This was not a holiday

With 66 team and over 150 participants one would expect the Rickshaw Run to be a pretty social event. Actually, it was the opposite. We lost sight of the others after few minutes from the start and we bumped randomly into another team only days later. Therefore, only when we arrived in Shillong and caught up with the rest of the crew, exaggerated tales from the road were finally shared.

Team Trukke Trukke had some pretty tough times and the fact that since we are back in London we have been going to bed every night at 9pm shows how intense and tiring the journey was. However what we went through is not that bad compared to what some other teams experienced.

Our friends Justin, Alfredo and Mike left Kochi with two rickshaws, "Liquid Love" and "Liquid Lust". Soon they got in trouble and on day 2 managed to flip Liquid Lust on its side, spilling the driver onto the street and landing the vehicle across both lanes of traffic. Moreover they were forced to abandon Liquid Love in Chennai due to continuous mechanical failures that were slowing both teams down. They all continued on Liquid Lust and were severely behind schedule. When team Trukke Trukke reached Malda, 350Kms north of Kolkata they were still one day south of the West Bengal capital and their odds to reach the finish line on time were really bad. Therefore, it was a bit of a shock and a nice surprise to see Liquid Lust parked in front of the reception of the Pinewood hotel only one day after we had arrived. They drove for three days and three nights in order to reach the finish line on time (and catch a plane to Buthan for a well deserved holiday). Their Rickshaw was not in a good shape...

Liquid Lust was certainly not the only rickshaw that had a closed encounter with the tar. Several teams tipped over their rickshaws. The consequences ranged from minor bruises to broken bones. One team had an accident and the driver (luckily a doctor) had to stitch his own leg on the side of the road.

While we were driving uphill on a nice road east of Siliguri we saw a painted rickshaw parked and were excited to meet some fellow Rickshaw Runners only to realize few seconds later that the rickshaw was not exactly "parked". In fact, in a (crazy) attempt to overtake a lorry the "Official William and Kate royal carriage" team tipped over the rickshaw and one of the guy seated in the back broke his collar bone. The police was already there and escorted them to the closest hospital and incredibly they even made it to the finish party.

Team "Megadosa" rickshaw crossed the finish line without roof. Not exactly the best way to travel in what the guidebooks describe as the "wettest place on earth" (Meghalaya). Another team crossed safely the finish line only to tip over the rickshaw while parking. The driver was ok but his wife had her leg trapped under the rickshaw...

There are a number of similar stories but beer was flowing generously at the Pinewood hotel and not all of them made it back to London... What we remember is that one guy was bitten by a rabid dog, one team was stoned by villagers and another one was attacked by a drunk policeman at 8:30am.

Finally few words must be spent for the Chinese/Japanese teams. They had a reporter following them with a state of the art equipment and a support vehicle carrying their luggage, spare parts and even a mechanic. This was quite against the Rickshaw Run philosophy but it also proved to be quite useless... they rang the organizer one week after the starting date to inform that they were leaving the rickshaws in Mumbai and flying back to their countries. Now if you look at the map there is only one thing more wrong than drive to Mumbai in order to reach Shillong and this would be driving south and take a ferry to Sri Lanka. Yes, Mumbai is north of Kochi but you add roughly 2 days to your journey by taking that route.

One side benefit of two weeks of constant stress, no breakfast, coconut milk for lunch and a plate of rice with curry for dinner is that the rickshaw Run has been way more effective than 1 year of gym and we came back to London with roughly 5Kgs less on our belly.

So the Rickshaw Run is over. A big thanks again to all the people who supported the International Rescue Corps and donated money for a good cause, the Oxford friends who helped us before and during the journey (thanks Prashanth, Dhruv and Natasha!) and the hundreds of Indians we met along the way. Not an holiday but a great adventure and by far the least intelligent thing to do with two weeks...

More pictures from the road

Some people were incredibly happy to see team Trukke Trukke...


Some were so happy that stopped us to sign autographs and take pictures


Someone else less so...


This was what we often had for lunch, coconut milk

One of the many Indian Oil crews we met. A shame they don't have a loyalty program as we spent half of our budget in petrol and oil (due to an abnormal fuel consumption compared to all the other teams)


What a relaxing commute to work...

