Holey moley, me, oh my.
The driving here. Oh my god. The driving. Here in Syria, the whole road and driving system is a little different than back home. Different how? Well, let's see. First of all, there are no lanes because there are no lines on the road. Even on a newly paved road, there aren't even lines to separate the left and right sides of the road. As in the line separating your line and the oncoming traffic line. On top of that, everyone has the right of way and you know it from the amount of honking that goes on. In Houston, I hear a car honk every couple days while here, not so much. I'm sitting outside right now and the longest gap between car honks that I've heard is 8 seconds. 8 seconds, guys. Even Mr. Higgins couldn't prepare me to drive here. In fact, it's a common joke that “if you can drive in Syria, you can drive anywhere!” Hilarious. A-freaking-dditionally, no one uses a seat-belt here and taxi's, the main form of transportation, don't even have seat-belts. You can image the heart attacks I've had here, being big on seat-belts and cautious driving myself. It's definitely an adventure.
Here's a little game idea my friend Geoffrey had last night over dinner-
Us: What should we do tonight?
Geoffrey: Let's go play a game down there. (Points to the road filled with honking cars) Whoever get's across the road wins. Whoever almost get's hit but dodges it gets double points. Whoever get's hit is automatically out.
So. Lahore is the exact same way. It's terrifying. Once, the traffic lights had all gone out so naturally everyone started driving the wrong ways, into oncoming traffic, etc. No big. The cars there don't have seat belts either, and eventually you just stop reaching for one. Gotta love the Middle East, huh?
ReplyDeletehahaah it's like driving with me back from college station! oh mr. hig!
ReplyDeleteWEIRDEST THING.. when i sent in that last comment that little doo-dad that i had to type in to verify that i'm a real person or whatever was "carmake"
ReplyDeleteah, the coincidences of life!
My Dad always says that about Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; he says that the goal of driving there is to get as many cars on the road as possible! Also, seat belts are overrated; school buses don't have them, ya know?
ReplyDelete