They said it couldn’t be done…

They said it shouldn’t be done…

But, we did it!!!!

WE FINISHED!!!!!!

HOLY COW!!!!!!!!!!!

What a journey.

As the organizers like to say, the Rickshaw Run is “Easily the least sensible thing you can do with two weeks.”  (and perhaps the most amazing)

Imagine a two week long, 10-12 hour a day rollercoaster, which you are steering, and the exhilaration comes from almost infinite, unpredictable and constantly changing variables (most of them mindboggling and positive).

That’s a little bit (little bit) of what it feels like to steer a tin capsule 3,000 kilometers from the north to the south of India in less than 2 weeks.

A big thank you to all of who are still reading this.

We raised enough money to put 10 young Indian women through college for a year, so a big thank you to all those who donated – you have directly helped to positively change lives.

And finally, a big, BIG thank you to India.

The people here have been incredibly welcoming, kind, gracious, polite, enthusiastic to meet us and helpful (almost to a fault (if such a thing is possible)).

I honestly can’t tell you how many times people came to our rescue and helped us when we were otherwise doomed (10x more than I wrote about).

I have many, many amazing and funny stories about how they helped us and “un-doomed” us, which hopefully one day I can share.

Our ridiculously amazing journey was capped off this morning by watching the sunrise on a 3 kilometer long beach that you can drive on (see below).

While we were watching the sunrise and taking photos on the beach, we got to play a little cricket with some local teenagers (see below).

Words cannot begin to do this whole experience justice…

 

This… is not easy.

So far, we have traveled just over 2,000 kilometers in a tin capsule powered by a lawnmower.

We wake up between 5am and 6am every morning and drive as far as we can until about 6pm.

Breakfast is typically some toast and a banana on the road while you’re driving.

Lunch is typically a stop at one of the road side samosa stands, some coconut water, a few bananas, water then back on the road.

By around 9:30-10:00 at night, we usually look like Ren and Stimpy. And I am most definitely starting to lose it.

The other day, while I was driving, Eric was in the backseat and he screamed, “You just did a head wobble!”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes! Yes, you did. I asked you if you wanted some water and you did a head wobble and said yes.”

“No way, dude.”

“I saw it!”

“Don’t tell anyone, man.”

 

Despite the challenges, the people of India have been amazing – so incredibly friendly and welcoming. They have been one of the main highlights of the journey.

The other night, we were having dinner and a young guy was celebrating his birthday with his girlfriend. Completely unprompted, he came over to our table and gave us each a piece of his birthday cake.

Indians are also strangely fond of having their picture with us. Us.

Perhaps we appear to be some form of alien V.I.P. (Very Interesting & Peculiar – certainly not very important).

Especially in the north and in the middle of India, getting a selfie with (or a photo of) the alien cosmonauts of spaceship “Ro-ghee Naan” seemed to be a kind of sport.

We are regularly asked at temples for selfies (so I have decided to have a little fun and bust out my spikey ‘Mad Max’ goggles for photos and selfies, which they love).

The other day, we were flagged down by a family of 7 or 8 (who were all packed into a single tuk tuk). They had pulled over ahead of us on the highway and tried to flag us down for us for a photo (sadly, we couldn’t stop).

When we were leaving the Gol Gumbaz mausoleum in Vijayapura, we actually got into a high-speed chase with 2 young kids in a tuk tuk. For 3 kilometers, they pulled up along side us, pulled over in front of us. They tried everything. We tried to signal that we had no time (we still had to drive hours to our hotel), but they were desperate to bag a shot of our little freak show.

Below are just a few of the selfies and photos of the many amazing people who have welcomed us (with big smiles) to their incredible country…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before we left, a lot of people offered their advice (both solicited and unsolicited).

One guy I spoke to simply said, “A friend of mine went to India for two months. He had ‘stomach problems’ for the first three weeks.”

That was it. No lesson learned. No sage advice on how to avoid said unfavorable fate. No guidance. No ‘moral of the story’. He provided me with that simple statement of fact and nothing else.

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to say ‘thank you’ or not, so we each went our separate ways in awkward silence.