The king of Rome is not dead

After few days of radio silence it is a great joy to announce that team Trukke Trukke safely reached Shillong at 2:40pm on Friday 29th April, 1 day ahead of schedule! The team crossed the finish line at the Pinewood hotel where it was welcomed by the few teams that arrived earlier in the day. One of the first rules of the Rickshaw Run is that it is not a race but it was nevertheless quite a satisfaction to be the 10th team at the finish line (out of 66) and the first one among the other Italian teams!

The last few days of the journey were particularly intense. What we expected to be a relaxing drive in the country side turned out to be the most stressful part of the trip. On our way to Barpeta from Siliguri, we ended up driving on the infamous NH 31-c. People here call it highway and this will probably be the case in five years or so, not now. For the time being this is not even a road. This is a party built 2+2 lane motorway, made of (very) short sections of smooth, quality surface and long sections of potholes, rocks, and dust. Driving on this road almost drove team Trukke Trukke insane as the average speed was about 10kmh and there was not a single road sign in sight and hence no idea of how long it would go on for.

When the sun started to disappear from the horizon and Barpeta was still 60km away we where almost ready for our first night of sleep in the rickshaw. Luckily met a local guy at a petrol station who directed us to an Hotel nearby saying "at least there you will be safe". We fully understand what he meant only when we checked in at the Raj Palace (such a terrible hotel that we had to use our sleeping bags) and bumped again into the two British teams we had met few days earlier.



They told us that the day before they broken down at an Assam Police checkpoint and the official on site called the chief of the west Assam police who came and explained that they had broken down in am extremely dangerous place. The same place where some "terrorist groups" have been kidnapping both westerners and locals (In fact, only 4 months back 4 WWF scientists had been kidnapped in the exact same spot and held for ransom and the chief believed that had the Norwegian govt not paid the ransom they would have been killed). They were taken to an Hotel and kept under armed guard for the night, not allowed to leave their rooms, and not allowed to talk to anyone.

More media coverage

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/04/18/and-theyre-off-a-rickshaw-charity-run-2/

http://hosted2.ap.org/txdam/633c954da7d9434f9de7ed15f38075aa/Article_2011-04-17-AS-India-Rickshaw-Ride/id-67b5794d52c64a1b8f8d04296ed7beaa

Postcards from India

Day 10, Malda, West Bengal

Years of experience on the streets of Rome, a good amount of Southern Italian blood and one more than 70 hours spent on the rickshaw in the last 7 days all came up together yesterday when team Trukke Trukke cut Kolkata (15 mln people) from west to east in less than 30 minutes! We have finally left the Orissa and the NH5 highway behind and we are now in West Bengal driving up north on the NH 34 toward Siliguri.

If possible this road is even more dangerous than the highway. There are only two lanes going in opposite directions which by itself shouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the unwritten Indian traffic rules. As the rickshaw is basically at the very bottom of the road food chain, bigger vehicles such as trucks don't really consider us as a factor in their overtaking decision making process. So, when they do overtake the only option left is to throw the rickshaw offroad on the narrow strip of land between the road and the trees (or the rice fields).

Just to make things even more complicated the horn of the Trukke Trukke does not work anymore. Not a big deal if you are in London or in Rome (unless it is June 2001 and you want to celebrate the Trukke Trukke...) but here in India the correct and shameless use of the horn really makes the difference between life and death! Fortunately we got the two bicycle air horns attached on the rickshaw and whoever is not driving is now in charge of using them, carefully coordinating with the driver. What a relaxing way of driving around...

We do now blend so well with the local rickshaws that today an old guy jumped on our rickshaw thinking it was a "cab" only to then jump out immediately very confused, when he realised who was driving it.


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day 8, chandipur, orissa

Thanks to the mechanic who properly fixed our engine in vishakhapatnam team trukke trukke had two (finally) uneventful good days of driving and reached chandipur, a small town on the sea in the north of Orissa. By talking to the people at the tall stations we know that there are at least 4 teams ahead of us on the same road. Most probably the italian fellow team of "Curry Curry Guaglio'" is almost 1 day ahead while a french team and the british one are about 2 to 4 hours ahead. Also the hotel owner told us that the new zealand team was here yesterday. We are definitely behind but we stick to our motto "barcollo ma non mollo"...!

