Day 3 and 4: The Rickshaw and its Pimping

Day 3 and 4: The Rickshaw and its Pimping

After the first night in our hotel in Jaisalmer, we had to find our way through the busy alleys of the town centre. The entire city centre resembles an enormous market place, one that could also be placed somewhere in the Middle East and not in India. At every corner you could find small street shops, market stands of all kinds and people who literally try to sell anything. Pedestrians, rickshaws, cars, trucks, wild dogs, goats and especially cows are swarming all over the place, shouting, working, honking, driving, just turning the whole thing into an incredibly lively and noisy scenery.

It takes quite some time to get used to this hustle and bustle - which is of course pretty exotic for a central European. But it's simply amazing to observe the daily live that's taking place in an Indian town like this, also because it's so totally different from what you are used to in Germany.

After a short walk we finally arrived at an old plalace that is now used at a pridy hotel. The walled up area in front of the hotel was the place where all teams met and where all rickshaws were to be found. Right after we passed the gate we saw up to 70 custom designed rickshaws that were lined up around a huge place and that waited for their crazy drivers. We soon discovered our own ride between all these these beautifully painted vehicles. The painter did an outstanding job on our rickshaw as well.

We wanted to test-drive our rickshaw as soon as possible but we thought that it might be a good idea to attend a technical meet-up first. During that meet-up we learnt a lot about technical stuff and how to fix some basic issues that could plague our rickshaw. And we also learnt how to start the rickshaw. It was a real joy to drive our ride for the first time, just cruising around on the big, sandy place behing the hotel walls. While Michael had some problems with the correct usage of the various pedals and handles, Max turned out to be a natural talent who mastered the steering, gearing and driving in no time.

We then decided that our rickshaw needed some additional pimping and we also wanted to buy some recommended spare parts which could be hard to find in the countryside. We bought most of the stuff from some traders right before the hotel which turned out to be more costly but also a lot more comfortable than searching together all the different parts in various shops in the city centre. While Max and Micheal continued the test driving Rob set off with a local guy in order to find some additional parts that we couldn't buy right at the spot. Soon he came back with a truck horn that could be heard all over the place and which hopefully will safe our lives on India's insane roads.

We finished the day by attending the Rickshaw Run Opening Party which took also place in the same hotel where we found our rickshaw. It was quite a nice party with some good food and a lot of beer. While Max and Micheal achieved to avoid an extensive hang-over Rob was less fortunate...

This hang-over situation has also been the reason why our next day in Jaisalmer started with quite some delay. We didn't even grab our breakfast before 12pm and we didn't manage to get back to our rickshaw before 3 pm. But at least we found a working ATM and we also met a guy on the market place who sold us two simcards. The simcards we bought back in Jodhpur sadly didn't work yet.

We spent the rest of the day with further pimping our rickshaw. We wired the additional lights we brought with us from Germany and we also ordered some nice seat covers in matching colors to our rickshaw's awesome paint job. On top of that, we wrote the names of our charity donors on our ride (thanks again guys!) and added some details like the colors of the indian flag and some pom poms.

It was the last day of preparation. The next day, finally, our great adventure, the Rickshaw Run 2018 in india, was going to start - and we were desperately looking forward to finally get on the road to Cochin.