It was just another hot day in Jaipur when Harish, an autorickshaw driver, sees Whitney, a University of Chicago student, in the distance and was awestruck. He asks her out for a cup of tea and she says no. He asks again, and she says no again. But Harish’s persistence pays off, by the fourth time she comes around and they both grab a cup of tea. He shows her around Jaipur and, at the end of the day, he proposes to her. She accepts.
US tourist hitches rickshaw, weds driver in a week:
A 26-year-old American tourist travelling in India hitched a ride in a rickshaw last week and married the driver a few days later.
Whitney from Chicago met her prince charming in Jaipur in Rajasthan, a state west of the capital famous for its stately palaces, after hailing a motorised rickshaw and hiring the driver for her stay in the city, the Mail Today newspaper said.
“On the third day, he surprised me by popping the question,” Whitney told the paper. “‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you’, he told me. I fell in love.”
After meeting last Saturday they were married on Wednesday in a simple ceremony. Whitney was pictured in the paper, standing with new husband Harish Hotala, wearing a traditional sari that covered her head.
The paper said Hotala was “a cabbie with a difference,” however. “Though a school dropout, he is fluent in English and owns three autorickshaws,” it said.
Motoring through crowded streets in auto rickshaws (aka tuk tuks), is my favorite mode of transportation in India. They are loud. They are subject to the wind and rain. They miraculously come within millimeters of pedestrians, cows, scooters, bikes, and other auto rickshaws. And they are fun as hell.
The three-wheeled vehicles are covered but door-less. With a two-stroke engine and handlebar controls, it’s similar to a ride at Disneyland, albeit without the circular track to nowhere. Unlike a sanitized, elevated ride in an air-conditioned four-wheel drive tourist vehicle, tuk tuks are the best mode of transport for a close-up look at daily life. You’ll whiz past vegetable markets and get a whiff of ripe bananas, hear locals haggle over goods, and get a birds eye view of monkey shenanigans on the roadside.
“Meeting at a car park near Juhu Juhu beach, we all drove the last 800 meters to the Marriot, our finishing line, together. A very sad last part of the journey as we’d had so much fun that it was a group consensus that no-one was ready to go home yet but it was fun driving in convoy together, with everyone filming everyone else on their camcorders and digital cameras.
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And so it was outside the Marriot in Mumbai, where our 2000 km’s journey ended and where more red bull drinks and media crews met us. We then very sadly handed over the keys to our rickshaws so that they could journey back to Chennai ready for the next set of insane explorers.”
Indian tourism authorities will be holding English classes for auto-rickshaw drivers in New Delhi as the city prepares to host the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
More than 40,000 natural gas-fueled auto-rickshaws, or motorized three-wheeled taxis, run on the Indian capital’s dilapidated roads, according to the city government statistics.
The city is expected to host around 100,000 tourists during the Commonwealth Games scheduled from October 3-14 in 2010. About 9,000 athletes and officials of 52 Commonwealth countries are likely to participate.
Some 8,000 auto-rickshaw drivers will be enrolled in the training program that will involve classes in yoga, life skills, first aid, spoken English and psychometric tests, federal Tourism Secretary Sujit Banerjee announced Tuesday.
Auto-rickshaw drivers in Chennai have a history of overcharging and behave like rash and hard, using rigged meters, and exploting foreign passengers, although they are ubiquitous and possibly the easiest form of transportation to locate. Use only for short distances (if you know exactly how far you are going). Before talking to auto person ask any local person what the actual fare should be, because if you don’t know, they might ask for up to 3 times more.
If you want to travel by the auto, stick to these rules:
• Don’t go by the meter (if they have one) – the meter is rigged to show a higher fare
• Negotiate a rate with the driver beforehand. Try to stick to the agreed price, though the driver may attempt to ask for more.
• Consult local friends beforehand to find out reasonable market prices for the distance you intend to go.
• Try to hail individual auto rickshaws in traffic which are heading in the general direction of your destination and avoid those parked in groups as they may try to gang-up on you.
On a side note – if you are fascinated by the idea of going around in an auto, think about all those foreigners, who are riding an auto from Chennai to Mumbai. A Chennai based event management company, Chennai Event Management Services, has been having these autorickshaw rallies from Chennai to Mumbai, or Kanyakumari, etc., and has developed a great fan following for the same…YES that’s us!
YOKOMONO is a sound composition with 30 auto rickshaws playing horn patterns in sync with each other as they move in groups around the concentric circles of Connaught Place of New Dehli.
Recently back in Mumbai after a gruelling auto rickshaw driving odyssey, Australian travel writer Sharell Cook narrates her experiences in an exclusive to domain-b
My flight to Chennai, where the Mumbai Xpress Rickshaw Challenge would be starting from, was delayed nearly an hour. This gave me plenty of time to think about what the next couple of weeks, participating in the Rickshaw Challenge, might bring.
I felt totally unprepared. Even more troublesome, couldn’t help fearing what I’d suspected for quite a while India had finally sent me insane. What other explanation could there be for me agreeing to take part in an event that’s billed as a rally for the “clinically insane”? An event that would require me and my team mate to drive an auto rickshaw for 13 days, over 1,900 kilometers and through four states, from Chennai to Mumbai.
Despite living in India for over three years, I hadn’t been game enough to drive a car, let alone an auto rickshaw that I didn’t know how to operate. What’s more, as little as 30 minutes spent in one of those noisy three-wheeled contraptions was enough to irritate my ears and turn my hair into a knotted mess. How would I cope with 13 days in one? I had absolutely no idea. All I knew was that the opportunity was too hilarious and extraordinary to turn down.
