Crossing the Street in an Indian City

... is not for the faint of heart.  And today, my friends, I learned that I am faint of heart.

The best way I can describe it is like a real-life version of Frogger.  I really wanted to record a video of my adventure, but I decided that would be putting my life at extra risk.  

You know how in the US, drivers generally try to stay around 4-6 feet away from pedestrians?  Well, here, it's not feet, it's inches.  And it's not 4-6, it's 0.  It's like they calculate exactly where they need to be to just barely not run you over.  So you better hope you don't trip or hesitate for a second.

Also, in the US, I always assumed that if I wasn't doing anything wrong, I could safely ignore people honking their horn.  So, suffice it to say, I ignored it pretty much all of the time.  Well, here, literally anything can happen at any time.  You can have people going the wrong way down the road, pulling U-turns in the middle of the "lane," cutting across boundaries, driving on the shoulder, jumping onto and off of buses, etc.  So horns are basically constantly blowing.  You just have to determine how close they are being blown to you.  And if it is close, you better see what's going on.

This also makes it very difficult if you are looking for something because you need to be so aware of your immediate surroundings.  In fact, I was looking for something during my walk tonight.  And I didn't find it.

"But aren't there crosswalks?" you ask.  Crosswalks?  Crosswalks?!  Oh, sweet child.  So naive.

But really, this is why I'm here: to experience.  And this is part of it.  If crossing the street was not an adventure, I would have had nothing to write about tonight.