Transportation in the City

We categorize the visitors according to their noise…”quiet trains”, “helicopter trains”, “spaceship trains”.  They are felt as much as heard, shaking the walls, blasting on their horns at all hours day and night.  Strangely, they no longer disturb our sleep.  You can get used to almost anything.  Right at this moment, there is a “quiet train” going by.  Even the quiet ones shake the house a little, but they’re smooth, and this one isn’t even using its horn on this pass.  Five minutes later, here comes another train, blaring its horn twice.  And it’s a bloody spaceship train.  A long one.  Rosey is rustling a little bit, but I don’t think she’s woken up.  And right away here’s another one.  We need a name for this type…it’s not as loud as a spaceship train, and lacks the rhythmic pounding of the helicopter train.  It probably should be a “jet train” because of the way the sound changes as it flies past us.  She didn’t even stir at that one.

The 6 of us traveling to meet the in-laws made up less than a third of the people in the ACE Magic.  The most impressive part wasn’t that 20 people were traveling in a car smaller than most American SUVs, but that two of those twenty were sitting on the window of the open car door as it hung out into traffic.  Now that’s how you get a long ride down to 10 rupees a head.   Of course, that’s also how you get passed by a horse when traveling uphill….

Speaking of horses, this city may have more forms of transport than any other on Earth.  Just within the few hundred feet outside my window, I’m aware of:

Old fossil fuel-burning trains, electric trains on the same rails, and modern light-rail on their own tracks.

Buses of all types, small semi-buses called “Maxi-cabs”, and those Magics I mentioned above.

More unique varieties of cargo trucks than I’ve seen anywhere.

All types of passenger SUVs, vans, trucks, cars, etc.

Three-wheeled vehicles the size of passenger cars.

All types of motorcycles, tons of bicycles, and even a few hand-pedal powered carts.

Bicycle rickshaws and “auto-rickshaws” that are gas-powered.

Tractor-pulled carts, every kind of bicycle-pulled cart you can imagine, and even human-pulled carts.

Horse-pulled carts, ox-pulled carts (usually big Brahmans), and water buffalo-pulled carts.

Riders on horseback, and tiny ponies carrying loads (and even people!) on their backs.

Pedestrians.

There are probably more things that I forgot.  The best part is that all of these (other than the trains) are sharing the same road at the same time.  Today we watched in awe as a horse charged down the street at full speed while pulling a cart.  The man with the reigns stood upright in the cart, urging it to go faster, like an extra from “Ben Hur” escaped into the 21^st century.  Bicycles, pedestrians, motorcycles, autorickshaws, and passengers cars did their best to keep from being trampled.