When the short but useful learners guide has mistakes you see how a whole state can start asking for your good name.
Here it's "keep quite, wait me, and if you see a mouse don't shrick"
Friday, 7 April 2017
A public announcement
*Feedback noise*
Hello, hello, hello (tentatively spoken)
*Tap tap tap*
Hello, hello
*Squeal*
Information
(Talking in Mizo)
The daily public announcement for the village.
Lifts
I get a lift in the back of a truck. It's definitely one of my favourite ways to travel, I enjoy the road over the roof of the cab, and inhale the refreshing diesel exhaust. After a while I'm the only cargo and I am invited into the cab for the 25km journey. It's just me, the driver (27) and his brothers, age 13 and 15. After a while the driver stops for a drink... The alcoholic kind, a bag of local rice spirit. He asks if I want to drive, I think about it, but reply that I don't know how. I'm not sure I can remember how to drive a car, let alone a truck. His drunk hands are probably the safer bet on the mountain roads.
The journey is tortuously slow. I feel the kilometre stones are mocking me, as the truck bounces along seeming to progress nowhere. It takes two and a half hours to cover the distance, the average speed is below 10km/h, you could run it faster. It's no fault of the driver, Mizoram really does have some of the worst roads I have seen. It's not that rural roads are exceptionally bad, it's that all the roads are bad. Local people lament the increasing duration of journeys, it's getting worse... and everything I have seen is before the monsoon. Day turns into night, at least one of the headlights works!
The journey is tortuously slow. I feel the kilometre stones are mocking me, as the truck bounces along seeming to progress nowhere. It takes two and a half hours to cover the distance, the average speed is below 10km/h, you could run it faster. It's no fault of the driver, Mizoram really does have some of the worst roads I have seen. It's not that rural roads are exceptionally bad, it's that all the roads are bad. Local people lament the increasing duration of journeys, it's getting worse... and everything I have seen is before the monsoon. Day turns into night, at least one of the headlights works!
Monday, 3 April 2017
Journeys
Rules of travelling no. 7
Before any long journey you will suddenly get sick. This coordinated assault by virus, bacteria, amoeba or protozoa inevitably leads to one conclusion. Loperamide hydrochloride, or as I like to say 'the password to India'. In my puritanical manner of travel this effect can be boosted by ceasing to eat or drink for the duration of the journey.
If you're a forward thinking person you can also pick up some dulcolax (guess)
Before any long journey you will suddenly get sick. This coordinated assault by virus, bacteria, amoeba or protozoa inevitably leads to one conclusion. Loperamide hydrochloride, or as I like to say 'the password to India'. In my puritanical manner of travel this effect can be boosted by ceasing to eat or drink for the duration of the journey.
If you're a forward thinking person you can also pick up some dulcolax (guess)
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