We spent quite a bit of time traveling from town to town through farming country on our bus. One constant on those narrow highways were big trucks, which always had the right of way. Another common site along those country highways or roads was ‘truck stops’. While most people in our country know what truck stops are; the truck stops in India were a bit different. They do cater to the truckers but they are still different. Truckers in India spend long hours on the road but they don’t have our style rest stops or other places to pull over and rest. They also don’t have big trucks that contain sleeping quarters inside the truck. So small restaurants cater to the truckers by providing them some space to park. They also provide the truckers with a place to take a nap and of course, provide them with food and beverages.

You can see a typical Indian truck stop in the first photo. I took this picture just a short way from the road that we were driving at the time. They have tables and chairs on the left, but they also have beds or cots for the truckers as you can see on the right side. The beds are simple structures of wood with woven strips of cut up rubber tires. I’m not sure what the purpose was for the boards on top of the beds.

Our guide said that most truck stops served complete meals but we just had some naan and tea. In the second photo you can see the guy in front making some chai tea. We had some and it was quite good. This place used buffalo milk. We also tried the naan which the two guys in back were making. You can see some dough and flour on the table to the left of them and some finished pieces on the right. They are looking into the oven to check on the naan that we ate. It was also very good.

Owning a truck was a common and popular business in India and the Indian truckers celebrated their success and good fortune. My brother Mike is in the trucking business in California so I thought I would include a truck picture that I took at this truck stop. My brother is very proud of his trucks and takes excellent care of them, but I would have to say that my brother and his crew don’t know beans about glorifying their trucks. You can find a hint of the way the Indian truckers do it in the third photo. I have to say, however, that this guy not only wouldn’t make a ‘top ten’ on the decoration scale in India, he wouldn’t even rate honorable mention. Oh this guy is okay with what he has, but many of the trucks had this much permanent decorations plus maybe double that amount in fresh flowers on their trucks. This guy was really on the skimpy side.