We have a car! Some friends left the Capital and we got their car. We've had it for about 4 months now and it has really helped us out! We have been traveling a lot over the Capital lately (which is 621 sq miles - half the size of Rhode Island) and it has been hard to take rickshaws for that far or try to get a taxi for the day, etc. So it has really helped us out a lot and we've been able to do a LOT more! yay!
Here's our car - it's a Tata Sumo...
When we first got it, it really stunk inside! I'm not sure what the smell was or what made it go away either :) In the evenings, people on the street sell Jasmine flowers on strings and peddle them to you while you're sitting at the traffic lights. They smell awesome and people put them in their cars to make them smell better :) We use them a lot!
So, with having a car comes new & interesting adventures too... for example, we locked our keys in the car the other day :) We didn't mean to (but who ever means to - haha!). When you put the car in drive, it automatically locks. Well, Adam turned on the car the other day to get the AC going while we got Aashini in the car. For some reason (even though the car wasn't in drive), when Adam closed the door, the doors locked. So... we were stuck in a parking garage with our car running with the keys in the ignition... nice! Adam was going to run home while I sat with the car, but the "Engineers" for the parking garage came to the rescue and broke into our car really quickly! haha! We're glad we have a lock on our gear shift - that was too easy to break into!
Driving in the Capital can be quite crazy! On the road at any time there are cars, bikes, motorcycles/scooters, busses, etc. There are also animals - dogs, cows & buffalo with the occasional Camel & Elephant. There are lines on the road, but they aren't used. Pretty much with traffic, your job is to fill in the empty spaces in front of you. Your job is to look forward and drive. You honk your horn to let people in front of you know you're behind them. It's pretty fun :) Traffic jams aren't fun though! The other night Adam got stuck in this traffic jam (below).... it was raining so the streets were full of water and traffic was moving slow, so people were going whenever the wanted (not paying attention to the traffic lights). There was one cop there (our friend was surprised that there was even one there - he said that the police don't work in the rain! haha!). It was crazy. Adam was stuck for 2 hours and not moving, so he parked his car and walked home and came back to get it a couple hours later :)
You can see in the pic above that everyone is outside of their cars trying to direct the traffic - haha! Quite the adventure :)
When we first got it, it really stunk inside! I'm not sure what the smell was or what made it go away either :) In the evenings, people on the street sell Jasmine flowers on strings and peddle them to you while you're sitting at the traffic lights. They smell awesome and people put them in their cars to make them smell better :) We use them a lot!
So, with having a car comes new & interesting adventures too... for example, we locked our keys in the car the other day :) We didn't mean to (but who ever means to - haha!). When you put the car in drive, it automatically locks. Well, Adam turned on the car the other day to get the AC going while we got Aashini in the car. For some reason (even though the car wasn't in drive), when Adam closed the door, the doors locked. So... we were stuck in a parking garage with our car running with the keys in the ignition... nice! Adam was going to run home while I sat with the car, but the "Engineers" for the parking garage came to the rescue and broke into our car really quickly! haha! We're glad we have a lock on our gear shift - that was too easy to break into!
Driving in the Capital can be quite crazy! On the road at any time there are cars, bikes, motorcycles/scooters, busses, etc. There are also animals - dogs, cows & buffalo with the occasional Camel & Elephant. There are lines on the road, but they aren't used. Pretty much with traffic, your job is to fill in the empty spaces in front of you. Your job is to look forward and drive. You honk your horn to let people in front of you know you're behind them. It's pretty fun :) Traffic jams aren't fun though! The other night Adam got stuck in this traffic jam (below).... it was raining so the streets were full of water and traffic was moving slow, so people were going whenever the wanted (not paying attention to the traffic lights). There was one cop there (our friend was surprised that there was even one there - he said that the police don't work in the rain! haha!). It was crazy. Adam was stuck for 2 hours and not moving, so he parked his car and walked home and came back to get it a couple hours later :)
You can see in the pic above that everyone is outside of their cars trying to direct the traffic - haha! Quite the adventure :)
Comments
what are the seat belt laws and car seat laws there, out of curiosity? I bet it's different than here... in NC now, kids up to TWELVE can't ride in the front seat, and I think up to EIGHTY pounds have to be in a booster. A lot different than when we were kids!!!
Carseats aren't as necessary here... we rarely get up to 35 MPH... and usually stay around 20 or so :)
Happy trails!