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Indian traffic lives up to its reputation
Apr. 28th, 2012 03:43 amSo, once again, I'm back! This time after a much briefer LJ break. I temporarily returned to the small village of my archaeological site to do some work, but while I had expected to be there for only one, maybe two, nights, it turned into a week-long trip.
The site I worked on this year is quite large- the largest site for its time period in the country- so the work we were doing was less actual excavation and more preparation for a long-term, multi-year project. One of the things we wanted to do was have geologists come to gather data and do some analyses of the area; that's all well and good, but the team of geologists we arranged this with had trouble with the dates when we were available, we had trouble with their dates, and the whole thing kept getting pushed back later and later until everyone else had finished work on the site for the year. Finally last week, the geologists were able to arrive, and so I and a few other of the archaeologists headed back to the site with them; we planned to only point out a few things we wanted done, and had assumed we could then head straight back to Delhi. This turned out not to be the case. The geologists had never worked on an archaeological site before, and didn't quite understand the sort of things we were looking for; also, despite being Indian, they apparently had never spent much time in a small village before, and were disgruntled with every aspect of it: there are too many flies! electricity is not available 24/7! the only way to get hot water is to light a fire and boil it! the tap water is salty and tastes weird*! Etc.
Additionally, the team of geologists- which was only four people large!- had a serious 'too many cooks in the kitchen' problem. They could bicker over anything. They once spent half an hour arguing over whether a direction was North-North East or merely North East, a debate that brought in the location of the sun and two different compasses, one of which was broken and the other of which was a digital compass that no one seemed to know how to work. All this despite that the fact that it didn't really matter what the direction was, since the only reason they wanted to know was to help remember which location was which. Another debate spent nearly as long on whether or not my handheld GPS (which I was using to mark where their work was, so we could add it to our map of the site later- another reason why it didn't matter if it was NNE or NE) could tell temperature. It does not, but apparently I am not an authority on my own GPS, and this debate would not be settled until they themselves had each taking a turn poking at it and trying out all the various functions.
So, it was irritating and hot and mosquito-filled, but it was nice to be back in the village, nonetheless. The end of April is wheat-harvesting time in rural Haryana, it seems, and I got to see various methods, from hand-held sickles to large tractor-combines.
Do you know the scene at the end of 'Charlotte's Web', where she has babies and then they all fly away on little strings of cobweb? Apparently this also occurs in Haryana in late April. The air was full of flying baby spiders: it was not unusual to get one in your face; to look down and notice three or four of them on you at once; to take off your hat and notice one making a web between the brim and the top. Luckily, they were incredibly tiny, and so my normal screaming terror at spiders did not engage.
We finally left to come back to Delhi on Thursday. Normally, I and the other archaeologists leave early in the morning and take the bus, as it's an annoying trip involving two or three bus changes and about five hours, though the worst part is getting through the Delhi traffic, an ordeal that gets considerably worse the closer one gets to rush hour. This involved a lot of debate, of course. Why not hire a car instead? Why not leave later? Why not wait a couple more hours? Why not leave after lunch, in fact?
We managed to compromise by leaving around noon, and- after a random stop in a random small town to buy souvenir jalebis, because I guess Delhi doesn't have sweets- we were finally on the way, and even making good time. Until the combination of a rainstorm, a driver going too fast, another driver going the wrong way on the highway, and brakes that hydroplaned created a car accident. I've never been in a real accident before, but this wasn't bad, as they go: the car didn't flip or spin or anything, and it was still drivable afterwards, if missing its headlights. Unfortunately, one of the other archaeologists got thrown into a metal bar running across the back of the seats, striking his arm. Despite the fact that the geologists were more interested in arguing with the driver and the other car over whose fault the accident was, I eventually managed to convince them to leave for a hospital now, as the injured party had gone into shock (thankfully, he got over it pretty quickly) and had a potentially broken arm. Of course, we were in the middle of nowhere, and no one was local, meaning no one knew where a nearby hospital was. We decided to head for a specific hospital in Delhi that the injured party had insurance at. This seemed like a good plan, until our driver refused to enter the city limits (Delhi is a 'National Capital Territory' and thus entering it was the equivalent of crossing state lines from where the accident had happened), requiring us to find a new driver and car on the road, and transfer the now not-in-shock man from one to the other. All in all, it took about three hours from the time of the accident until we reached the hospital. I herded away the geologists to where they were staying, and somehow managed to not yell at anyone, despite the many arguments about how to get around Delhi (note: none of them was from Delhi or had spent any significant time there), and how one guy's foot hurt (though considering he didn't want my Tylenol, I'm thinking he could have waited on the complaining until no one was in the hospital).
It all worked out in the end, as the arm turned out, luckily, to be not broken, though my friend is now on pain-killers and anti-inflammatories for a few days more, and there may be some tendon damage. Now I am enjoying the decadence of internet, hot water showers, and AC once again.
As an extra note, it turns out that X-rays in India cost the equivalent of $8, making the American medical establishment look even more corrupt and money-hungry than they already did.
