Smash em up Derby

Yes yes ... I know ... most of you think I'm stark, staring, raving mad for wanting to drive in Delhi! I've just come back from a morning "on the road" which has prompted me to share my thoughts on why I exactly I am so "crazy".

Before I start I do think it appropriate to mention that Dean’s been seriously considering buying a motorbike, so who’s the crazy one huh huh huh?

(Mental note to self .. check his insurance policy is paid up!)

I am trialling a new driver and his son is now ill, so I did the school run this morning. We had a really crappy day yesterday (understatement of the century) so this morning I hung round the cafe at School, a quick teary over coffee with some lovely and very supportive new friends (one of whom is an Aussie wine importer so she’s a VERY GOOD friend), then got back in the car but just wasn't ready to go home. So I found Domesteq, which turned out to be pretty easy with no map, had yet another whinge, a coconut water and gave the agency a quick update on why I was still trialling my driver after almost 2 weeks, then jumped back in the car. Still not quite ready to go home, I just drove round aimlessly and of course, while I was plotting my revenge against the landlord who is totally screwing us around AGAIN, I got lost!

But clearly I got unlost cause I'm now at home typing!

Ok so on to the crazy bit .. now I've driven in almost all the countries we've been in ... cause I admit I'm a far better driver than navigator .. hey I get bored and a lil bit squirgly in the tummy when reading a map, so I start looking out the window, and then, having not turned the map with each turn into a new road, end up having no idea where the hell I am, miss our turn .. Dean realises before I do, gets annoyed, we yell at each other and ya know it's just not worth it, so I drive. Thank god for sat navs eh?

Where was I? Oh yeah, so I've driven in Europe and the US on the wrong side of the road (on the wrong side of the car), in London, and in Barcelona too, on supposedly worst day of the year to be driving in Spain! Pretty annoyed I didn't get a chance in Cairo and I think it's even worse than here so once I've mastered Delhi ... look out Cairean drivers. No city has beaten me yet and Delhi certainly ain’t gonna be the one to do it. Don't ask me why I've got this insane urge to challenge myself - with driving of all things - but I do, I love driving, always have and.... well … it’s just that ….

I LOVE DRIVING IN DELHI!

(I don't like parking in Delhi though)

So ring the men in the white coats with those snazzy little vests that do up at the back … I simply don’t care!

Now for a few justifiable reasons ... you must understand that I've gone from having total freedom to come and go as I please in my own car in Melbourne to being dependent on a driver in Delhi. Now dependency is not in my vocabulary, hell I'm so independent I even annoy myself. So the first few days of living here saw us in schtinking hot weather, and once we'd sent our driver home that was it, holed up in our apartment ... only able to walk (in 43degrees) to the local markets and no idea, at the time, how to hail a rickshaw or for that matter how much it cost. Dean was happy to walk. We weren't. He’d acclimatised, we'd just come from 13degree Melbourne days and we were seriously melting and BIATCHING about it constantly! Emmaline flatly refused to go outside and was close to tears after about 15 minutes! I was starting to feel like a prisoner, a redfaced melted prisoner, and I didn't like it.

So, as most of you know by now, I took the bull by the horns, pushed my driver into the passenger seat one day and hit the streets .. haven't looked back and am no longer a prisoner!

Driving in Delhi is exhilarating, liberating and so much fun. Best advice I got from the divine Shawn was ... fold in your side mirrors, turn up your rear view mirror and don't look back (I'm thinking so you can't see the carnage you've left behind you!) can toot our horn to your hearts delight, squeeze between two cars if you need to, overtake from the inside OR outside lane, swap lanes like nobody's business, and zoom around like you're in a dogem car! It's so cool.

(I might however change my mind when I get stuck in a serious traffic jam and have to get really assertive but for now I'm having fun OK?)

Ok so my thoughts on the experience:

There is only one rule … and no, it’s not “close your eyes and hope for the best”! It’s .. “there are no rules” or maybe “make em up as you go” or how bout “obey traffic lights, the occasional traffic policeman (no need to be pc here, there are just no women around!) and nothing else”.

You know the rule "give way to the right and watch out for the idiot on your left?" Well ignore the first bit, remind yourself that everyone on the road is an idiot and the only thing you need to give way to is that bloody big cow heading in your direction! Cause if you hit one of those sacred but very fugly things, you better book the first flight outta here!

Roundabouts are interesting ... seems the rule is reversed to what I remember being taught on those terrifying first moments learner driving on the Kensington Road roundabout in South Australia! Hell I could do that roundabout blindfolded now ... once you've had to negotiate a roundabout with a tram running through the middle, one ten times the size and with an internal exit (Barcelona), or one with cows coming towards you or rickshaws on either side threatening to turn you into a rickshaw sandwich and children only millimetres from the kerb, you can do anything.

Same goes for “normal driving” with a donkey pulled cart heading your way completely overloaded with full gas bottles (which WOULD most definitely explode if you hit it), or traffic on the wrong side of the median strip coming your way, dogs sleeping in the middle of the road, those cute little chipmunks scurrying in front of you, or a car reversing around the corner and then down the full length of a street .. yup everything goes, I reckon if you reversed around a roundabout all day while skulling Kingfisher beer, no-one would bat an eyelid (ok maybe not that extreme but you get my drift right?!).

Once you're on the roundabout you don't seem to have absolute right of way cause if you push onto a roundabout, as you do, cars will slow down or even stop to let you in!

Indian' s don't seem to be able to reverse their cars either ... makes me look like Fangio!

I do get lots of looks, you know ... blonde woman driving in Delhi .. then a double take as they realise I'm driving a "taxi". Which I shouldn't be doing cause it's got yellow plates and not white ones. Which basically means you need a commercial licence to drive it. You know my motto "seek forgiveness, not approval?" Well that rule was created for me for specific application to “illegally driving a yellow plated taxi in Delhi”. Hello!!! I'm driverless what am I supposed to do? So my plan, in the event of being pulled over by a pOleeecyman is .... play the completely dumb innocent blonde, turn on the tears (am perfecting both while I type) whilst making up a story about my driver abandoning his post (which is actually true, only it happened 3 weeks ago!) and open my wallet and let 500 rupees accidentally on purpose fall into his hand!

Wish me luck on that one won't you?

Only for a few more days .... we have ordered our car AND have, we think, finalised 5 agonising weeks of sorting out a corporate lease (another tortuous story). So I might just have my new car next week but then again probably next month! And that way at least I can only worry about hitting cows or pedestrians!

So before I sign off on this blog and return to constructive & responsible mummy duties … I do have a little thank you to make ... to my parents for teaching me to drive when I was 16. Without their patience AND extreme bravery, I would not be here today blogging about driving in Delhi.

So, to Dad for persisting, ADbloodynauseum I might add, to teach me to reverse park and do hill starts. I am forever grateful - as I'm pretty proud of my ability to reverse park.. being a girl n all AND I can hill start a 3 tonne truck when occasion calls.

And to Mum for teaching me how to multitask while driving ... she figured that if I could do a head check, hill start, turn on the radio, apply mascara or lipstick, flick the indicator and light up a fag simultaneously (if we had mobiles back then she probably woulda had me texting someone too) then I would be a roooooly good driver ... and ya know what ..... she was right!