Your Most Frightening experience in India?

Language question: Is that what they are called in US? or in India? In UK we would call it a ford. Or is it something different to a ford?

For me , ford is a natural feature : somewhere you can cross , wade. I like the expression , but it has an oldish tone. Tolkien used it (The Ford of Rohan, for example) in his books. can also be used as a verb , to ford. Can you ford with a Ford ... ? methinks not , but I may be wrong there.

Aha! I thought I detected something under the surface, but I didn't realize he was actually CROSSING the river on some sort of roadway when he went off course.

I've never seen a submerged bridge like that in the U.S. Are they common in India? I saw plenty of places in Sikkim where streams/waterfalls flowed right over the road (and driving through a particularly large one of those was probably my scariest experience, so you can tell that my travels have been quite sedate), but I never ran across a place where there was an actual roadway constructed so it "flowed" UNDER the river!

Like vistet, I've always thought of a ford as a natural shallow place in the river, or possibly a place with stepping stones, where people or animals can wade/walk across.

we'd arrived in pune about 3am, our first stop on a 2 month trip round the north. we hadn't booked a hotel, and there were no spaces in every hotel we tried to get into. the rickshaw driver didn't really know where he was going, so we ended up going round in circles trying to find other hotels.

then at those big crossroads at the top of mg road, i spotted a policeman, so told the driver to stop, and i hopped out and asked him if he could help us.

after he'd given us some directions, i was walking back to the rickshaw (it was still dark at this point), when i saw this indian man limping towards us. a big bloke, he was covered in blood with his arm almost looking like it was hanging off and his eye as though it had been gauged out.

the rickshaw driver spotted him too, and shouted at me to get back into the rickshaw quickly. we managed to get away, but it was quite frightening. it was particularly that the driver was scared of him too that really got me.

Driving towards Guwahati, just south of Kaziranga, we passed through a village where everyone was running in one direction - towards a house on the edge of the village. They all looked angry and upset, many of them had big knives. A policeman pulled us over to talk to our driver and ask him to take a message to the Police station in the next town.

During the night some ULFA guerillas had come in to the village, cut the phone line and killed a man in his house. His body had just been discovered.

Many people (Indians particularly) had warned us about the terrorist activity in Assam and our wisdom in travelling there. We actually felt very safe in Assam and even went back there a couple of weeks later. Apart from the police road-blocks at night, this was our only experience of any trouble there.

How much of this incident was really terrorism and how much was a more local grudge, is hard to say. But what was really disturbing, was the apparent "everyday" nature of this shocking incident. We scanned all the Indian papers and web-sites that we could, for information about it but it appeared that this was not worth a mention and news of these sort of occurences simply doesn't get reported.

Although a truly beatiful and relaxed place, my personal shangri-la, being a stone carver, last December 26th 8.37am carrying my delerious partner from the local haspital,where she was being re-hydrated after a bad case of disentry, the doctor coming in and pulling out the variuos tubes she had plugged in to her, and tell us to run the water is comming.
The sites and sounds of mamallapuram on that day have yet to leave me in peace.
It was my ex-partners last visit to india, as she cannot surpass the fear of going again, i leave in 40 days, to live there for a year and study my chosen vocation, stupid? not sure really, tell you when i get there.

On the up, we were taken in by an NGO called Village Community Delelopement Society www.vcds.org.uk in Tinivandrum (spelling?), some of the most geniun people i have ever met, they gave us the love and caring we needed to see us through the aftermath, and send us on our way home.
Love to Aija, Marriana, Johanna, Emma we survived!

byronic what an adventure, tell me about "dacoits", driving to gwalior i remember hearing something about them, didn't pay much attention,

Ikuru, do you really look like that "Shaolin Muppet" in your avatar?

If so, then I think meeting YOU would be my most frightening experience in India...!

Fruit shop - Bengali Market - Delhi. I was there buying Sharifas (custard apples) when this Madman dressed in army camouflage duds and wearing a black balaclava canters in with some sort of machine gun. He went around the perimeter of the store pointing the gun and staring everyone down. Everybody froze. I was the only obvious ferengi there so if that's what he was looking for I was toast. Luckily he wasn't and he came and left without incident in a blitz that lasted about 30 seconds - everybody remained frozen for a good minute after that. I payed for my purchase with a 500 rupee note ...... didn't wait to collect the change.

Great story! You could be a horror writer.
But indeed the story sounds more spooky without the pics. I would like to make them a bit more dark...
LOL. What an Insult! I hapen to think I look good in that picture!

I to this day have no idea what I did but I was hauled into a sewer of a police station with my friends and screamed at for 2 hours and then thrown out the front door, I headed for the airpoet without even packing my bag let me tell you.

being kidnapped by a time share tout

my second trip abroad ever and i came to india only on my first day i was all but kidnapped by a time share tout taken to a hotel and almost forced to by a room for 15 thousand pounds upfront by a newzealander with a huge scare on his face.i got away with my life in the sence they were selling time share but it could of been worse. im not so niave now

i was about to get off a bus. i was near the window in the mid section of the bus and it had become totally packed by the time i was about to disembark so, instead of trying to drag my colourful, hand embroidered backpack through the throng i asked the woman beside me if she would pass it out the window, to me, in part hindi, english and sign language. she nodded and replied yes in hindi.
well.. after i had squeezed my way off the bus and was standing by the window where the woman now sat, she ignored me!!!! the bus had started up and was beginning to move and i was freaking yelling and banging on the bus and suddenly some other passengers got the driver to stop and yelled at the woman and i was handed my bag phew!! was i relieved. it had my passport and money in it. i wasn't so trusting after that

that was a stupid thing to do though.

I would of gotten back on the bus and given the woman a mouthful even if she didn't understand me.

My first trip to India as a little boy, I was scared the most listening to all these ghost stories about witches living in forests.