* My compliant about the tap water would be that it contains hepatitis, among other things, but whenever I say that they assume I'm being a delicate flower of a foreigner, even though I know people who have gotten hepatitis from this exact tap water, I am not counting on random beliefs about 'Delhi belly', but whatever.
The site I worked on this year is quite large- the largest site for its time period in the country- so the work we were doing was less actual excavation and more preparation for a long-term, multi-year project. One of the things we wanted to do was have geologists come to gather data and do some analyses of the area; that's all well and good, but the team of geologists we arranged this with had trouble with the dates when we were available, we had trouble with their dates, and the whole thing kept getting pushed back later and later until everyone else had finished work on the site for the year. Finally last week, the geologists were able to arrive, and so I and a few other of the archaeologists headed back to the site with them; we planned to only point out a few things we wanted done, and had assumed we could then head straight back to Delhi. This turned out not to be the case. The geologists had never worked on an archaeological site before, and didn't quite understand the sort of things we were looking for; also, despite being Indian, they apparently had never spent much time in a small village before, and were disgruntled with every aspect of it: there are too many flies! electricity is not available 24/7! the only way to get hot water is to light a fire and boil it! the tap water is salty and tastes weird*! Etc.
Additionally, the team of geologists- which was only four people large!- had a serious 'too many cooks in the kitchen' problem. They could bicker over anything. They once spent half an hour arguing over whether a direction was North-North East or merely North East, a debate that brought in the location of the sun and two different compasses, one of which was broken and the other of which was a digital compass that no one seemed to know how to work. All this despite that the fact that it didn't really matter what the direction was, since the only reason they wanted to know was to help remember which location was which. Another debate spent nearly as long on whether or not my handheld GPS (which I was using to mark where their work was, so we could add it to our map of the site later- another reason why it didn't matter if it was NNE or NE) could tell temperature. It does not, but apparently I am not an authority on my own GPS, and this debate would not be settled until they themselves had each taking a turn poking at it and trying out all the various functions.
So, it was irritating and hot and mosquito-filled, but it was nice to be back in the village, nonetheless. The end of April is wheat-harvesting time in rural Haryana, it seems, and I got to see various methods, from hand-held sickles to large tractor-combines.
Do you know the scene at the end of 'Charlotte's Web', where she has babies and then they all fly away on little strings of cobweb? Apparently this also occurs in Haryana in late April. The air was full of flying baby spiders: it was not unusual to get one in your face; to look down and notice three or four of them on you at once; to take off your hat and notice one making a web between the brim and the top. Luckily, they were incredibly tiny, and so my normal screaming terror at spiders did not engage.
We finally left to come back to Delhi on Thursday. Normally, I and the other archaeologists leave early in the morning and take the bus, as it's an annoying trip involving two or three bus changes and about five hours, though the worst part is getting through the Delhi traffic, an ordeal that gets considerably worse the closer one gets to rush hour. This involved a lot of debate, of course. Why not hire a car instead? Why not leave later? Why not wait a couple more hours? Why not leave after lunch, in fact?
We managed to compromise by leaving around noon, and- after a random stop in a random small town to buy souvenir jalebis, because I guess Delhi doesn't have sweets- we were finally on the way, and even making good time. Until the combination of a rainstorm, a driver going too fast, another driver going the wrong way on the highway, and brakes that hydroplaned created a car accident. I've never been in a real accident before, but this wasn't bad, as they go: the car didn't flip or spin or anything, and it was still drivable afterwards, if missing its headlights. Unfortunately, one of the other archaeologists got thrown into a metal bar running across the back of the seats, striking his arm. Despite the fact that the geologists were more interested in arguing with the driver and the other car over whose fault the accident was, I eventually managed to convince them to leave for a hospital now, as the injured party had gone into shock (thankfully, he got over it pretty quickly) and had a potentially broken arm. Of course, we were in the middle of nowhere, and no one was local, meaning no one knew where a nearby hospital was. We decided to head for a specific hospital in Delhi that the injured party had insurance at. This seemed like a good plan, until our driver refused to enter the city limits (Delhi is a 'National Capital Territory' and thus entering it was the equivalent of crossing state lines from where the accident had happened), requiring us to find a new driver and car on the road, and transfer the now not-in-shock man from one to the other. All in all, it took about three hours from the time of the accident until we reached the hospital. I herded away the geologists to where they were staying, and somehow managed to not yell at anyone, despite the many arguments about how to get around Delhi (note: none of them was from Delhi or had spent any significant time there), and how one guy's foot hurt (though considering he didn't want my Tylenol, I'm thinking he could have waited on the complaining until no one was in the hospital).
It all worked out in the end, as the arm turned out, luckily, to be not broken, though my friend is now on pain-killers and anti-inflammatories for a few days more, and there may be some tendon damage. Now I am enjoying the decadence of internet, hot water showers, and AC once again.
As an extra note, it turns out that X-rays in India cost the equivalent of $8, making the American medical establishment look even more corrupt and money-hungry than they already did.
* My compliant about the tap water would be that it contains hepatitis, among other things, but whenever I say that they assume I'm being a delicate flower of a foreigner, even though I know people who have gotten hepatitis from this exact tap water, I am not counting on random beliefs about 'Delhi belly', but whatever.