Through a strange combination of (a) boredom and (b) the realization that this ‘word’ might be a part of my vocabulary through these weeks, I wanted to find some helpful variations. So I went to thesaurus.com and found the following synonyms (no joke): backdoor trots, flux, summer complaint and tourista.

This morning, one of us may (or may not) have been in a state of ‘flux’. I’m not saying who, but his name may (or may not) rhyme with ka-blewy.

When things worked themselves out and we got on the road, we had our first encounter with… the police.

Whoops.

The organizers of the Rickshaw Run (aptly named “The Adventurists”) issued everyone a very “official” plastic laminated “Operator Driver License” which certifies nothing and provides the following useful information for the Indian authorities:

DLN: Auto Rickshaw/Lawnmower

Date of Birth: None of your business

Height: Some

Weight: More

Hair: Maybe

Eyes: Two

Sex: Please

We reached a fork in the road and had to turn right, but there was a serious looking police officer in a tan uniform standing roadside who pulled us and one other car over.

When he approached the other car, he said something about seatbelts.

Seatbelts?!

Oh man. How are we going to get out of this? We don’t have seatbelts. We don’t even have doors. We don’t have even sides!

While one police officer questioned the other car about not wearing seatbelts, I handed both my real license and my “Adventurist Operator License” to our police officer.

He looked at them for about a second, handed them back and asked us what we were doing.

He seemed a bit bemused and confused that we would want to drive a tuk tuk 3,000 kilometers down the entirety of India, but he let us go.

We literally got a few hundred yards down the road before another officer pulled us over!

This time we were prepared.

“Eric, quick. Get the camera. Take a picture while I hand him my “Adventurist Operator Driver License”.

The police officer (dressed in a very clean, formal white uniform) approached the vehicle. Fully ready, I tried to hand him my ‘plastic license’.

He pushed it away (another missed photo).

I tried to give him my real license.

He pushed that one away too.

He refused to see my license. Any license!

He just wanted to take a photograph with us!

Before we knew it, there were five of these white uniformed police officers surrounding our tuk tuk waiting to get a photograph with us.

If you were driving a glorified lawnmower across the Interstate highways of say Texas (or Switzerland or Australia) and a Texas Ranger pulled you over… Wait. Restart.

You wouldn’t make 100 yards.

When the Texas Ranger (complete with aviator sunglasses, big ole cowboy hat, gun and “I’m gonna eat you for breakfast strut”) pulled you over, the last thing that would happen is that he would refuse to see your license and then ask to take a photo with you.

The Toyota sedan (an actual car) next to us at the first officer was pulled over because they weren’t wearing seatbelts. And yet, the police were more interested in talking to us about our 3,000 kilometer journey in a tuk tuk.

This might be one of the only countries in the world where you could have a Rickshaw Run – and it’s amazing.

“When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.” (Unless you’re in India.)

“In India, you don’t drive on the left of the road, you drive on what is left on the road.”

Driving in India is like a colorful parade or a circus (more like a circus).

Almost every kind of vehicle decorates itself in some way. Tractors have strings of marigold flowers. Trucks typically have an explosion of colors, patterns, designs and slogans wishing well for both driver and cargo.

The only type of vehicle that does not decorate itself (nor even wash itself) is, of course, the almighty and all crazy… bus.

Buses in India are driven by people who clearly subscribe to the theory of reincarnation and the idea that, well, if it doesn’t work out in this life… I’ll just figure it out in the next life.

I would like to read the mind of an Indian bus driver (not for too long) to learn how what his idea of a “road” is. I think it would be something like this…

“Road” is a vast, wide-open space (with some annoying, small and slow moving objects that occasionally get in my way (ie trucks, cars and tuk tuks)) that enables me to deliver large quantities of petrified people to arbitrary locations on a daily basis.

Eric likes to think of the vehicles on the roads of India as dinosaurs.

Bus is Tyrannosaurus Rex    (the undisputed king of dinosaurs)

Truck is Stegosaurus    (they kind of lumber along and, apparently, Stegosaurus used to supplement its diet by eating rocks, which makes sense)

SUVs are Velociraptors    (quick, darting and vicious)

Tuk tuks… well, to be honest you don’t see many tuk tuks on the open roads of India.

Now that we have horn back, we are more like a yapping little Chihuahua, than any kind of dinosaur.

