So - here we are, in Goa. Some of you maybe wondering, how have these first few days been going? Well...let me fill you in!
Day 0
Let's rewind back to the 31st of March. We spent most of the day preparing for madness on the 1st. April Fool's Day was the day we were going to launch and set out into the unknown. We pimped our rickshaw and bought all the necessary spare parts incase of any breakdowns we may face on the road. Added a sun visor, two cup holders, some side tassels and a dashboard, why not, right?
The three of us spent so much time trying to pimp thy steed and practice driving that we all forgot to look for spare parts such as an extra head gasket, extra fuel filters, a measuring cup to mix engine oil, petrol and a few extra clutch cables cause none of us really know how to shift gears worth a shit.
As the day began winding down, we got mostly everything we needed, except our measuring cup. We didn't know how much petrol we had left and since it was Good Friday the day before and Easter the day after, we didn't have the option of looking for one as mostly all the shops were closed.
Fun Fact: For those of you that don't know, a huge portion of South India is Christian.
After we had realized that we weren't going to get what we needed, we proceeded to make our way to the dock for the pre-rickshaw run party. We made it to the port and awaited this ferry, according to the adventurists, there were three ferries total with the first one leaving at 6PM. When we arrived, we thought we missed the first ferry, but soon realized 6PM IST (Indian Standard Time) meant "whenever the boat shows up".
So, we're on our way to this island to RAGE prior to starting this adventure - on the ferry, Aakash, Ajay and I all started talking to some of the other teams - we were all nervous as the next person. Once we arrived on the island, there was a band (obviously) along with a really fat Indian man with a tiger painted on his entire body, check out the photo!
Gotta say, the adventurists definitely know how to party. The venue looked amazing and the music was on point as the night progressed. I don't know whether it was the Kingfishers making it bearable or if it was actually good music, but looking back at the videos I think its a little of both. After partying for nearly 4-5 hours, the three of us decided to head back to our hotel to rest up before the big day. We got back, packed up and crashed.
Day 1 - April 1st - April Fool's Day
Leaving the comforts of the JW Marriott in Kuala Lampur on our way to India!
The day had arrived, we woke up at around 6:30AM and got ready to leave the hotel with all our stuff, had a light breakfast and then we were off. It's Easter Sunday, and April Fool's day - We arrived to the launch/practice grounds and started to pack up the rick, I flew my drone around and got some amazing videos of all the rickshaws - over 80 teams and 200+ people participating in this "race" for charity. This maybe the dumbest/smart thing I've ever done, but at the end of the day, it's for an amazing cause.
It's 11AM and we're off, Aakash took first shift at driving - just getting to the start line he stalled 3-4 times. All the better considering we were nervous of all the things that could go RIGHT/wrong. Since it was Easter Sunday, traffic was much lighter than expected which made getting out of the city quite easy. On our way out of Kochi, we saw another rickshaw pulled over to the shoulder so we stopped to check and see if they were okay. Within the first 10-15 minutes, these guys had already ran out of petrol. First stop was Coimbatore, at least that was the goal when we left Kochi.
All of us had taken equal shifts driving since Jacqueline [jay-kwell-in] (Our lovely rickshaw) requires frequent breaks to cool down the engine/refuel and routine safety checks (we don't really check anything, truthfully). I began driving after the first stop, I'm pretty sure by now we've already broken all kinds of laws (running red lights, illegal u-turns, blowing past toll booths and driving on highways) which in our defense, we can't read the signs and traffic lights are more like suggestions than rules. The roads were mainly flat until they weren't, the highway was incomplete in many areas that led to diversions into towns, up mountains, and down one-way roads.
In my defense - man with the tiger painted on his body told me to do this.
At one point, I was going up a mountain with HUGE trucks and busses coming down next to me within inches of scraping Jacqueline. So, let me paint a better picture. Imagine a one-way road, then imagine traffic going two ways (sounds pretty normal, right)? Then imagine three way traffic, so you hug your shoulder, the other guy hugs his shoulder and the middle which isn't much space is used for passing. Then, you have the dirt shoulders which are mainly used by scooters and motorcycles - If you can imagine that, then you know how crazy Indian traffic is!
