Back from India - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Mark DiSilvestro · #16 04-04-2010, 07:25 AM

If one tacked a Mercedes grill onto one of the Austin/Morris/Hindustans, it would very much resemble one of the smaller '50s Mercedes Pontons.
Another Indian vehicle was the Bajal - a copy of a small three-wheel Vespa delivery-truck. They sold a few of those here in the '80s. I remember seeing one in use as a service-vehicle for a local apartment complex.
The body was an exact copy - right down to the stamped-recess in the nose for the Italian Vespa's Piaggio badge - but without the badge!

Happy Motoring, Mark

kerry · #17 04-04-2010, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark DiSilvestro

Another Indian vehicle was the Bajal - a copy of a small three-wheel Vespa delivery-truck. They sold a few of those here in the '80s. I remember seeing one in use as a service-vehicle for a local apartment complex.
The body was an exact copy - right down to the stamped-recess in the nose for the Italian Vespa's Piaggio badge - but without the badge!

Happy Motoring, Mark

Yes, tons of those too. I didn't realize those were copies of Vespas. So is the only Indian designed non-knockoff vehicle they produce the auto-rickshaw?

t walgamuth · #18 04-04-2010, 09:19 AM

Glad you made your connection and had a great time. I am waiting to read your travelogue....

kerry · #19 04-04-2010, 10:06 AM

Tom, no way I can write a travelogue like you but I can add some additional thoughts.
We arrived in the Delhi airport at 845pm, one day behind the rest of our tour which had already moved on to Agra so we had to drive directly to Agra after landing. 240 kilometers. We arrived in Agra at 4am.
India is a shock to the system. Delhi is undergoing lots of construction since they are trying to complete a Metro system in time for the Commonwealth Games. There is dust everywhere. Cars parked beside the road were covered in a thick layer of dusts. Stalls selling fruits, eggs, etc were lined up along the road still open at 10pm selling their wares in clouds of dust. Roads were totally jam packed and a cacophany of car horns provided some kind of coded information to the driver that I was never able to fully understand. Periodically, a person would be lying sleeping inches from the road, slowly being covered up by dust. The more fortunate slept on raised wooden platforms. The less, on dirt. The entrances to 'housing developments' from the road were typically fenced off with heavy metal gates.
We dropped off our English speaking guide who had picked us up at the airport at one of these gates and the driver headed off thru the city towards Agra. About halfway there, the driver indicated in broken English that since the hotel restaurant would be closed when we arrived he would pull over for us to get something to eat. It was roughly equivalent to a truck stop. Dirt floor, plastic chairs, bright lights, cooler with soft drinks and a stove with lots of simmering pots. It was about 1am and lots of Indian families were sitting around eating. None of us had the courage to partake. Probably wisely in retrospect.
By the time we reached Agra about 330am the roadside stands were closed up but the stunning poverty was obvious. The roads were lined with pedicabs and the unfortunate drivers were sleeping in/on them. Hundreds lined the streets with the drivers either all curled up on the small seat or their heads on the seats and their feet on the saddle. They were slightly higher up in the hierarchy than those laying on thin blankets all over the sidewalks. We wound thru the streets of Agra to a large walled compound which held our hotel. We entered thru a heavy steel gate, behind which was a hinged barrier manned by guards with automatic weapons. After about a 5 minute inspection which included mirrors looking under the truck, close analysis of the driver's credentials, and pictures of all passengers, the barrier was raised and we were let into the hotel compound Upon reaching the main door, our bags were removed and sent thru a scanner. We had to walk thru a metal detector and be patted down in a body search. Such was our introduction to India. It would not get better.

My current conclusions from the experience are very similar to the ones I drew when visiting South America in 1975. Being the kind of person interested in intellectual systems of thought and their social implications, I ended up concluding in 1975 that traditional Catholicism and Protestant missionary Christianity in South America both produced odious social systems incompatible with anything close to what I considered to be a just social system. Similarly India. A cultural system which produces and tolerates such widespread and brutal poverty in the midst of wealth, has little to be admired.

t walgamuth · #20 04-04-2010, 11:48 AM

Your observations confirm what I would have predicted about India. I really don't want to visit there. There are sights in South America I would love to see but probably won't since the access to Maccu Piccu involves a lot of walking which is out of the question now with my bad knee.