Tomorrow we have a big decision to make. We could either leave the highway before kolkata or drive through the city and take the road 34 which runs close to the bangladesh boarder. The former option will save us some kms but we would be driving on some pretty bad roads and dust or holes are not friends with the rickshaw. The latter option will give us better road but driving through kolkata (or even on the outskirts of the city) would probably be stressful and slow (but a lot of fun...). Then, we will start driving north towards Siliguri before finally turning east south/east towards Shillong.


Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa

In hoc signo vinces

t cannot be just a coincidence that today, when team trukke trukke stopped at an indian oil petrol station, it was welcomed and helped by a kind (and most probably drunk) man called Samuel (the Wall!) who wanted to share telephone numbers and then said: "I feel and believe that you will call me once you reach Shillong".

The spirits of the glorious 2001 A.S. Roma are pushing team Trukke Trukke ahead...

Postcards from India

On the road. Again and again and again...

Day 6: Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh

Few days of very little sleep and long hours driving in the worst possible weather conditions (ranging from 43 degrees with no clouds to unseasonal thunderstorms) brought team Trukke Trukke to Vishakhapatnam, a 1,3 mln people coastal city in Andhra Pradesh. Mechanical problems appear to be a constant of this trip and between Thursday and Friday we spent a good 4 hours dealing with mechanics, random people who we thought (hoped...) were mechanics and people who did understand how an engine works less than we do but that we anyway "forced" to have look at our rickshaw.

The result is that every morning we start the day with no idea on where we will sleep at night and (more importantly) on whether we will be able to reach Shillong on Saturday 30th April. So far we have drove roughly 1,500Km but there are still more than 1,900 to go and from now on the road will not be as good as the one we drove on so far.

Driving at night is not really an option as last time we tried we suddenly saw a number of lights pointing in our direction and realized that we were driving on the wrong side of the highway...

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Day 3: Vellore, Tamil Nadu

Troubled by several mechanical problems, team Trukke Trukke is still few hundreds Kms away from the east coast fo India. We have no idea where all the other teams are right now as we haven't seen a westerners in the last 3 days. Indian people have been incredibly helpful and kind and without their help we would most probably still be driving in the outskirt of Kochi...

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Land of the rising sun

Still remembering about the amazing goal of Nakata which paved the road to the 2-2 draw in Torino and to the Trukke Trukke in June, the Japanese/Chinese team (and the Japanese reporter who was following them) asked team Trukke Trukke pose for a photo shoot.

Meeting the beast

What an amazing paint job our Indian friends have done.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

A tale of two cities

It's certainly not a coincidence that the Unicredit team will finalize negotiations for the sale of Roma in Boston the same day in which team Trukke Trukke will land in Kochi to begin a journey to spread the A.S. Roma name far and wide in the Indian sub-continent.

The future of A.S. Roma lies between these two cities, more than 13,000Km apart but tied by a long fil (jaune) rouge

Too well prepared

You know that problems lie ahead when these are among the items you are packing in your bag:

-A.S. Roma scarf
-A.S. Roma flag
-A pirate flag
-A tailor made linen suit (with waistcoat)
-An inflatable Monkey
-Two bicycle horns
-Two meter neon tube wire
-A bubble blowing pipe
-A Mexican wrestler mask
-Oliver Onions discography

Informed on how team Trukke Trukke spent the expedition budget, Mr. Di Benedetto apparently said "either they have not fully understood what are they going to do or I may have not hired the smartest guys in town for this job..."

Countdown

You would imagine that with less than a week to go until the Rickshaw Run launch, team Trukke Trukke spent the weekend packing supplies and planning the route. Apparently this has not been the case as those tasks require a level of mental organization that team Trukke Trukke clearly lacks. Instead, they threw away the "Mechanical engineering 101: engine for dummies" book and headed off to the Royal Geographic Society for the 2011 Adventurists Film Festival. In this inspirational venue they spent the afternoon watching videos of previous Rickshaw Runs while sipping Gin & Tonic and playing croquet with fellow adventurists.

Here below one of the movies presented at the Adventurists Film Festival which gives you an idea of the task ahead of team Trukke Trukke.

Media coverage

Great adventures do not go unnoticed! Team Trukke Trukke made it to the press last Saturday when it has been mentioned by Milano Finanza, one of the most respected Italian business newspapers.

Waiting for Trukke Trukke

These exclusive pictures sent by a correspondent from India testify the great ferment of indian people for Trukke Trukke team.

