India was really good. Food with more flavour options than the only three available in Japan (BBQ sauce flavour, mayonnaise flavour and BBQ sauce and mayonnaise flavour) was very welcome. A string of near death experiences on the roads of Bombay and Pune was not, but i survived. Indian drivers do not turn their headlights on high beam when driving along dark roads (i think they think it uses too much petrol or something like that). However, they do turn the high beam on when they come within 50m of another car, presumably to "say hello". What better way to greet your fellow drivers than to temporarily blind them with your headlights. Of course there are alternatives, such as sounding the horn very loudly, many times (in India, the horn is by far the most important part of the car. A rusty old moris minor with a bright, shiny new miniature fog horn attached to the drivers door is an image which inspires awe, not mirth, in indian society).
One rickshaw driver in whose vehicle we had the good fortune to ride realised that the use of the conventional brakes kept stalling the engine and devised a cunning alternative: he stopped the vehicle simply by ramming into the car in front. After several hundred stops like this in the evening peak hour, we were suitably "impressed" with his ingenuity. The wedding was good too - i got to see all the cousins, and the uncles and aunties who all told me how much i've grown since they saw me last. Anyway, it's all in the photos page.
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