The first morning. Expectations high after a much needed rickshaw lesson the previous evening. And oh how the Granny and Mr. Mercury soared (one minor roundabout stall from Rockstar aside) out of Jaisalmer. Picture the scene as PB leads the charge in Granny and Rockstar is tucked in behind in Mr. Mercury, the open road ahead, Indian countryside flashing past as Granny pushes herself to the limit to reach 60km/h. Things were going so well. For 35 minutes. Then we all went back to school to learn a few hard and fast lessons about our Rickshaws. Lesson 1) Grannies should move slowly or else their engines will cut out causing her to breakdown in the middle of the road. Lesson 2) rickshaw brakes are Sh*t and therefore to avoid smashing into the back of each other, safe distances should probably be maintained in future. Still, 35 minutes before we crashed into each other isn't that bad and for all our parents no one was hurt so sleep easy.
After a brief period to cool the engines and a nice new dent in Granny's rear bumper we were back up and running again. Unfortunately it seems PB isn't a very good student and ignoring Lesson 1, promptly pushing Granny to overtake Mr. Mercury and promptly ensuring the second break down of the morning as She overheated for the second time in the morning. Thankfully, Rockstar is a grade A student so at least we managed to avoid a second collision. Whilst many people dream of scoring a hat trick on debut, when you are a rickshaw and referencing breakdowns it is perhaps not so desirable but Granny managed to secure the unenviable feat by lunch leading everyone to learn Lesson 3) that with only 7 litres fuel in the tank and no fuel gauge it is actually pretty easy to run dry. Luckily, in a rare moment of preparedness, we did actually have jerry cans full of petrol meaning soon we were up and running and into our first of inevitably many lunches in random small towns.
Back on the open road again, legit Tarmac road for those wondering, we were making steady progress. Indeed steady enough that we took the liberty of stopping to watch a random tightrope performance being performed in yet another random village. As seems endemic of our trip, despite her grace we seemed to be the bigger attraction than her. Alas the smooth progress couldn't continue and it was Mr. Mercury's time to have a wobbly with a few engine splutters but he held strong thankfully. In general we breezed through the afternoon, the only issue being a minor incident with a policeman who pulled us over onto sand, only to sausage us and tell us to continue on? Lesson 4) rickshaws struggle to start in deep sand, they are not built for off roading. Having learnt this lesson however, just an hour or so later as Granny stopped for petrol, Gee ignored It, temporarily mistaking Mr.Mercury for a dune buggy, veering off the hard shoulder and careering off onto a sandy track to avoid a roll. Subsequently we spent a further 15mins shifting him up the hill in sand to the road. All's well that ends well - we sped on through a truly delightful sunset and on into darkness...
Lesson 5) where possible do not drive in the dark when both rickshaws front headlights are broken. Indian traffic care little for dipping headlights and somehow traffic levels increased leading to the odd hairy moment. Still 70km short of Jodhpur, as expected, we desperately searched for a hotel for the night. Eventually with the help of a crowd of locals we uncovered what we're going to describe as a rather 'simple' place (make of that what you will). Paying about 80p each for the night, the saying 'you get what you pay for' has never rung more true with the 5 of us sleeping in a room that bore a striking resemblance to a concrete dungeon and about as much interior design as the inside of a cardboard box. Thankfully PB and Fi found some beers and snacks following a high risk motorbike ride and the team (minus a sleeping HKC) planned the route for the next day and waxed lyrical about why anyone would see India not through a rickshaw.
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