The Roads of My Life (Mom: please do not read this post.)

This is why my mother cannot sleep at night:



(Mom: for the love of G-d and your sanity, do NOT watch this trailer. Or even read the rest of my post. Please.)

I take a short section of that road, National Highway 22, a.k.a. the Hindustan-Tibet Road, to and from my office every day; my office is actually located on this road. And I have taken that road between Chandigarh and Shimla 6 times (so far), and the road past Shimla to some villages for field work several other times. And to Kalpa for a fun mini-vacation weekend with Helene. In fact, I've gone the full length of the NH-22, all 459 km of it, from Ambala (Haryana) to Khab (Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh), over various trips. So yeah, pretty familiar with the good ol' NH-22, and yes I recognize sections of the road from the trailer. The crumbling piece of road at 0:53, for example, drove within inches of that just 2 days ago (yes it's still there; maintenance on this road is difficult due to the rough terrain).



I think it is unfair to call these Ice Road Truckers "today's toughest truckers." I mean, there are Indian truckers and bus drivers who take these roads EVERY DAY, and I bet they aren't nearly as afraid as these North American truckers. I, perhaps naively, have full confidence in my bus drivers. I'll admit there have been moments in which I've thought "OMG WE ARE SO CLOSE TO THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF OMG THAT TRUCK IS MILLIMETERS AWAY FROM MY BUS OMG WHY DO WE HAVE TO BE THE ONES BACKING UP AROUND A HAIRPIN TURN OMG WE ALMOST HIT THAT HERD OF GOATS OMG THIS BRIDGE HAS HOLES IN IT OMG WE ARE GOING TO DIE OMG" but those moments are not that common. Because you know what? These Indian drivers DO know what they're doing. They have experience. They know the unwritten, unspoken rules of the Himalayan roads. So I trust the bus drivers. I trust them because I have to trust them. If I didn't trust them, I'd probably live my life in fear and never leave my apartment. ...which my mother would probably consider a good thing, because then she'd have much less to worry about. (Mom, I wish you would have as much faith in these drivers as I do! Seriously, it will make your life so much less stressful.)

PS: That trailer, and probably the TV show (I've never seen it), dramatizes how dangerous/scary the Himalayan roads are. I swear, they're not nearly as bad as this trailer makes them out to be.