We beep at every possible opportunity to make sure the lumbering dinosaurs of the road see us. When they do, they typically look down at us with either the immense annoyance of a big dog looking down at a yapping Chihuahua or… “What the heck is that…?”

Throughout our journey, we keep randomly running into one of the other teams of Rickshaw Runners. Their name, and it’s up to you to interpret what it means (I certainly don’t know), is… “Dumb for Good”.

We first ran into “Dumb for Good” at the Ellora Caves (which are a series of Buddhist and Hindu temples that were carved (by hand) into the side of a mountain over hundreds of years (see below)).

The “leader” of “Dumb for Good” is a 50 year-old dude from southern California (definitely a surfer) who wears flowing white clothes. His sidekicks are 2 guys in their early 20s (who we think are the sons of one of his friends).

When Eric spoke to said leader of “Dumb for Good” at the Ellora Caves, they compared notes on various things…

Eric: “How fast do you guys usually go?”

Dude: “I don’t know, man. I just listen for the hum of the engine.”

Eric: “Have you had any interesting experiences?”

Dude: “Yeah. Yeah. We were driving at high speed and there was a 2 ½ foot gap in the road. Man, we thought we thought we were goners for sure, but we cleared it. Pretty scary…”

Eric: “Which route have you taken?”

Dude: “Well… Initially, we just had a compass, but then we realized we probably needed a map.”

A compass???!!!

They were trying to navigate 3,000 kilometers of India in a tuk tuk with nothing but the sun and a compass!!!!

That’s outrageous!!!!

If you look at a map of India, it looks a giant plate of spaghetti the size of… India!!

The second encounter with “Dumb for Good” was 2 days later at the Gol Gumbaz mosque (whose giant dome is only 5 meters smaller than St. Peters in Rome and which was, at one time in history, the largest building in the world (see below)).

Eric saw one of them near their tuk tuk, “Hey, man. How are you?”

He looked at Eric, confused, “Do I know you?”

“Um… Yeah. We saw each other two days ago at the Ellora Caves…”

I hope they make it.

 

 

 

 

 

The big problem of traveling in India is that if you don’t have your camera on at all times, you miss 99% of the available amazing photographs.

So many strange, wild, weird and wonderful things are happening all the time… (You see holy men who look like they’ve been walking the roads of India for a 1,000 years, women in beautiful saris walking at a steady pace while perfectly balancing all sorts of things on their heads).

The other day, we drove our tuk tuk (slowly and carefully) through a herd of about 30 long-horn bulls walking towards us down the middle of the road in a village.

We recently passed an incredibly picturesque little village in which each home was a perfect little adobe hut with thatched roofs and a shaded front porch. In front of one these huts, a little boy had propped the back wheel of his antique bicycle off the ground on two bricks and was happily peddling away on his exercise bike – who needs expensive gym memberships.

When you turn your camera off, out of nowhere something amazing happens. You scramble frantically to grab your camera. That was it! That was the photo best photo opp I’ve seen all week!

By the time you get your camera turned on and ready, it’s over. Gone. Suddenly, there is nothing again. India blinks at you with a blank expression, like a blank screen.

Then you put your camera away and it starts all over again (amazing thing, get camera, amazing thing ends, turn camera off, repeat).

India is very sneaky.

On the evening of Day 6, we arrived in a small (but uber busy) city called Dahr and I decided to beat India at her own game. Eric went for a walk, so I sat on a ledge outside our hotel, turned on my video camera and just held it trained on the action in the center of town.

By normal standards, there were lots of strange, bizarre and glorious things happening on the streets, but by India’s high standards it was a very average, normal evening.

So I turned my video camera off and decided to just watch the chaotic scenes.

A few moments later, Eric flew past at high speed riding on the back of an Indian man’s scooter.

I thought to myself, I’ve seen some weird stuff in India, but that was strange. Where the heck was he going? And who was he with? We only just got here. He doesn’t know anyone in Dahr. That is freakin’ weird.

Then I realized… Damn it! It was the weirdest thing I’ve seen all day and I missed it! I had literally just put my video camera down.

A little bit later in the evening, Eric and I went to dinner at a restaurant just outside of town.

