11 Sep 06
King of the rickshaws, that's us. It says so in bright red letters on the front of our three-wheeler - Autoraja. Auto is the local name for these taxis here in southern India and Raja means king. Unfortunately, we're nothing of the sort.
A quick check of the 15 other machines entered into this pioneering 600-mile rally from Chennai (formerly Madras) to India's southernmost tip, and it's clear rickshaw number three is way down the caste order. Other competitors, arriving from Britain, Hungary, America, Russia and northern India, got here earlier specifically to option up their 150cc 'shaws. It's now 9am on the morning of the rally start and they're busy showing off goodies such as stereos, fans, properly stuffed car seats and even headliners. We haven't even got so much as a windscreen wiper. Stripped of its black paint and sponsor stickers, our 1996 machine will go back to work on the streets of Chennai in a week, exactly as it left it. Assuming we haven't totalled it, of course.
Have we made a terrible error? Rickshaws are not comfortable, and our ultimate adventure could easily morph into a pacey chapter from a chiropractor's casebook. And the Indian organisers have worries of their own. That much is clear from the uneasy mix of parade-ground commanding and best-mate cajoling to get us to pay attention to the day's vitally important lesson: how to drive a rickshaw. This bit I'm not worried about. I ride a motorbike and can change gears, no problem. Confidently, I perch on the barely padded driving seat, assume the correct posture (ie slump), pull in the clutch and - where are the gears? Ah. These machines are based on Vespa technology going back to the 60s and it's Marcello Mastroianni we should be modelling our style on, not Valentino Rossi.
