From: Richard Devlin
\nSubject: Christmas break in India
\nDate: January 01, 2019 12:42 p.m.
\nTo: Brandon Devlin<\/p>\n
(CLT): 10 min 29.68 sec<\/p>\n
Happy New Year Dad,<\/p>\n
Wow, you’ve already been on Mars for over a month. They say time flies when you’re having fun! Speaking of fun, here I am in India for a five-day conference followed by a week of sightseeing. Awesome! Never imagined I’d be able to do something as terrific as this before graduating. I’ve copied a few pages from my blog about the trip. Hope you’ll enjoy the read.<\/p>\n
Starting out, we traveled by charter bus from Western to O’Hare airport. The bus driver was great and funny as hell during the whole trip. I was dictating a ‘memo to self’ as we were getting ready to head out, and he stood up with his microphone and began reciting this announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention for a moment. While we are traveling today, please keep in mind that in the event of an emergency, this bus is equipped with sixteen exits (dramatically pointing toward the exits).<\/p>\n
“The first one is the door where you got on. The next thirteen are the side windows. They are the ones labeled as exits on each side of the bus. If you pull up on the trim and push out at the bottom, they are hinged at the top and will swing open very easily. The last two are those overhead hatches in the aisle with the small red, pointed knobs. If you turn those knobs so that they are pointing either to the left or the right and push on the knob, the hatch will pop open. Now, those hatches are real easy to get to when the bus is lying on its side\u2026 I’ll try to avoid that.” Everyone cracked up. He continued, “Also, in the event of a crash over water, this bus will float\u2026 but don’t ask me how I know that.” And everyone laughed even harder. Woot!!<\/p>\n
When we got to the airport, he commenced with another announcement, so I grabbed my phone and recorded that one, too: “Please remain seated until the ride comes to a complete stop. At that time, please check the overhead compartments for anything you may have brought onboard, as well as the floor around your seats to make sure you didn’t drop anything of value, such as your cell-phone, car-keys, fast food wrappers\u2026 if you dropped any money on the floor, its probably gotten dirty\u2026 so feel free to leave it there and I’ll make sure it gets disposed of, properly.” Much more laughter, with me almost splitting a gut. “Please collect your luggage at coach-side to take with you and thank you for riding Indian Trails.” Double-Woot!! Maybe we can talk him into working on the Bronco Transit to provide comic relief during finals. What do you think?<\/p>\n
As of yesterday, the conference portion has ended for our trip. So now, we begin the fun by following suggestions from some Virginia Beach friends that formerly lived in New Delhi – get out of New Delhi. The Indian state of Rajasthan is our destination, with the city of Jaipur as our centre of operations. But, how to get there\u2026<\/p>\n
You can fly to Jaipur, take a slow train, or the slower still, state-run bus service. Or, as suggested by my friend, Bob, “ride a bus with chickens.” So, we did. Unfortunately, no chickens on the ride, but I swear I saw some feathers on my seat. So, for 200 Rupees per person (just about $4.44), we took a 35-person bus about 234 km with 60 wonderful people onboard.<\/p>\n
The bus was a normal bus, like most others, except that they divided the vertical space in half with a very ‘we already have the spare parts’ flair. I had ample clearance sitting down – there was just someone lying above me. Plus we shared the same large window across both stories. In fact, that upper berth had no metal support as the person lay – if he leaned too much against the Plexiglas, he’d fall out the side.<\/p>\n
And we didn’t have to worry too much about the safety glass on the bus’s door, as I believe the bus didn’t have a door. No need for air conditioning that way. The bus had a front mount engine and the driver sat beside it (kinda like some school buses). Instead of wasting space with the engine, they mounted a padded carpet shelf over it to allow people to sit, leaving a small cutout for the gearshift.<\/p>\n
Google says it would take 3h 17m for this trip on National Highway 8. Google assumes things like people driving in lanes, constant speeds, zero construction, no dodging of horses, and even pavement. This is an example of a Google fail.<\/p>\n
There’s no word in Hindi for “expressway”. I don’t think there’s a word for “freeway” or “turnpike” either. It was a four-lane road with a divider in the middle most of the way. Over the length of NH-8, a single bridge was found at what could be almost described as an interchange. Since there are no other bridges, there are breaks in the dividers to allow u-turns, people crossing, and cross streets. Plus, in many of the villages and small cities, they’re starting to build overpasses adding construction to the mix. Plus we had to pass three elephants. Google is wrong by about 2h in its calculations.<\/p>\n