My visit to Morrocco in '73 was enough poverty to observe for a lifetime.....and India sounds like it makes Morrocco seem like the US.

Thanks for the write up.

Is there more coming? I assume you were out in the boonies crawling over rocks with a huge mb four wheel drive motor home?

Mark DiSilvestro · #21 04-04-2010, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

Your observations confirm what I would have predicted about India. I really don't want to visit there. There are sights in South America I would love to see but probably won't since the access to Maccu Piccu involves a lot of walking which is out of the question now with my bad knee.

My visit to Morrocco in '73 was enough poverty to observe for a lifetime.....and India sounds like it makes Morrocco seem like the US.

Thanks for the write up.

Is there more coming? I assume you were out in the boonies crawling over rocks with a huge mb four wheel drive motor home?

With your fleet of stickshift vehicles, I hope it's not your clutch-knee tht's giving you trouble!

Happy Motoring, Mark

t walgamuth · #22 04-04-2010, 01:57 PM

Unfortunately it is the left foot. I think my big dodge may have been the last straw with my knee!

On this vacation trip i experimented with shifting without the clutch and right foot clutching....

I don't recommend the right foot thing.

I am considering a dual disc conversion of my truck clutch though.

tonkovich · #23 04-04-2010, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

Tom, no way I can write a travelogue like you but I can add some additional thoughts.
We arrived in the Delhi airport at 845pm, one day behind the rest of our tour which had already moved on to Agra so we had to drive directly to Agra after landing. 240 kilometers. We arrived in Agra at 4am.
India is a shock to the system. Delhi is undergoing lots of construction since they are trying to complete a Metro system in time for the Commonwealth Games. There is dust everywhere. Cars parked beside the road were covered in a thick layer of dusts. Stalls selling fruits, eggs, etc were lined up along the road still open at 10pm selling their wares in clouds of dust. Roads were totally jam packed and a cacophany of car horns provided some kind of coded information to the driver that I was never able to fully understand. Periodically, a person would be lying sleeping inches from the road, slowly being covered up by dust. The more fortunate slept on raised wooden platforms. The less, on dirt. The entrances to 'housing developments' from the road were typically fenced off with heavy metal gates.
We dropped off our English speaking guide who had picked us up at the airport at one of these gates and the driver headed off thru the city towards Agra. About halfway there, the driver indicated in broken English that since the hotel restaurant would be closed when we arrived he would pull over for us to get something to eat. It was roughly equivalent to a truck stop. Dirt floor, plastic chairs, bright lights, cooler with soft drinks and a stove with lots of simmering pots. It was about 1am and lots of Indian families were sitting around eating. None of us had the courage to partake. Probably wisely in retrospect.
By the time we reached Agra about 330am the roadside stands were closed up but the stunning poverty was obvious. The roads were lined with pedicabs and the unfortunate drivers were sleeping in/on them. Hundreds lined the streets with the drivers either all curled up on the small seat or their heads on the seats and their feet on the saddle. They were slightly higher up in the hierarchy than those laying on thin blankets all over the sidewalks. We wound thru the streets of Agra to a large walled compound which held our hotel. We entered thru a heavy steel gate, behind which was a hinged barrier manned by guards with automatic weapons. After about a 5 minute inspection which included mirrors looking under the truck, close analysis of the driver's credentials, and pictures of all passengers, the barrier was raised and we were let into the hotel compound Upon reaching the main door, our bags were removed and sent thru a scanner. We had to walk thru a metal detector and be patted down in a body search. Such was our introduction to India. It would not get better.

My current conclusions from the experience are very similar to the ones I drew when visiting South America in 1975. Being the kind of person interested in intellectual systems of thought and their social implications, I ended up concluding in 1975 that traditional Catholicism and Protestant missionary Christianity in South America both produced odious social systems incompatible with anything close to what I considered to be a just social system. Similarly India. A cultural system which produces and tolerates such widespread and brutal poverty in the midst of wealth, has little to be admired.

sad but true.

(and well said)

cmac2012 · #24 04-04-2010, 02:58 PM

Great reads. One of my best friends says that even with all the chaos he never feels quite so alive as when he's in India. Not sure if I'd share that feeling but I'd like to go someday.

I use to always want a Matchless 500cc single cylinder but there were never that many of them in existance, I don't think. I did have a BSA Victor back around '73 - a 441cc single. Lotta torque. Fun to drive.