We’ve eaten so much naan that our fingers are becoming doughy. I have visions of big scary blobs of naan hovering over me in my dreams. So, in Dahr, we agreed… no naan with dinner.

When we finished ordering our shahi paneer, aloo palak, yellow dahl and pilau rice, the very friendly waiter asked… “Chapati?”

“What?”

“One?”

“No. Sorry. What is chapati?”

“Like naan. Two chapati?”

“Oh. No. No thank you.”

He blinked (confused and a little bit afraid to return to the kitchen without chapati in our order).

“Maybe just one chapati?”

“No. Really. Thank you. No.”

He stood there for awhile not quite sure how to process this information and then, resigned and defeated, he went to submit our order.

A few moments later, the manager of the restaurant came to our table. “Is everything OK with the restaurant, sir?”

“Yes. Of course. It’s great.”

“Would you like to try some chapati maybe?”

“No. No thank you. We’ve had a little too much bread lately. Just some pilau rice would be great.”

He smiled graciously. He understood. “Of course. No problem.”

Ten minutes later, our food arrived: a delicious yellow dahl, aloo palak, shahi paneer, pilau rice and… chapati.

What can you do? They wanted us to have chapati. Clearly, we were always going to have it at the table. It wasn’t really a question. They were just being incredibly polite and gracious. We didn’t eat it, though.

We sat and happily recounted the day’s events and ate our food with fork and spoon.

A few minutes later, the manager appeared again.

“Would you like me to show you how to eat?”

Um. Yeah… We’ve made it this far in life. We kinda thought we had the whole eating thing down, but OK.

“Sure.”

He deftly tore off a small piece of chapati, held it between his thumb and two peace fingers and scooped up a nice mouthful of dahl.

Then we realized our fatal error. We had disturbed the balance and harmony in the universe (but, more importantly, the balance and harmony in the restaurant).

Imagine going to an upscale restaurant in Paris and the waiter asks, “Would you like some silverware with your meal?”

“No. No thank you.”

“A fork?”

“No. Really. Thank you. We’ve had a lot of forks lately.”

“Perhaps a spoon, sir…?”

“No thank you. No fork. No spoon. Just some chapati.”

 

(I did manage to catch a few minutes of video of a religious celebration / street party that came to life as I walking around Dahr at night, so that’s at least something…)

On Day 5, India’s colors and culture came alive. We decided to take a day off from driving and stay in Udaipur because it is simply a magical place. The city is built around a man-made lake in the middle of the desert.

Surrounding the lake are various palaces (now hotels) and the streets were a labyrinth of twisty little alleys filled with shops, street vendors and a vast array of unusual sights.

We had already driven through the markets the night before in our tuk tuk (nice work, Enrico), so we decided to visit the City Palace.

In total, there are 11 palaces within the entire complex and there are two things that were particularly noteworthy:

First, the Raj’s of Udaipur must have been the size of Lilliputians. Their grand, royal “Assembly Hall” was no bigger than a shipping container. Perhaps the Raj’s didn’t feel it was necessary to assemble with many people because, well, I assume as “Raj” you simply wave your pinky and your wish is everyone’s command (and therefore, there is very little need to ‘assemble’). However, the doorways were tiny. I banged my head on almost every single doorway of each and every one of the palaces’ palaces. I now have a bump on my forehead that I call Raj.

Second, I am happy to confirm that I have formally discovered the origins of disco… the 17^th century Raj’s of Udaipur.

These guys had it going on.

They had mirrors on every available surface (if not mirrors, then wickedly shiny and colorful patterns), satin lounge pillows to recline on after a break from the dance floor, fabrics that most definitely inspired valor and multi-colored floors.

For sure, these little rockin’ Raj’s had ‘roadie crews’ who operated a mirrored party contraption (that would put our modern day disco balls to shame) while their band played and reams of people in multi-colored saris, bright turbans, pointy shoes and long-flowing robes danced until the early hours.

For those of who you can remember (or those of you want to Google) the album cover to Saturday Night Fever, that is more or less what their private rooms looked like.

In the evening, I watched the sun set over Udaipur from a perch overlooking the lake. At the moment when the sun had completely set and the horizon was still painted in burnt oranges and browns, the sky filled with huge bats (about 1 ½ wide). To see that many bats (they filled the sky) which were that big… It was like something you see in a movie, but don’t believe ever really happens. It was completely surreal.

