Walkie Talkies. Brilliant. When Turned On.
Captain Custard
A roadside breakdown is never a welcome experience, least of all when it’s raining so hard, it’s painful to stand out in it. We got
Mumbai
Auto Rickshaw 150cc
Two years after competing in the world's first auto-rickshaw rally "The Rickshaw Rampage" - an email landed in our inbox.
"Are you interested in another auto-rickshaw rally?"
"Yes. What's the plan?"
"The same as last time only in the opposite direction and a lot wetter"
"Ok will book flights"
To be clear, a "lot wetter" in India is a lot lot wetter than a lot wetter in England, in the same way that a curry is a lot lot hotter than a cheese and pickle sandwich.
Maybe on the Rickshaw Rampage we'd been lulled into a false sense of security by all that southern sunshine as nothing had prepared us for navigating our way across the India in monsoon season, in a vehicle that had no sides and a hand-operated windscreen wiper.
Welcome to Monsoon Madness. You'll never moan about drizzle ever again.
With the help of our Indian fixers, the plan this time was to cross the Indian sub-continent from Chennia on the East coast up to Mumbai on the West coast. A journey of over 2,000 kilometres before factoring in the wrong turns and road closures due to flash flooding / landslides / mudslides and other types of slides.
Navigation should be easy right? Were going East to West, right to left. And up a bit. When all is said and done just follow the setting sun. Which would have been fine if the sun was actually visible.
For the majority of the trip we were fortunate if we could see through the windscreen. To operate the wiper at the equivalent of the "super-fast" setting you needed a hand action that from a rear passenger's perspective looked suspiciously like you were pleasuring yourself.
And so, in the spirit of the original Rickshaw Rampage, teams from across the globe gravitated to India for another helping of auto-rickshaw based tomfoolery.
There is no "monsoon" setting on these wipers
We started to see the team names registering to see what we were up against.
"Mumbai Vice"
"Pirates of the Currybean"
"Smokey & The Pandit"
In the knowledge from our previous trip that there is a heavy emphasis on customising the rickshaws, Oz and Jim decided to go all out on the spec list.
Out went the standard battered yellow paint job and in came the flames, go faster stripes and fluffy seat covers.
Having settled on the team name "Iced Tea & Notorious Bhaji" we knew we had to go full pimp.
It's fair to say we went for style over substance. The DVD flip down screen with 5.1 Dolby Surround system would have been epic if you could actually hear the sound above the noise of the engine.
The ceiling-mounted disco laser light would have been a winner were it not for the vibrations so bad that no amount of Loctite could hold it in place.
The under-chassis LED lighting would have awesome if it had all the waterproofing integrity of a tissue.
BUT, the beer fridge worked. Winning.
Coconuts are bald and green, not brown and hairy.
You should never ever order a "Chicken Chettinad"
Indians can't understand one another except in English
You shouldn't swim in the hotel pool during a thunderstorm
Discover all this and more in our trip diary!
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