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!
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