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.