Below me, on the lake, was the Lake Palace (which in one of the James Bond movies was populated exclusively by acrobatic assassins). When the movie came out, I was just young enough to believe that kind of thing existed in the world.

Apparently, the place is now a hotel. However, no one who is not a guest at the “hotel” is allowed onto the island. Not for dinner. Not for a drink. Not to look around and see what’s actually going on over there.

The entire time we were there, no one ever left the island. Nor did anyone ever go to the island. Not a single boat. No one ever appeared in sight. At night, the lights were kept low and you got the suspicion that maybe…

On the morning of Day 4, we left Jodhpur and our Indian disco dancing mechanic friends and headed south to Ranakpur Temple.

Ranakpur Temple is an extraordinary (and very much in tact) temple built in 1439.

Every measurement of the temple is based on the number 72 (it is 72 yards square, held up by 72 intricately carved pillars, etc). 72 is the age at which the founder of Jainism buddhism achieved nirvana.

So naturally, we set off well before sunrise in search of Nirvana.

Initially, what we found was an extraordinarily crappy road, which had the pot-holed texture of an enormous (and obnoxiously long) piece of Swiss cheese.

For those of you in Switzerland who don’t know what Swiss cheese is (because it’s an American term for an otherwise unnamed cheese), Swiss cheese has lots (and lots) of holes. In fact, it is the holes that define the cheese, much like it was the holes that defined the road to Enlightenment.

For several hours we plotted along at a snail’s pace over pot holes, determined to find Enlightenment. Alas, half through the journey, in the middle of nowhere, we found the most amazing little restaurant, which made perfect wood oven pizza. It wasn’t quite enlightenment, but it was something.

After many hours of driving 9 km/h over pot-holes, we finally arrived at Ranakpur Temple (see photos) and we were each given-five minute blessings by the high priest of Ranakpur Temple. Apparently, the high priest’s descendants have all been the high priests of Ranakpur for 600 hundred years.

He also gave blessings to our families, so given that you are all family, consider yourselves to have been blessed by the high priest of Ranakpur.

When we left Ranakpur for Udaipur, we had the choice to take the long flat road around the Aravalli mountains or the more direct route up and over the mountains.

We weren’t convinced our tuk tuk had the power to climb the mountains on the way up, nor the brakes to halt our speed on the way down. So after a few seconds of deliberating, we decided to take the logical and pragmatic approach and go straight up and over the mountains.

It turns out, the road from Enlightenment, while hilly, is filled with beautiful mountain vistas, palm trees, rice terraces built into the hills, funky little huts made of straw and… monkeys.

We passed by a funny looking monkey on the side of the road and I yelled out, “MONKEY!!!”

He sort of grimaced and looked at me as if to say, “Who are you calling a monkey?”

The road from Enlightenment was also incredibly smooth (well paved) and led us straight to Udaipur, which is a magical city on a huge lake in the middle of the desert.

On our quest to find our hotel in Udaipur, we managed to get our tuk tuk wedged between two barriers that prevented traffic from going left (which is absolutely the direction we needed to go to get to our hotel).

There was a policeman standing there who looked at us and said, “You want go left?”

We nodded.

Technically, it was a one-way road (going right), but traffic laws in India are, well, redundant.

He removed the barrier and waived his arm, “Go left…” (see video)

Happily, we turned left and drove straight… into a market. There was complete chaos. People, cars, scooters, vendors, SUVs, fruit stands and us all vying for the same narrow strip of “road” that a single, normal car would have difficulty driving through.

In the midst of all this chaos a car bumped into a fruit stand, a cantaloupe rolled off the stand, across the road and a few people recoiled in terror at the sight.

I don’t know if cantaloupe has religious significance (perhaps it is the God Vishnu in the form of fruit), but their reactions were certainly a bit unusual (even for the land of unusual).

Navigating the market towards our hotel was chaos. Our maps became useless in the warren of tiny alleys and we got stuck trying to go up a tiny, narrow hill (about 4 feet wide). Our little tuk tuk just couldn’t get up the hill. She kept losing momentum and rolling back down.

