You can watch my videos here (and on You Tube), read previous posts, and still won’t be prepared for both the roads and sights. Despite aching backs, necks, stiffness and numb butts from extremely long driving days, we wouldn’t change a minute of the time spent driving through India. The sights of India are so diverse throughout the country and are both a photographer’s and tourist’s dream. There is always, without exception, something new and interesting to see.

There are different crops like tobacco and cotton fields in Orissa, once the backbone of America’s southern economy and after seeing acres and acres of cotton fields, ex-Marine and I hummed “Dixie” …Oh…I wish I was in the land of cotton… for the rest of the trip….

I never got sick of watching the people working in the rice paddies. Water buffalos attached to yokes, standing calf deep in the oozy mud preparing the paddies, bending over all day and planting the new rice shoot-by-shoot.

preparing the rice paddy for a new crop, Orissa, India 

planting the new crop of rice in Orissa, India
The top-heavy trucks…View image, buses, jeeps, bicycles that sometimes have to be pushed because the loads make them too heavy to pedal…View image, and bales of hay piled high into the air…View image. Motorcycles usually had more than one person riding, usually perched precariously on back…View image, rickshaws and jeeps filled to bursting with people inside, outside, on top and hanging off the back. I snapped photo after photo, thinking each time that no way could they possibly get more in a jeep and then we’d pass another one, even more heavily laden. It’s a marvel they don’t overturn! And the goods inside and on them. A truck filled with chickens…View image, buffalo manure…View image, bicycles with aluminum pots strung all over…View image.

riding on top of the jeep, India 

people and goods both inside and outside, India 

people hanging off the back of a jeep, India
We crossed dilapidated wooden bridges that looked as if they were going to collapse any minute…View image, drove by a man high in a Sago Palm collecting the sweeet sap to make wine…View image, and a cow herder wearing a traditional, straw hat (seen just in this one area).

a traditional Orissan hat, India
Monkeys, decorated wedding procession cars…View image, flowering trees, egrets and children washing along the road.

washing up at the well in India
And then there was the city traffic. The only place that even comes close would be Rome, Italy. The constant din, horn blowing, and no such thing as staying in your designated lane. Instead, rickshaws, buses, autos, trucks, bicyclists and motorcycles make their own lanes, jockeying for position while pedestrians bravely cross the roads. Vehicular traffic rarely stops when careening around corners. Try to cross with locals directly on the car side and move it across that street or you’ll be another statistic!

Kolkata, India automobile safety instructions that they ignore
This is the real India. Don’t miss it!

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