Hard to imagine the life of driving a pedi-cab all day and sleeping in it at night. Probably the only way to keep it from getting stolen.

But as far as the society allowing such poverty, could be that when sheer numbers/density gets that far along, nothing can be done about it.

kerry · #25 04-04-2010, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Great reads. One of my best friends says that even with all the chaos he never feels quite so alive as when he's in India. Not sure if I'd share that feeling but I'd like to go someday.

I use to always want a Matchless 500cc single cylinder but there were never that many of them in existance, I don't think. I did have a BSA Victor back around '73 - a 441cc single. Lotta torque. Fun to drive.

Hard to imagine the life of driving a pedi-cab all day and sleeping in it at night. Probably the only way to keep it from getting stolen.

But as far as the society allowing such poverty, could be that when sheer numbers/density gets that far along, nothing can be done about it.

I agree that there is a sense of vitality associated with so many people moving in such tight places.
Not sure I agree on the poverty issue, at least with some portion of it. It seems that basic sanitation could be provided for everyone with relatively little expense. 65 million Indians **** on the ground every day. Looking out of our expensive hotel room in Delhi on to the abandoned lot next door, one could always observe at least 5 people taking a **** at any given time. Driving down the road, it was routine to see guys taking leaks everywhere.

Being a canoeist/water/river guy, the thing that disturbed me the most was the condition of Indian waters. I saw no river, stream, or puddle that was not a cesspool. The Yamuna river which flows directly in front of the Taj Mahal can be smelt from quite a distance. It is nothing but a seething moving cesspool in which kids play and adults bathe. Even at our hotel which was over a mile away the smell of sewage filled the air. The tributaries of the river running thru the town are nothing but glaciers of garbage which instead of sliding downstream on their own melt, are greased along by the slowly slithering human excrement moving at their base. Imagine your own town with no garbage pick up, no enclosed sewers and no water treatment plants. Your trash would migrate from your house into the open sewer gutter running directly in front. If you were lucky, the gutter would have some stone covering so you wouldn't have to walk thru it or directly over it. The trash would slowly float down your street towards the nearest tributary of the nearest river. At that tributary it would eventually consolidate into a feet thick giant glacier of trash inching its way down the landscape towards the river. At it's leading edge, sections would calve off, floating on the black water towards the next obstacle where it would await the monsoon rains hoping to be flushed downstream.

cmac2012 · #26 04-04-2010, 06:02 PM

huhhh-WORRRRRPPP! (sound of losing lunch)

That is a staggeringly bad scenario. Seems like with such a broad agricultural base, and a relative comfort with human waste, some sort of sewage treatment system (with sewers of some kind) could be useful to produce fertilizer. But of course, the dang unconscious fools would also fill the sewers with motor oil and all manner of other sorts of waste.

This is not an encouraging appraisal of the human race, I hate to say.

BTW, what was the purpose of your trip?

Mr.Kenny · #27 04-05-2010, 11:21 AM

This description fits nicely into the topic i started a coupla months ago... "What so other countries smell like". Now i have an Idea what Indian cities smell like ....

MercFan · #28 04-05-2010, 12:39 PM

Kerry - did you learn any new interesting facts about the region from your travel companion (the world historian)?! Just curious...

kerry · #29 04-05-2010, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MercFan

Kerry - did you learn any new interesting facts about the region from your travel companion (the world historian)?! Just curious...

It was like having a personal historical tour guide. We visited lots of Mughal forts and palaces. He knew everything about them and could tell us about their invasion routes, their policies in India etc. We had lots of discussions about the imperial history of India, especially the British control. At their peak, the Brits only had 400k(? maybe 200k) people in India yet controlled the whole subcontinent.

t walgamuth · #30 04-05-2010, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

huhhh-WORRRRRPPP! (sound of losing lunch)

That is a staggeringly bad scenario. Seems like with such a broad agricultural base, and a relative comfort with human waste, some sort of sewage treatment system (with sewers of some kind) could be useful to produce fertilizer. But of course, the dang unconscious fools would also fill the sewers with motor oil and all manner of other sorts of waste.

This is not an encouraging appraisal of the human race, I hate to say.

BTW, what was the purpose of your trip?

When your kids are starving you will do about anything.