Defeated, we tried an alternate route through the tiny twisting little alleys. We went up another hill, then down the backside and got stuck at the bottom.

We were on a narrow, 4 foot wide street with a small old building straight ahead, stairs going down to our right, a narrow alley to our left and the desperate need to turn around (with no space to turnaround). We were doomed.

Out of nowhere, a small Indian man in his late twenties appeared. “You need hotel?”

“No. Thanks. We have booked a hotel. Thank you, though. We need to turn around.”

“You can turn around here.”

“Here? How can do you that?”

“I can do it.”

“OK…”

Both desperate to be un-doomed and impressed by his bravado, we got out of the tuk tuk and let him try. He promptly got in the tuk tuk and disappeared down the alley to our left.

“There goes our stuff…”, murmured Eric.

Oh shit!! Out tuk tuk disappeared around the corner and we both ran flat out after it. We watched our passports, money, laptop, cameras, clothes, phones and vehicle vanish into thin air. In a flash, everything we needed to survive, progress and get home was gone.

We ran through the alley, around a corner and reached a little courtyard, where the man in our tuk tuk had already turned around, was heading back towards us and was now looking at us as if to say, “What are you doing? I told you I would be right back.”

Once our tuk tuk was turned around, we had to ascend back up the hill and resume our futile quest in the labyrinth for our hotel. No easy task.

Eric skilfully got us half up the tiny narrow alley when, out of nowhere, there was a cow! Cow ranks waaaay higher than tuk tuk, so of course we stopped. We lost all our (much needed) momentum and rolled slowly back down the narrow street to where we had first met our man. We were going nowhere. And with great effort.

“I can do it.” he said, after watching us slowly slide back down.

“OK…”

We got out of the tuk tuk. He got in. He drove the tuk tuk up the hill and disappeared down the back side of the hill.

Again!!

For the second time in 30 seconds we had given our tuk tuk, and everything of value, to a man we had met only 31 seconds prior.

And for the second time in 30 seconds, our tuk tuk disappeared out of site.

We ran for our lives up the street and chased after the tuk tuk.

If someone had been watching the scene from a window above they would have seen two Americans driving a tuk tuk with little signs on the sides advertising something called “Ro-ghee Naan” and 2 plastic phalluses (our light sabers) sticking out the front like bull horns.

Even more peculiar, the owners of this alien vehicle seemed strangely more interested in chasing it around than driving it. For sure, these observers would have been thinking, ‘Perhaps it is not so wise to eat this “ro-ghee naan” after all.’

Out of breath, we caught up with our man (and our tuk tuk) on the other side of the hill.

Instinctively, Eric and I agreed on what needed to happen next. I leaned over and asked our little magic friend, “Can you…”

“You like me to drive you to your hotel?”

“Please.”

With almost imperceptible movements (twitches of his hand), he was able shift from 1^st to 2^nd gear up steep, 4 feet wide “streets” (just wide enough for our tuk tuk) that suddenly twisted and turned left right. We thought we had just met the Michael Schumacher of tuk tuk drivers.

Our knuckles were pasty white as we held on for dear life. We watched in sheer terror, delight and awe as he made our little tuk tuk dance, sing, hum, levitate and perform miracles. He sped at reckless speeds straight towards a pair of tourists. We both let out a gasp. “Look out!”

Without looking back, he muttered, “Don’t worry.”

If you had seen a video of nothing but his hands, it would have looked like he had been at a stop light the whole time. He barely moved. I’m not even sure he was actually looking at the road.

Just before careening into the tourists, he turned left on a dime and flew in between a scooter on the right and another person on the left. He climbed up the narrow hill that first defeated Eric, banged right then a quick left, flew down a narrow lane, spun the thing around in a little courtyard and popped out of the tuk tuk, “Your hotel”.

We realized later that we had in fact met… Yoda.

 

 

Wow!!

What a day!!

We woke up and headed to the starting line at the Jahawar Nigas Palace and prepared for blast off!

There were 85 rickshaws in the “race”. Every single rickshaw was pimped out. Almost every rickshaw rider was pimped out.