While going up the mountain, I was primarily in first or second gear hoping I didn't stall and roll back into a truck, get pushed off the road and have the rickshaw tip or even get run over. I definitely stalled and slammed on the breaks to keep me from rolling back, taking off in first gear up a steep incline with a rickshaw loaded with three western Indians and their luggage is a lot harder than you think. Let's just say we didn't die today, not yet.
Soon after I stopped driving, Ajay took over. Let's rewind two days, Ajay rolled up super confident about his driving abilities and we had ~3 near death encounters with him behind the wheel. Almost ran into the back of a bus, almost got pushed off the road by a bus and then almost got hit by an SUV going through a narrow street. Ajay is just a very aggressive driver in a country where everyone is 1000x more aggressive. I think he quickly learned how to become more of a defensive driver in order to stay alive. I think if we didn't have these moments, we wouldn't really have anything to laugh about. I’ll also say, Aakash wasn’t the safest driver by any means. Even I scared my self a few times, India driving is no joke!
By now, we've driven close to 150km, about another 40-50km more and we'll be in Coimbature, easy day right? Nope! We stopped at a small town with a fort to stretch for a bit, once we got into the fort it started raining out of nowhere, thunder and lighting all around us. We ran back to the rickshaw since Ajay's bag was on the top with no rain cover and my Jambox was exposed to the elements. Once we got back to the rickshaw, we got Ajay's bag into the rickshaw to salvage what ever hadn't gotten wet. At this point, the rain was coming down pretty hard.
Our Uber driver that dropped us off at the start line was shocked - he stuck around so we gave him a shirt!
We had to start driving soon as sunlight was scarce, it was ~4PM and only had about 2 hours left before it got really dark. Our rickshaw's headlights are the equivalent to a cell phone's flash light, nothing strong enough to light up a road in India. Not only were our lights shit, but other drivers at night are only using their high beams and/or they're drunk or both. So, we're on the road and can't see shit, our wiper is shit, our lights are shit and shortly after Jacqueline's [jay-kwel-ins] engine started to sputter like shit. IT WAS NOT GOOD.
Long story short, it got really cold, it was windy and the rain was whipping our face cause of our fancy tassels we hung on the sides (instant regret). We arrived to Coimbature barely after sunset. Aakash had booked the Fairfield (Marriott) and once we arrived, it only made sense to valet the shaw. We were wet, miserable, cold and ready for a shower, food and bed, that was only Day 1.
WE HAVE A RESERVATION - Ya’ll gonna learnnnn today!
Day 2: April 2nd
We woke up at 5:30AM to get an early start to the day, there was no traffic leaving the city and our road to Bangalore was clear. It was around a 10 hour drive to Bangalore, we got an early start and mainly stuck to the highways. By now, we thought Jacqueline [jack-lin] (when she behaved) would/should have broken down, but no - she was plugging away. This day didn't have much craziness involved other than the few close calls Ajay had.
Routine stops, filled up petrol, waved at locals passing us by etc. You'd be surprised how many crazy looks we get from drivers and passengers, they do double takes and triple takes. Some people can't fathom how awesome our rickshaw is and then look back again to only realize that the driver isn't wearing the normal brown driver uniform. It's this moment that you either get smiles and hand waves or death stares from people thinking it's not funny.
As we got closer to Bangalore, we stopped for fuel one more time before entering the city. At this point, Aakash was looking at rates for hotel in the city and the Ritz Carlton came up. Us being Gujarati and in Hotels, we thought it would be very funny to pull into the Ritz with a rickshaw and then VALET it. I did something similar to this in Hong Kong exactly 5 years ago. We booked it, next thing we know, we're on our way into the city. 15km of driving left and google says it'll take nearly two hours to arrive at the hotel. Bumper to bumper traffic with some traffic lights - for the locals, those lights are more suggestions like I talked about earlier. At about 10-15 minutes from the hotel, I mounted my GoPro to the front of the rickshaw to capture a time-lapse of us rolling through Bangalore while also pulling into the Ritz.
Our bartender didn’t believe us when we told him we arrived in a self-driven rickshaw…he found our rick in the garage!
