Adventures in an Ambassador

At 8:30am this morning we departed Chennai headed for Trichy (Tiruchirappalli) in central Tamil Nadu. Eight hours, 350 kilometres, 1/2 kg of scrumptious Indian sweets and 6 bananas later we were there! Along the way we had a number of scares...the first within an hour when we thought we saw our driver start to nod off behind the wheel! Astrid's method of bringing him back to a full state of consciousness was to start singing "When You're Happy and You Know It" at the top of her voice. Christian's method was to quickly offer him some sweets to get his blood sugar back up again. Finally we all decided that the safest bet would be a coffee break, so stop we did, and very glad we all were when we saw him downing a steaming hot cup of coffee a few minutes later.

The other scare, of course, was the crazy Indian traffic. However, by the end of the eight hour trip, we can all safely say that we now have a fairly good understanding of the "Indian horn usage etiquette guide"...it is not as random and purposeless as we first thought...there is a definite system which all drivers know and abide by (unless you're a big truck and then you can do what you like!).

The major road south from Chennai started out as a four lane highway (two each way) and as we were making good progress we were planning what to do upon arriving at our destination early in the afternoon. These plans went out the window as soon as heavy rains started beating down and the road deteriorated to two lanes of potholes connected with sporadic bits of bitumen. 'Two lanes' was also a generous description, as each vehicle attempted to find the path with the least potholes, with priority given according to the size of the vehicle. Only a few small kamikaze cars flaunted this 'rule of size' which even the multitude of roadside animals seemed to obey.

Tomorrow morning we will get up bright and early to go to the Rock Fort Temple nearby...then we all pile back in the Ambassador and make the trip up into the hills to Kodaikanal for a few days...what we are hoping will be a haven of peace and tranquility away from the smog, dirt and pollution of the city.