We had a team of Elvises, disco dudes, a firetruck tuk tuk (complete with working siren and working mini firehose with pump), a slightly confused looking goth-ish couple, a team of bears (In 105F heat! Way to think that one through, guys) and, of course, Rogue Naan…

There was fantastic carnival, party, festival atmosphere (and, I’m sure, a few people who were a little freaked out about driving a used lawnmower 3,000 kilometers across India).

The organizer gave everyone a brief speech about driving in India, which went more or less like this: The rules of the road in India are pretty simple. Basically, there are no rules.

And he was right.

There are no stops signs. No stop lights. No street names. No road signs (except for some very confusing ones that no pays any attention to).

One such sign seemed to suggest you are allowed to go backward on the road, but not forward. Some signs are conveniently fixed upside down, which, when they have arrows trying to point you in a specific direction, can be very confusing.

There is, in fact (as we learned), one rule of the road. That one rule is the ranking order of priority for the things you most commonly encounter on the road.

Cows first

Buses second

Then trucks

Goats

Dogs

Pigs

Cars

Tuk tuks

(Technically, scooters rank lower than tuk tuks)

Very often, all of the above (plus more) are on a given road at any one point in time, so it’s critically important to know where you rank in the order and to follow the rules strictly.

If you are a tuk tuk and you give a scooter the right of way at a roundabout, you are very likely to get creamed by a bus and people will generally all stand around and agree that it was most definitely your fault.

After our ‘in-depth’ morning briefing at the starting line, there was a ceremonious drum & horn jam played by local musicians and we were unleashed in a chaotic parade out onto the open road to cross India.

Everywhere we go, people wave and smile.

Everywhere we stop, we are greeted as if we are the most wonderful aliens from outer space (and to be fair, that’s probably what we look like).

We frequently draw crowds of people interested to know “what is your name”, where are we from and what the heck are we are doing.

When we stopped for lunch and parked our rig outside the roadside restaurant, a man walked past our rig, stopped, wobbled his head and read our sign with great curiosity (and a bit of confusion), “Ro-ghee Naan… hm.”

He examined the sign as if he was thinking, ‘I have not tried this ro-ghee naan. It must be from the south…’

Almost immediately on the road, we learned that horn is the almighty communicator.

People honk their horn for all reasons – and no reason.

Horn means everything including: “hello”, “I’m passing you on the right”, “I’m passing you on the left”, “I’m right behind you”, “don’t you dare cut in front of me”.

Trucks have wonderfully musical horns. Buses have horns that shake your innards.

If a bus honks, it typically does so only when it’s so close up your backside that you have to check your underwear. It’s a pretty jarring experience and it definitely happens too late to do anything, even if you could.

Approximately 42.7% of all vehicles have the following bumper sticker… “Horn Please”

They like horn. They want horn. They need horn.

Without a horn, you are hopeless.

About half way through our first day on the road, we lost our horn.

Kaput. Nada. Niente. Zip. Zilch.

There really aren’t too many people in the desert of Rajasthan who can fix a horn. So, we did the only thing we could do when we needed horn… we yelled horn.

Goat on the road… “HORN!!!!”

Dog… “HORN!!!!”

Camel… “HORN!!!!”

You need these things on the road to know you’re coming (and to move, if possible), but obviously, yelling horn at everything on the road is an unsustainable solution.

When we arrived in Jodhpur, we soon found a mechanic on a crowded side street. Upon arrival, we were greeted by more or less everyone on the street.

While Eric talked to the mechanic about horn, I was given a tour (with most of the street watching) of what can only be described as the most blinged-out, chavtastic Rolls Royce of tuks tuks. Painted yellow with shiny chrome everywhere, the inside was a temple of fantastic-ness: a horn that sang, impeccable velour seats, strobe lights, two fans and a stereo capable of filling the Royal Albert Hall with perfect sound.

The owner of the Rolls Royce tuk tuk let loose his speaker system with Indian dance music. I shook my arms in the air in a mock dance move and the 30 people surrounding the tuk tuk went bananas. Everyone raised their arms in the air and copied my “dance move”. Soon, I found myself in a full-fledged dance party on a side street of Jodhpur.

Meanwhile, Eric and the mechanic fixed the problem and gloriously we regained horn (and lights, which also weren’t working). I gave as many participants of the dance party a good old American high five and off we went to find a hotel.

