Leaving Patna

Woke early at dawn hoping to make it to Siliguri by the evening so that we could drive up to Darjeeling in the daytime of the 9th. Trying to load our luggage into our rickshaw, we find that the security guard, holding his rifle, is sleeping in the back seat of the rickshaw. He is out.

In a lawless town like Patna, what use is a sleeping security guard whose gun could obviously be seized from him with ease? I still have trouble comprehending a lawless Indian. I would think that common Indian courtesy would prevent a thief from waking the guard to steal the rickshaw.

The road NH 31 from Patna is good and continuous all the way to Bergusarai. There is a factory there and road maintenance seems to be a high priority. Traveling along the road, the human traffic is continuous. There is no break in buildings along this road to Bergusarai. Making it to Siliguri by night fall seems realistic as the chariot is gliding along.

Suddenly, the road disappears. It turns into a river wash with craters covering the expanse of the remaining roadway. At no point are all wheels of the chariot on a level surface. It is slow going and we are reduced to nearly 5 km/hr.

Posted at 05:00AM Jan 08, 2007 by D Bums Comments[0]