What is the Rickshaw Run?
In pleasant Western society you’d drive a 1500CC+ engined, 4-wheel, fully-enclosed car around our home town, with perfectly paved streets, orderly progression of cars through each junction and perhaps we have the radio on to help pass the time. In India this scenario is almost impossible to find. The roads are poorly maintained in many major cities, let alone the major highways. Dr Nic lived in Bangalore in 2005 and he watched a main street deteriorate from a paved 2-3 lane, level road to a dirt/mud goat track where the road level could vary 30-50 cm in parts, in the period of just five months.
It is unimaginable for a newly arrived Westerner to jump in a car and drive anywhere as the flow of traffic is incredibly scary and inconceivably chaotic. After a few days you may start to feel safe walking across the road, but it is a strange breed of Westerner who deliberately gets behind the wheel of a car in India when they first arrive. Instead, most Westerners will hire cars that come with drivers. Incredible? No, the cost of the driver is only 10% of the total cost of car hire.
If you want to take public transport on short trips through India cities, then the autorickshaw is the most prevalent, flexible option available. They are yellow and they exist by the hundreds in every suburb. Across a single city, there will be many thousands of them.
Instead of being a 1500CC+ engined, 4-wheel, fully-enclosed car, an autorickshaw is just 150CCs, has 3 wheels, and only the front, back and roof are enclosed. When it rains, the rain gets in. When its noisy, the noise gets in. And in India, it rains a lot and noisy all the time.
It is hard. Stupidly hard
The Rickshaw Run is a race between 64 autorickshaws, each piloted by Westerners, over 3000km from the north of India to the south. Starting in the Himalayan town of Pokhara this beast of an un-route can take you through the deserts of Rajasthan, through the central plains and jungles finishing with the rolling tea filled hills of the western Ghats before arriving in Cochin. A 3000km epic race that should take about two full weeks, hopefully.
Amongst the backdrop of 64 autorickshaws racing across the plains, jungles and mountains of India is a much more serious ambition: to raise cash for charity. Your cash (donate now) specifically. Our team, the Mocra Off Railers, will raise over $2000 AUD for two charities. From who? You (donate now).
There is no logical reason for anyone to do this. And there is no guarantees that all teams, if any, will make it to the finish. This is not an adventure movie of the likes of Indian Jones. This is more real, more painful and yet infinitely more exciting and meaningful. We are three nerds from the modern 21st century competing in an old-fashioned cannonball run across the ancient country of India.