A message from the Captain

"Aooo' team Trukke Trukke! I would have loved to join you guys and I also bought my own tuk tuk. Pero' porco porco il mister doesn't want me to leave as we need to qualify for the Champions League and apparently I am the only one left in this team able to score a goal..."

Sempre forza Roma!

Checco

Danger zone

"Groups of zealots who worship an almost unknonw football team are reported to hide in some regions of India (they call them "biancocelesti"). They are known to assault Roma supporters, driven by frustration and envy. They like farms, pastures and they generally move by tractors."

Be careful
toolpa

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Alerted by Toolpa's warning, team Trukke Trukke got in touch with a stringer in Orissa to assess the risk posed by these so called "biancocelesti". Our guy was traveling to the poor and remote Indian countryside when he stumbled upon a group of biancocelesti on is way home after having watched the Napoli-Lazio match last Sunday. Angry and frustrated as usual, the biancocelesti attacked him with potatoes and vegetables and left him dead on the side of the road.

We managed to retrieve his camera and here below you could see a picture taken just few seconds before the despicable attack begun.

The dawn of a new era

"It's about time to improve the Italian football public image and A.S. Roma is fully committed to be at the forefront of this battle" says a Di Benedetto associate.

How could he be more right? Calciopoli, riots inside and outside the stadiums, people badly injured if not killed; this is what we have witnessed in the last few years. With the aim to be a model for the other teams, Team Trukke Trukke mission won't only be to spread the A.S. Roma name in the Indian sub-continent but also to make a small contribution to help all the people who are suffering. That's why they have decided to raise money for the "International Rescue Corps" a UN registered charity responding to natural and men made disasters all over the world.

A big thanks to all the people who have donated so far. We have reached and surpassed the £1,000 target but please don't stop donating!

Team Trukke Trukke

In a short conversation with the press, Di Benedetto released new details on the "Project Galoperia". In order to maximize media exposure, the first A.S. Roma diplomatic mission, also known as "Team Trukke Trukke" will take part in the Rickshaw Run Spring 2011.

The Rickshaw Run is a charity rally organized by the Institute for Adventure Research, who believe that the world is far too full of health and safety regulations and have set their sights on saving the world from the tyranny of boringness and safety.

The concept of the Rickshaw Run is simple, to travel in a team from Kochin in the state of Kerala, to Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, the far north-east of India. A journey of roughly 4,000km in just 2 weeks. To make things more complicated this will all happens in a rickshaw. This three-wheeled, 150cc, loud, uncomfortable, prone to breaking down is possibly the least suitable vehicles for covering the entire sub-continent in 2 weeks.

"Reaching Shillong in 2 weeks will be a hell of a challenge for team Trukke Trukke but winning the champions league is not an easy task too. That said, we are all part of the A.S. Roma family and we will succeed in all our endeavors " says Di Benedetto to the press

The un-route

"The Rickshaw Run is based around the un-route concept. No one will tell us how to avoid the Maoist terrorists or which roads will collapse underneath us. All we know is that we start at the beginning and we may end up reaching the finish. If we would be told where to go the Rickshaw Run would be rubbish" says Team Trukke Trukke

Here below one of the possible routes the team may be taking.


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Project Galopeira

Earlier this week, American business man Mr. Di Benedetto spent few days in Rome to finalize the buyout of the A.S. Roma. The media coverage has been focusing exclusively on the legal and financial details of the operation but apparently Mr. Di Benedetto doesn't like to waste time and he is already actively working to ensure a bright future to the team.

According to our sources Mr. Di Benedetto had a private meeting with A.S. Roma top management to present and roll out the "Project Galopeira" which aims at building the A.S. Roma brand internationally, creating new revenue streams for the team and ultimately bringing Roma back to where it belongs, at the very top of the Italian Serie A. The whole Project is still pretty much a secret but Mr. Di Benedetto better get used to the fact that in the eternal city also the walls have ears (as they say in town).

Apparently Di Benedetto sees a huge potential in the emerging markets and thinks India is country where to start building A.S. Roma international presence. He has asked two intrepid drivers (names not disclosed yet) to be the first A.S. Roma ambassadors in the Indian sub-continent. In only 2 weeks they will be driving from Kochi to Shillong (roughly 4000Km) on an A.S. Roma branded rickshaw (maximum speed 55Kmh). Here below a picture that was leaked to the press.