Saturday, March 9, 2013

The Ride

Driving.  Easy right? Right hand side of the road, everyone obeys the rules for the most part and we all know "flow" of traffic! Not here! They drive on the left hand side if the road...the steering wheel is on the right. Typical for everywhere but the US. OK. Not so bad, right? WRONG!

You could swim in the potholes, speed humps (as they're called here) are the size of a small mountains  and the people on scooters are everywhere! Whole families on a scooter! When I think of a scooter I think...Mo-ped, but their scooters are more like small dirt bikes!

Tatum said..."I know how they control the speed and how people drive, the horrible roads and obstacles!" It's insane! I can not put into words how CRAZY these people drive! Let's say you're all the way to the right on the interstate and realize you need to make a left at the next exit and its coming up fast. These people will force their way across multiple lanes of traffic at a fairly high rate of speed with a million other cars in the way!  No signals, no fair warning! Just be ready to break!

We were sitting in traffic going to eat the other day and a man on a scooter squeezes between our car and the one in the lane next to us. I guess we weren't over to the right far enough for him because he kicked the front fender of our car! KICKED IT!! And just road on down the road!

We pulled into the Kip Mart to get some groceries. There was a man, his wife and small kid all on one of these scooters! Both parents had helmets on but the kid, a baby probably 18-24 months old was STANDING on the moms legs! I just stood there with my jaw on the ground staring in shocked disbelief! Cody looked at me and laughed asking..."you're traumatized, aren't you!?!?!" I think all I could do was shake my head!

It's impossible to describe riding in the car here, especially during rush hour. Once I figure out how, I'll try to post a good video! It's like a really bumpy roller coaster except the other riders all have to control their own ride! It's a scary, exhilarating, breath holding, close your eyes and pray adrenaline rush experience every time! With 4 kids giving you a "funny voice" play by play of everything!

And then there is Nathanial. :) Nathanial is our GPS. The kids named him. He gives pretty good directions, when we can get Mr. Droddy to listen to him! Nathanial's British accent adds to the hilarity of the experience...if he can't pronounce something, he spells it. It cracks me up...take a left in 750 meters onto Jalan T.A.B.R.A.U. Instead of saying it...Jalan Tabrau! So, while Nathanial is trying to give us directions to wherever it is we are trying to go and Cody's new motto is "if ya can't beat 'em, join 'em" and the kids are in the back having a blast, I am sitting in the passengers seat wondering...should I have taken a Xanax or something before we left! lol!

Every day continues to be an adventure and is a fun and crazy learning experience!

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