Once we got there, Aakash got the rickshaw stuck in the exit ramp where it was half hanging in the road and half into the exit. It was only day two and his gear shifting skills had not been perfected. While we're stuck, he pulled back on the accelerator while in neutral which just led to a lot of revving and people staring at us. Auto Rickshaw's are not allowed into the Ritz for obvious reasons, so once we pulled up, the hotel staff approached us in blazers and suits and they begin to tell us that the rickshaw cannot pull up to the entrance where normal cars unload their passengers. We try to tell them we are guests at the hotel but I don't think they believed us. The Ritz definitely needs to rethink their security polices considering the main entrance has recessed steel hardened poles that come out of the ground as a barrier to stop vehicles from entering the hotel and we entered through the exit that has no form of security what so ever.
After a while, we managed to convince the hotel staff to let us valet the shaw but we still couldn't pull up to the main entrance. They just decided they'll take our bags and walk them all the way to the front, it was hilarious! While entering the hotel, we ran into the RCB (Royal Challengers Bangalore) team, I saw Virat Kohli (captain of the Indian Cricket team) leaving the hotel to the practice field, you could say I was "star struck" even though I don't watch cricket.
The rest of the night was okay - the best of part of staying at the Ritz was valeting the rickshaw. The three of us got showered and ready for dinner and drinks. There was a Michelin rated restaurant we hit up, the food was alright, maybe being tired kept us from really enjoying the food - who knows? It was around 10-11PM when we decided to make our way back to the hotel, Aakash and I were trying to negotiate with a rickshaw driver to take us back. At this point, 500 rupees wasn't much too get back but we knew the driver was trying to take advantage so we were on a mission to win. In the end we got tired of trying to win a rickshaw fare negotiation and ended up taking an OLA (Indian version of Uber). Once we got back to the hotel, all of us we were surprised the rooftop bar at the RITZ was DEAD. We decided to call it a night to mentally prepare for a long ass drive the next morning.
Day 3: April 3rd
Today was the day we literally made zero plans - we were ready to go off the beaten path to find some adventure. We had a general direction planned and that was north, east or west didn't really matter as all we wanted was get off the highways. Getting out of Bangalore was just was wild as getting into the city, but at this point in the trip, according to the WhatsApp Group, no one had dared to enter into a major city except us.
Team SuperCaptainSachinWonderIronSpiderManHulkThor - 1
All other rickshaw teams - 0
Motorcycle Riders: “WTF?”
About two hours outside of Bangalore we stopped in a village called Sira - we were refueling for our off-road excursion. The greatest part that I experienced was all the curiosity of people that worked at the gas station, the first thing they noticed was that we had a private Kerala (State in India) plate. They must have thought we were the dumbest people in the world to drive a Rick from Kochi to everywhere we we had been so far (especially for not being locals).
Jacqueline [jack-lin] was all filled up and so was our 10 liter jerry can. We were ready! We drove through the village and continued in a direction that eventually lead to a dirt road. It was here that we took 3 - 4 hours out of our day navigating the back roads of India. I had bought a huge bag of bouncy balls and bic pens to hand out to kids and this was where I made my self really look like an idiot. I saw a few kids and went up to them to give them a ball and some pens. The little boy didn't know what to do with it so I "tried" to show him how a bouncy ball works. I literally threw it into mud while aiming for pavement. I'm pretty sure he got a kick out of it once it actually bounced a few tries later, meanwhile Aakash and Ajay are having laughs in the rick.
I have to say, some of these roads were so shit that we thought Jacquline [jack-lin] may not make it back to a real paved road. With no suspension, nothing to absorb all the bumps, our backs were screwed! So after a while, we tried to find a real road, we couldn't read any of the signs so we just kept going north. After a while the dirt road became a real road, from there we went through a few more villages/towns until we came on to the highway. It was late in the afternoon and sunlight was now a factor to consider as our rickshaw's headlights were a wild card. At this point we still hadn't figured out how to turn them on so our game plan was to always stop before the sunset.
#photography
Photo Cred: Aakash Patel
India has a crazy night driving problem - everyone loves to drive with their high beams on, doesn't matter the type of road you're on, One way, dirt roads, multi lane highways, it was all fair game. If that wasn't already something to worry about, then you have truck drivers who actively drink and drive at night to make things worse. And what can be worse than a drunk truck driver hitting a rickshaw with no lights? A BUS! Those guys are complete assholes, even if they aren't drunk, they'll run you off the road - no shame!
