Update for the last week or so:

Between poor or no internet connection, and assorted chores, and just plain old inertia, I haven’t posted much.

And, I’ve been a bit short on stuff that I really wanted to write about:  The Taj Mahal was pretty, the national park had birds – lots of birds, big birds, little birds, many colors of birds.  The fort was big – really, really big.  The historical stuff has been a challenge for me – I know little or nothing of Indian history, so stuff like the fort doesn’t fit into a framework like the European historical sites do.

Lots of friendly kids, and adults that wave and shout “good morning”.  Surprisingly, if you stop and talk to them, despite the “good morning”, few speak English.  And, despite the friendly waves from most, the proportion of obscene gestures, aggressive moves with cars and trucks, occasional swings of a stick seem higher than other places I’ve been.

Then, there is the strangenesses:  Driving here is done by audio, not sight.  The traffic chaos is such that you don’t dare look anywhere but ahead.  A glance in a mirror would be a huge challenge with all that is happening in front of you.  So, everybody honks and honks and honks, and I’ve gradually learned that when I can’t look back, or to the side, the beeps are how I tell where everybody else is.  Unfortunately, I still haven’t learned to differentiate the honks:  Hi, I’m here, don’t swerve.  Or, I’d like to pass.  Or, get the hell out of my way, you’re too slow and I want to get by.  Or, nobody is moving in this traffic scrum, and I’m just pissed at the world, so I’ll lean on my horn.  (The trucks all have big signs on the back:  “Blow Horn” or “Horn, please.”)  And, the behaviors learned in the city are taken out into the countryside and people blow their horns when there is only one other vehicle within 10 miles.  I kinda wish I was totally deaf.

I’m getting in some interesting training for criterium racing:  high speeds with small gaps appearing and disappearing, squeezing through between a bus, a truck, and a couple motos – well, I’ll never fear going head to head in a bunch sprint again.

Fortunately, with all this traffic chaos (and danger), we’ve only had one guy run over by a truck so far.  Unfortunately, injured bad enough to have to go home.

The last few days have been dead flat riding, and I’m looking forward to getting a little climbing in tomorrow.

It’s disheartening to see the environmental destruction by trash that gets thrown everywhere.  The advent of bottled water might have had some virtue in making clean water available (especially for paranoid tourists), but plastic bottles and bags are everywhere.  Along with the more traditional garbage – at least the organic stuff feeds the dogs, cows, and pigs that are everywhere.  Although, judging by the ribs showing, there isn’t enough edible garbage to go around.

We’re in the desert now, and finally have left much of the smog and thick air behind for the present, but it’s getting progressively hotter.

There are some smooth roads, but they are a minority.  100 km on a mix of bumpy, broken asphalt, sand, bumpy rocky dirt roads – that makes a long day.

The whole noise, smoke, smog, chaotic traffic, garbage, feral animals, insane electric wiring, people who are living barely on the edge of survival – it presents a very depressing and dystopian picture.  The question that I have is:  Is this the undeveloped past, with potential for economic advancement that will gradually pull even the poor of India into a cleaner, less polluted, and more livable future.  Or, is this the dystopian future (think Mad Max) where wider and wider wealth inequality drives more and more humans into an existence where there is neither the means nor the will to do something as simple as cleaning the trash off the roads, or smoothing the roads, and so society spirals down into the 1% living well, and the 99% living in squalor and with no survival  option but to be pushy and nasty and brutish.

Have a happy day.