This Week's Mystery - Trees Painted White

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One thing I love about traveling in foreign countries is that for much of the time, I have absolutely no idea what is going on.I can't speak or read the language, and in India, I can't even read the letters. I don't know what people are doing, why they're doing it, or what I should be doing. I constantly see things that I can't begin to understand or comprehend. Sometimes, I figure these situations out with a little experience and knowledge. Other times, it remains a mystery.

Each week, I will write about something I see or experience that completely baffles me. Or a simple curiosity. If anyone had any ideas about what I write about, or actual experience, feel free to leave a comment. I'll report back and update the post when or if I get any answers. And you People With a Fast Internet Connection - feel free to use that large bandwidth and those nimble fingers - you have something I only dream about when surfing the slow wifi networks at hotels and cafes on my iPad mini.

This week's mystery is actually from my first week in India.

When I was in Chandigarh, Meg and I hopped on a tourist bus that visited the city's top sites. As typical in India, the bus showed little regard for traffic rules or flow and parked right in the street, albeit next to the curb, while waiting for passengers to board. When I was getting on, I noticed that the bottom 4 feet of the trees next to the bus were painted white.

At first, I accepted this fact without further question, as I do so many things in a foreign land. But while I was sitting in my seat on the rooftop, trying to ignore the symphony of car, truck and motorbike horns in the street that was reduced to a single lane of traffic, I pondered the reason for the paint. Aesthetic? Practical? For the trees' health?

I noticed white paint on trees outside Chandigarh as well, on the trees that lined the road during the bus ride to Dharamsala a few days later. I forgot about it for my month in the mountains of Little Tibet, as I call McLeod Ganj. But when I took a night bus south to Shimla, I was reminded of the painted trees, as I saw the artificially white trees reflected in the headlights of the bus. And during this ride, I think I figured out why the bottoms of the trees are painted white.

Do you think you know? I won't give my answer quite yet - I'll hear what you have to say first, and see if my suspicion is right.

Leave your guess (or knowledge) below.

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Comments

[mumz]

hmmmm....
Could it be that since there aren't any street lights or perhaps any lines that are painted on the side of the roads that the painted bottom of trees is their way of helping people define the boundaries of the road?

[VinceandMeg]

I think so . . .
That's my guess as well Vince

[Sam]

Interesting!
Painting the lower trunk white is a common practice.Besides India I have seen it in Russia & Ukraine. Reasons - As you said it's easier to identify the trees at night by vehicles. The paint also contains an ant/insects repellent and a white painted tree tells the public that the tree belongs to the municipality and therefore cant be felled.

[VinceandMeg]

Thanks!
Thanks Sam! I'd only realized how it made the trees easier to see at night - I had no idea about the insect repellent and that seems or keeping the tree from being felled. Vince

[Susan E. Fisher]

My guess
1. To help drivers not run off the road? Or 2. It's some religious way of wishing safe journeys? Hi meg!!!!!'