We made it to a town called Davanagere - we quickly found a decent place to say, it was no Ritz Carlton but it got the job done. Once we had parked and settled in, the place we were staying at had a rooftop bar/restaurant. By no means is this place "bougie" but a lot of the lodging in India has their own restaurants so in our case, it was on the roof. We all started off with a round of KingFisher's and 1 led to 3 and so on. Day 3 was a solid day, got to see a different part of India, something that my village exposed me to, but I never thought much of it until this trip. We saw kids and families with nothing, but still content with what they have. The saying "less is more" definitely made sense when you see people living in rural India or anywhere else in the world. It made me realize that if our family had not come to America, I'd be one of those kids, living with what I had, not having the life I now have today - meaning not having seen this beautiful world I've been able to see.
Where are we?!
Day 4: April 4th
With three full days under our belt, today was the day we started making our way to Goa! We woke up bright and early, nothing new at this point. First stop was Hubballi! Aakash had a family friend that lived there and had invited us to their home for some chai naasto (tea and snacks). It was a good break in between what seemed like crazy distances even while keeping Jacqueline [jack-lin] at max speed. Shortly after this detour through Hubballi, it was now time to get to Goa! (state in India with nice beaches) All I had in my head was a nice red sand beach and a beach front bar, it was within reach, all that stood in our way was a 6-9 hours drive depending on traffic/elevation and a wild animal attack. Some of you are probably wondering, "where are the wild animals coming from"? Our route had us drive through Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary - prior to entering the national park, there were huge billboards with warnings of tigers, elephants, cobras, and some animals I had never even heard of/seen. I won't lie, that level of possible danger was pretty exciting, we were literally driving a vehicle that can't go faster than your average elephant or lion while making the most obnoxious exhaust sound ever!
This guy tried to give us directions - I was speaking broken Hindi, he was probably speaking Telugu or Malayalam. Same - Same, but different.
Right before entering the national park, we had stopped to refuel. By now our daily routine of keeping [jack-lin] in tip top shape was established. It was here that we made sure to keep our jerry can as full as possible due to the route being very remote all the way till Goa. Neil said he would be in the area by nightfall so the three of us were committed to rallying at the beach later that evening. All that stood between us and glory...a jungle, high mountains and a crazy descent back to sea level! All this had to get squeezed into 9-10 hours of day light, were we worried? Nah! We began on what seemed to be a very long straight road - not a car in sight, maybe no one wanted to go to Goa? I was at the helm, first shift, I was ready for some excitement! After about an hour of driving on said straight road, we began to see our first animal signs for the wild life sanctuary.
The first signs were of some monkey's...big deal! I have monkey's at my house...
Then there was a sign for a cobra, yeah okay...I've heard we have them on our farm...
Then there was tiger! Alright, we don't have any of those in Tranol!
Checked into a Hospital for a bed…
Then Elephants. It was here that I thought, what if we end up on "when animals attack" the only thing my mind was thinking was; "with all the camera's I brought, we could go viral" not like that was the goal but what else do you think about when you've maxed out the throttle in the rick on a very long straight road?
Slowly, the very straight road started to wind, then it became covered by the jungle canopy. Gradually, the sunlight had faded and everything began to look very ominous, if something were to attack, this would be the stereotypical setting of where it would happen thanks to movies, that's how I think it would play out. But much to my surprise, our rickshaw most likely scarred away any thing ferocious. There's a new king of the Jungle, and it was Jacquelin's [jay-kwel-ins] high-pitched monotone EXHAUST! To keep it short, it was a very long and uneventful jungle ride. By now, I'm only about 4 hours into driving. After the jungle came the elevation, this is where it really got insane! Our rickshaw has drum brakes, what that means is when you use them too much, they tend to get really hot. When that happens, you have to let off the brakes to let them cool off, in theory it sounds kinda easy, but its extremely hard when you're thousands of feet high and need to come back down to sea level. This is exactly why people know it's not a good idea to be driving a rickshaw across India, good thing we aren't most people! Getting to what seemed like the summit of the climb up was quite challenging. Navigating between 1st and 2nd gear with neutral in between proved to be difficult, sometimes you'd never know you were in neutral till it was too late. I thought at this point, the hard part was over. The little drum brake lesson I gave you all earlier above didn't really ring a bell for me till I made it down from this drive.
