When I arrive in Chennai, my taxi driver, Arun, informs me that monsoon season may have arrived a bit early, the sheets of heavy rain blanketing our car providing some compelling evidence. Trying to peer through the windshield, the wipers of the Tata unable to dance to the quick beat of the downpour, it's hard for me to disagree. The locals seem rather unaffected, though -- one motorcyclist wears a plastic bag over his head, another's passenger holds an umbrella, shielding both riders from the wet. Indians, obviously, don't suffer from a lack of improvisation. • Get a Free Quote • Find a Local Dealer After only a mile on the road, I realize I'm in for a week of utter mayhem. The traffic is heavy, seemingly without rule, and of, well, a diverse variety. Naturally, there are the usual suspects, i.e. cars, trucks, vans, SUVs, and buses. But in India an array of other vehicles, including tuk-tuks (three-wheeled, motorized rickshaws), motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles -- all of which toot their horns and ringers as if performing Beethoven's Fifth -- transform the streets into a mosh pit of wheels. Add in throngs of pedestrians and a potpourri of on-the-loose animals -- dogs, cows, goats, and pigs, to name a few -- and what you get is a blend of traffic jam, walk-a-thon, and zoo. Making things worse, there appears to be no right of way on the road; rather, it's first come, first go, be it on two, three, or four wheels, or two or four legs. As we near the hotel in Fisherman's Cove, a lovely stretch of beach along the Bay of Bengal, the city landscape proves equally incongruous. Shacks and tents and dilapidated dwellings mix with brand-new factories and car dealerships, well-kept colleges, and pristine pharmaceutical plants. The scene looks like a tornado ripped through, scattering trash and damaging buildings, sacrificing only the ones the wealthy constructed. Arriving at FishCo, as the locals call it, I begin wondering, What will it be like to drive a $300,000 Ferrari through these towns, villages, and cities where conditions are a striking juxtaposition of future and past, first-world and third-world? Only one way to find out.