Andy of HoboTraveler.com has a pretty awesome and well-known blog, but one of my favorite pages of his I found hidden deep within the bowels of his content-rich (yet questionably designed) site is the guide on “How to Cross the Street.”
Crossing a street is simple enough, right? Most of us learned as children to look both ways, so what else is there to worry about? Well, that might work in your quiet hometown neighborhood, but in high-traffic cities like Delhi or Hanoi, there are many, many more things to worry about – more variables (cars, cows, goats, children, bikes, etc.) to be mindful of. You can’t just look both ways and assume the drivers (or animals) will yield.
“Find a group of slow moving people,” notes Andy, with a helpful picture illustrating the proper use of fellow pedestrians as blockers. “… a car slows down better for a group.”
On a recent trip to India, I found myself using what I learned in the guide as I made like Frogger across the busy Bombay streets. And you know what? It worked like a charm. It turns out cows make great blockers.