Driving on the Left (right/correct) Side of the Road

On Sunday I was fortunate enough to have my second chance to drive a car overseas - the first being a couple years ago in Muscat, Oman. What made this experience different was that in this case the car was a stick shift and we were driving on the left side of the road. First two disclaimers: it was a Sunday and we were, initially anyway, way outside of the Johannesburg/Pretoria area. As with most huge metropolitan areas, driving is not for the faint of heart - especially for someone adapting to a new side of the road and a new internal structure to the car - and I would not have wanted to tackle Joburg (Johannesburg) traffic during rush hour. My good friend Zanetta Jansen from the University of South Africa (UNISA) drove me about an hour outside of town to visit the Sterkfontein Caves and a museum dedicated to some of the most important findings associated with proto-humans (I'll post some pictures later). At a certain point Zanetta asked me if I wanted to drive, and it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Now, I was a complete novice to the concept so I had to acclimate myself to the inside of the car. As I said, it was a stick shift and that definitely gave me pause - the thought of shifting with my left hand certainly seemed like a recipe for disaster. Luckily, the structure was exactly the same for thw five speed - first year upper left and then going through the normal pattern and ending with reverse on the lower right - although it still felt different doing it with my offhand. It helped that the clutch, brake and accelerator were also in familar positions. There were, surprisingly, no slip-ups in shifting gears. I also didn't have have any issues with the speed limits being based in kilometers instead of miles - that is, I shifted when the engine began to labor, uh labour, a bit instead of a particular mph/kph level. Turning into the appropriate lane - again, left lanes instead of right - meant that I had to think about it as compared to just relying upon muscle memory. The biggest problem I had turned out to be a minor one - using my turn signal; it was on the opposite of the column than I was used to, although in the logical location - I kept flipping on the wipers. So, overall a success, but Zanetta was kind enough not to throw me into the chaos of Joburg on a Monday morning at 8:00 am. My biggest challenge were the taxis - not the legitimate ones, but the vans (they are called matatus in Kenya, but simply called taxis in SA - although they also refer to regular taxis as taxis) that just stop along the road to pick people up - they will start and stop at any time and place and are thus a bit of a nuisance (although a godsend to the poor folks who have no other means of public transportation). So, my summer tour of former British colonies (Zambia, South Africa and India) will get me securely used to folks driving on the left - no doubt just in time to get plowed down in the streets of Brussels as I look the wrong way for oncoming traffic.