I can’t believe it. It’s my second last day in Bhutan, almost certainly my last driving and I had a crash. Worse, I can’t help but feel it was my fault.
I was taking my bike down to be boxed up for shipping and drove through the southern traffic circle where one policeman directs traffic and another one or two stand around, ready to ‘educate’ drivers who do the wrong thing. Just 5m down the hill from the circle is a pedestrian crossing and an Indian man was making his way across. Anybody else would have rushed through, perhaps giving him the horn as they did. I’ve gotten into that habit too, but today I decided it was time to set things right. Why else would there be a pedestrian crossing marked on the road if the pedestrians didn’t have right of way. Already going slow after maneouvering around the circle, I slowed and stopped, just as the pedestrian waved thanks and the bang sounded. I looked in my rear view mirror in time to see a motorbike helmet disappearing to one side.
By the time I got out of the car, a policeman was already there, seeing to the two on the bike. One looked very groggy. I waited while the policeman spoke to them in Dzongkha, then asked in a gap if the bloke was alright. The policeman turned, told me he was fine and made a gesture of dismissal.
The way my emotions are right now, I had to fight tears again. How could this have happened so close to leaving? These people don’t deserve to be hurt. It just reinforces the rule I let lapse. Never, never, NEVER try to enforce my own culture, my own view of right and wrong on someone else, especially in another culture. Technically, he was in the wrong, but he had no reason to expect that I’d stop.