Driving...

Okay, I tried to get these photos in order, but that's just so hard to do with Blogger. Anyways, this is what I experienced when I drove Marc and Kaya to preschool this week. Driving here is soooo crazy. By the time I reached the preschool, I was shaking... First we drove up the road from our house (photo with mountain in background). That road gets kind of crazy further up, the potholes are huge. Then I took the "short cut" down the hill. At the bottom you have to go through a river (photo number 4). But, before we could even get to the river, we had to squeeze by the little black pick-up truck (photo 6) that had a front wheel broken off. They were in the process of unloading all the bricks out of the back end when we arrived on the scene. Then they tried to push it forward which of course doesn't work with a wheel that is separating from the axle. Then they picked up the back end and swung it over a bit. Then we could just squeeze by with literally inches to spare. Then we went throught the river and turned onto the road in photo 6. As you can see they have decided to widen the road. So there is a very narrow path to drive on and as you go further you are driving between the tar fire and the guys arranging the gravel nicely by hand. Then we passed by the door-to-door vegetable truck (photo 5). Had to squeeze by him and then we had to squeeze inbetween an old rusty oil barrel and some bamboo poles before we could turn onto the main road. After briefly driving on the main road, we had to turn onto the incredibly skinny road in photo 8. We passed by quite a few people on that road and I prayed I wouldn't run over anyone's toes as we passed by. Finally after turning onto another equally skinny road we had reached our destination. I dropped off the kids and started the drive home. Going home we go a different way because then we are going the right way in order to cross the temporary bridge (it's one way for cars). The "entrance" to the bridge is photo 3. All these vehicles and motorbikes converge and have to make their way across the bridge (photo 1) while watching out for motorbikes going the other way. Then once you're across and you've driven up the bank, we turn onto our road. Our road is a mass of potholes and bumps. I rarely make it out of second gear.

Things about driving we've just gotten used to:

• passing oncoming traffic with just inches to spare
• liberally using car or motorbike horn
• avoiding potholes, oncoming traffic, motorbikes and pedestrians all at the same time
• rarely going over 40 km an hour, usual speed: 20 km per hour
• watching for motorbikes trying to pass you on the inside even though you're making a right hand turn (like a left-hand turn back home)-crazy how often that happens

The other day some guys were filling some of the potholes on our road. As you pass by them you are expected to put some money in the card board box being held by one of the guys. I'm not sure if they just decided to fix the road on their own and make some money doing it or if they are told to do it.