Only in Mauritius...

I drive to work everyday.
Just that would be enough for me to post entries on my blog everyday.
There are things you see on the roads in my country (yes Javed, last time I checked, I was still Mauritian), that you can't see anywhere else....

Today, I saw a 4x4 drive over the "island" separating the lanes on the motorway and merge into traffic going in the opposite direction....Ok, maybe that's forgivable, there was a huge traffic jam ahead because of an accident and I understand some people will do anything (and I mean EVERYTHING) to avoid traffic jam.

But I once saw a van stop on the right lane (the fast lane!) of the motorway and let people off right in the middle of the motorway. What was that about? Did the driver even THINK about the people driving at 120 km/hr on that lane and that stopping might cause a huge domino accident? Nooooo....he probably just thought that since he's got to stop, everybody else on the motorway should stop too! Now, let's not think about the cars coming on the left lane who might just not realize some people are getting off the van and knock them off coz that would just be too graphic for my imagination.

I've also seen a family of 4 travelling on a moped! The dad holding a kid in front of him and the mom doing the same on the back seat, kids not wearing helmets or anything! I don't think they realize just how dangerous it is to carry more than the indicated number of passengers on those thingys....I think mauritians have no clue that the indicated number of passengers allowed on those is 2 MAXIMUM!

And what about the man sitting on his moped facing oncoming traffic on the motorway this morning? I think he wanted to cross over to the other side of the motorway when all he could have done was to ride 100m up, take the roundabout and ride down the lane he wanted to cross!

Now, that's only a few examples....
Driving in MU is like an obstacle course: you gotta watch out for cars just coming out of nowhere, cars hindering traffic because hell they can, bikes, mopeds, hens and roosters, barking dogs, kids playing football (soccer!) on the streets, low branches of the trees by the road, hawkers and their wares (taking up half of the street) and of course the oh-so-many potholes along the way. And let's not get started on the bus drivers who think that since their vehicles are larger, they can pass other vehicles in any situation, even if that means oncoming traffic has to come to a complete stop. And mind you, if you are coming in the opposite direction at full speed, they'll flash their brights at you so that you stop far enough for them not having to slow down to pass the other vehicle!

If all the drivers in MU went to a driving test in any other country, I don't think half of them will get their driving licence no matter how many times they try. I got mine in Canada on the 2nd try :P
But it's true what they say: if you can drive in MU, you can drive ANYWHERE!

The first entry

Here we go, my first blog.
Ok, it's not good to start with a lie, I do have a blog on Mauritius Interactive (MI) but then it is for members only. Although it's free sign up, not a lot of people would go through the trouble, especially if they think it's for sino-mauritians exclusively (which it is NOT).

But this is exciting and the idea came from Javed.
I still do not know what I will blog about, I had trouble with the title!
But since people notice that I often refer to my years in Canada, I think I will not run out of topics to compare Canada and Mauritius.

This morning, for example, there was an accident on the motorway (we would say highway in CA) on the opposite direction and some drivers ahead of me were causing a traffic jam on this side of the road because they were slowing down to watch! Ok, maybe traffic does slow down a little bit in the opposite direction in CA, but imagine a huge traffic jam in both directions on 401 on a Thursday morning because of an accident in ONE lane? Just not thinkable. Come on people, just move on, you can read about the accident in the newspapers later on.

I just got started...