In total, we made it about 340 km in our first (totally amazing) day! It may not sound like a lot, but in a 7hp power glorified lawnmower fully loaded with two men, bags and 2 spare petrol tanks, that’s a lot! It took about 10 hours!

My co-pilot, Eric (whom I regularly call Enrico Palazzo after the opera singer from the movie ‘Naked Gun’ who saves the Queen), on occasion, comes up an idea that causes the following reaction… “Um. OK.”

One such idea (a few months ago) was to call our rickshaw… “Sphinctre” (the spelling was, obviously, a tribute to the infamous evil organization in the world of James Bond, SPECTRE).

Not quite satisfied that his ingenuous name was “quite there”, and after further deliberation, he decided upon… “Sphinctre Spasm”. To which, I replied, “Um. OK.”

Thankfully, Enrico Palazzo has a wife, Jenmon (whom I regularly call Dr. J). This wonderful being rather fortuitously pointed out that part of our journey is to raise money for Shadhika, a charity which supports young, at-risk women in India by paying for their education. Furthermore, Shadhika might not be totally overjoyed that a rickshaw named “Sphinctre Spasm” was traipsing across India to raise money for its cause.

Alas, we settled on calling our rickshaw “Rogue Naan”, in homage to both the latest Star Wars movie (“Rogue One”) and the famous Indian bread (naan) that never ceases to expand in your stomach once you’ve eaten it (unless, of course, you have a “sphinctre spasm”, in which case said bread is quickly released back into the environment).

Today, all race participants were given a day to learn how to drive their rickshaws and also to “pimp out our rides”.

Several months ago, we were all requested to submit a design that could be painted by local artists onto our rickshaws. Today’s “pimping” entailed adding additional features. Some people added stereo speakers, fans, loud horns, inflatable dolls… (yes, one crew from England attached an inflatable doll to the front of their rickshaw).

While we were pimping out our ride, I noticed a group of Dutch guys nearby with a rickshaw that didn’t seem to match “them”.

Throughout the day, I pretended not to notice. If that’s how they wanted to “pimp out” their rickshaw, it’s all good.

By late afternoon, I cracked. I could resist no further… “Dude, what’s up with your rickshaw?”

“Yeah… we had submitted a really cool African safari design to be painted on it, but our friends hacked our team page and changed the design to this…”, he pointed (reluctantly) to their rickshaw.

Across the front of their rickshaw were two matching Hello Kitty’s. Along one side was a rainbowed unicorn and on the other side were three My Little Ponies (the artwork was exceptional).  (photo 4 above)

When these guys arrived in India yesterday, they were all psyched to drive their “Safari Mobile” across India and now… they will be driving the “Hello Kitty Mobile” (complete with a rainbowed unicorn and My Little Ponies painted along the sides). Tough start.

For us, it goes without saying there can only be two names for the pilots of a vessel named “Rogue Naan”… Naan Solo and Chewie Naan. We have consequently been required to not only transform our intrepid rickshaw, but also… ourselves.

Enrico Palazzo shall heretofore be called Chewie Naan and he will wear the official plastic Chewbacca Electronic Mask, as seen in the “Laughing Chewbacca Mask Lady” YouTube video. Said mask has “movie-like appearance” and allows the wearer to open her/his mouth to activate the laugh of Chewie. The manufacturers officially claim that one can: “Strike fear into the heart of scum and villainy across the galaxy with the first-ever Chewbacca Electronic Mask.”

It is unclear how the mask will be received throughout India, but I assume this will be the least of our challenges.

I, for my part, will wear a semi-official, mostly imitation Han Solo vest with matching holster (complete with Han Solo blaster water pistol) and a t-shirt that says “Naan Solo”. I will also wear a white turban because, when we break down and are desperate for help, I want the good people of India to know they can talk to at least one of us.

And thus, tomorrow morning at 9:00am, we will embark upon our 3,000 kilometer journey armed with 2 plastic retractable light sabers, 1 Han Solo blaster water pistol fully capable of lightly spritzing water up to 17.3 inches, 1 electronic Chebacca mask, 1 used rickshaw guaranteed to break down on average twice a day and, finally, eternal faith that someone will pop out from behind a bush holding the exact part we need to fix the rickshaw each and every time we break down.