I love, like toys. The tuk-tuk trucks that haul goods not people (I saw one loaded with crates of eggs, which seemed an excess of optimism). Tuk-tuks themselves. Motorcycles. Scooters. Cow-powered carts. Bicycles. Bicycles pulling carts. The odd horse. The three-wheeled wooden vehicles for the disabled powered oh-so-slowly by a hand crank. And of course people walking. So there you have the players in our game. In general the biggest machines hold court in the center of the road, with vehicles of decreasing size off to the side, though in the thick of things that all can change.

First rule: if the vehicle in front of you is moving slower than yourself you MUST TRY TO PASS IMMEDIATELY, you MUST veer out to the right in the CHANCE, however slim, that you can pass. Even if there are seven vehicles coming the other direction, you MUST swerve out, just to see what will happen.

As a result the two-lane road typically contains six vehicles across, all either passing or falling back from an unsuccessful pass. Say our bus charges up behind a microvan that is passing a scooter that is passing a cow. So it blares its horn and heads to the right. Well it is obvious to us that this is suicidal since the LOAD KING is occupying the center-right portion of the road (as it passes a tuk-tuk truck who is passing a man balancing twenty clay pots on his head). So now we have it: cow-scooter-van-bus all abreast charging head on at truck-tuk-tuk-man with pots. What's more: into the vacuum of space left behind by our buses attempt to pass has charged a two cars and another bus. Out the right side window I look down as see the wheels touch the end of the pavement--in the U.S. this would look perfectly natural but here it means we are about to die.

Rule number two: if you are about to be crushed by a larger vehicle you yield (veer, slow, speed up, whatever). This is where the great faith-based nature of the Indian traffic system comes into play. Because no one driver can save himself from crashing. He requires ten other vehicles to act appropriately. So back to our situation. Our bus is charging head-on towards the truck. Actually we are in his lane and he is half in ours. So they both lay on the horn, slow every-so-slightly, and crank the wheel back towards their proper lanes. And the red sea parts. The van brakes just enough, the two cars behind allow him a space. The scooter drives off the road into a dusty yard. The man with pots steps into a ditch. Only the cow doesn't change its course. They never do. And so the both buses have successfully moved one vehicle up. But there's no time for cheers. The bus behind us has noticed the new opportunity and has moved up alongside us. Two buses side-by-side. A hundred meters ahead the usual mass of motorcycles and cars.

An interesting thing. It is very rare to see any driver get upset, even if they are forced off the road. The only thing that deserves a dirty look is when someone doesn't obey one of the two rules. A scooter that is content to idle in the wake of a cow cart for a minute too long. A car that tries to hold its place despite a larger vehicle moving its way. Aggression is never responded to with aggression. The only things worth reproach are passivity and a lack of good survival instincts.