Aakash is in the back with the Osmo (camera stabilizer) taking videos and Ajay was chillin, probably hoping that I didn't kill all of us (secretly, we probably all thought that about about each other's driving 😂). We began rolling down a decent grade, nothing to crazy yet. We were getting sandwiched in between big trucks, all it would take is our brakes going out to rear end the truck in front of us or a truck rear ending us and then going flying off a cliff. There was no real good outcome if anything had gone wrong, our brakes were the only thing in that moment keeping us alive! It was in some long stretches between downhill turns that I remembered something I learned in high school automotive class. Engine Braking! Engine braking is the process of down shifting and having the engine work as a power-absorbing air compressor to slow down the rickshaw as a worst case scenario. Coming down was definitely a marathon, took a lot of focus, timed foot braking and engine braking. When my footbrakes were starting to become un-effective, I'd let gravity speed me up to a decent speed and slowly drop the clutch in first gear to slow the rickshaw down. Trucks were flipped over and traffic was moving at an incredible pace, one that I was kinda scarred to keep up with. Slowing down meant drivers behind me going crazy, speeding up meant potential death. Neither options were good. It was a nail biting drive, in retrospect, it was a thrill! In the moment it was nothing but pure focus and fear. By now I had realized today was my super long day of driving, we made it down the mountain to some more reasonable terrain. I had driven for 7 hours, Aakash had volunteered for the last 90+ minutes to get us to the beach. The sun was about to set, it was a race against the clock! I got in the back, fired up my "get shit done" playlist and we were off. Neil had landed and already found a beach front bar, now it was for us three to get there in time to watch the sunset.
Just as imagined!
As we were coming into the Anjuna beach area, we hit a bit of traffic. By now the sun had already dipped below the horizon, but within a few minutes we had found Neil. He had a beer in his hand, peering out at the ocean with his feet up. "You guys just missed it" he said. We all sat down, grabbed a beer and started to unwind. We decided not to stay too long since it was getting dark and we had to park our rick at the hotel, Neil hopped into the rickshaw with us. It was a tight squeeze, Ajay was no longer allowed to sit anywhere besides the middle seat in the back, he wasn't able to keep [jack-lin] balanced. Once we were all in, it was dark out, we hadn't done this before. I whipped our a flashlight we brought (military grade) this thing was BRIGHT! We pointed it down to the ground to use as a head light, didn't work too well as even the brightest flashlight wouldn't be able to light up the roads. We even tried to clip it to our visor, no luck. We were driving in the dark trying to follow google maps on Neil's phone. We couldn't see anything, I was blaring music from the back seat, we're going straight cause that's what the phone says and also, we're on a MUD road.
Aakash: Neil, where's the hotel?
Neil: dude I don't remember this, it was daylight when I got there
Raj: Alright, let me hop out and go look around
Aakash: ....
Ajay: ...
Neil: it says keep going straight.
Aakash: I think we're stuck in a ditch
Raj: Yeah, we're stuck - this isn't a road!
Us at the end of everyday so far…
By now we've gotten stuck and unstuck at least 3-4 times. We start seeing some faint lights and a gate on our right, Neil yelled "that's it"! So we drove on an uneven surface which seemed like a washed away mud road and finally made it. Google was actually right, we just didn't want to accept it cause we were lost in the middle of nowhere with no light. We checked into the hotel and got showered and ready for dinner. We tried to go out and rage but it was the low season in Goa, by the time dinner was over, the beach had shut down. The adventurists held a party in Goa, but it was over 100 miles away to the south, couldn't have made that. We decided to call it a night, tomorrow was going to be another long day. It was now time to convince Neil to come with us. Mumbai was on the way and how much better of an adventure than adding another Neil to our roster. By morning Aakash, Ajay and I will get a yes!
That's the beginning folks, there's a lot more to come! Stay tuned, up next is Kohlapur, Pune & Mumbai!