We hopped on the bus about 10:45 and arrived at 16:00 – so why 2h more than what Google said? This wasn’t the express bus, so there were a bunch of stops. Sometimes, they included slowing down along a few crowds of people and shouting “jah-pour, jah-pour, jah-pour” like an auctioneer. For a few pickups and drop-offs, we didn’t even come to a complete stop; just leap.<\/p>\n
There were a few food vendors that got on for a single stop, selling samosas and other yummy smelling wares. But, on the advice of a wise sagess, never eat from the street vendors. Plus there were toll-booths and a gas refill.<\/p>\n
Then there was the big stop for a snack at a street side hole in the wall. And when in Rome, I decide to partake in a traditional Indian male rite of passage: just take a piss on the side of the road. Don’t try to be subtle and hide behind a tree – just stand there and go.<\/p>\n
The stop also involved impromptu repair. Some guys crawled under the bus with a large reservoir grease gun to do something with the drive train or axle and hopefully not the brakes.<\/p>\n
Was the chicken bus worth it? Yes. I’ll admit that I was anxious when I noticed the bus would be making stops. I wasn’t sure if the luggage compartment was locked (it was) and if someone would walk off with my bags. I might like to do it again, but without luggage and with a local companion to assist in the adventure (preferably one that speaks Hindi, or better yet, English, also). It’s hard to play tourist without a guide.<\/p>\n
I have officially concluded that Mom can never visit India. During her rides through the narrow streets of Boston or wide avenues of Manhattan, when we visited the east coast, she made an audible gasp when traveling under the speed limit and with ample clearance – both of which are still uncomfortable to her. Mom’s reaction to three motorcycles weaving in the 50cm gap between our taxi and the three wheeled scooter carrying eight passengers may produce a short scream. Add the rule-free traffic circles, roundabouts, and rotaries with the rare (but fun) figure-8 versions and we’re moving into the oxycontin & xanax cocktail epi-shots territory.<\/p>\n
In Delhi, the taxi ride between the hotel and conference center lasted 15-30 minutes, depending on traffic. Of course, when the commute was bad, it was really bad: one day’s was over 90 minutes. We could have gotten out and bought from the street vendors.<\/p>\n
The first day, the ride from the airport to hotel was pleasant too: Smokey fog, with 0.25 km visibility, freeway driving, and tractors that don’t quite reach freeway speed. And out of all of these journeys, we only saw one accident – in the fog on day one. Looked pretty bad with the car busting off a big truck’s wheel and the car’s engine compartment now being used as a replacement, but apparently no injuries. And a few seconds later – lost in the fog again.<\/p>\n
Well, tomorrow we’re off to Agra, to see the Taj Mahal. I’ll send pix and write more, later.<\/p>\n
Your son, the Globe-hopper, Rich LOL<\/p>\n
< \u2261 \u2642 \u2261 ><\/p>\n
From: Mary Croft
\nSubject: Happy New Year
\nDate: January 01, 2019 12:54 p.m.
\nTo: Carl Wilson<\/p>\n
(CLT): 10 min 29.72 sec<\/p>\n
Hey Sweetheart,<\/p>\n
Happy New Year! I miss you very much and really wish you were here. Last night, I went out with some of the girls to a New Year’s Eve party. We had a great time. I only had a little to drink, but Beth Ann got totally wasted. We had to pour her into the car. LOL<\/p>\n
At the party I was chatting with a really neat lady from China. I had never met someone from China before, so we talked for hours. I found out we have similar interests. She was very interested to hear about you and your mission and asked lots of questions. Some of them were kind of technical and I wasn’t sure of the correct answer, so I told her some of what you had shared with me. She and I made a lunch date for this afternoon and she will be stopping by here soon, to pick me up. So if I have to cut this short, I’ll write more, later when I get back and tell you all about it.<\/p>\n
I found out she used to be an Olympic gymnast, about ten years ago, or so. Wasn’t that about the time that Jackie was in the Olympics? Who knows, maybe they knew each other. Anyway, that must be why she looks so fit. Maybe she can give me some exercise hints. Lord knows I could stand to lose a few pounds. I want to keep looking good so you’ll still want me when you get home. (Giggle) Oops, there’s the doorbell. Kaiying is here earlier than I thought, gotta go. I should only be gone a couple of hours and will let you know how it all went.<\/p>\n
Forever yours, Mary<\/p>\n
< \u2261 \u2642 \u2261 ><\/p>\n
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The End<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From: Richard Devlin Subject: Christmas break in India Date: January 01, 2019 12:42 p.m. To: Brandon Devlin (CLT): 10 min 29.68 sec Happy New Year Dad, Wow, you’ve already been on Mars for over a month. They say time flies when you’re having fun! Speaking of fun, here I am in India for a five-day conference followed by a week …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}