After Dark: The Nights of the Rickshaw Challenge

The Rickshaw Challenge is pretty crazy by day, with tipped up tuk-tuks, thieving monkeys and cramming 9 passengers into one tiny shaw, but by night the participants know how to party, check out some of the goss from Pondicherry to Trivandrum of the GamingZion Rickshaw Challenge Classic Run 2015!

Pondicherry, 29 December 2015
After riding through a cyclone from Chennai to Pondicherry, our brave rickshaw riders were in need of a drink and the chance to party Indian style. No one was prepared for the surprise organiser Aravind had in store at the Priya Deluxe Bar in Pondicherry. A few stiff drinks, and our participants were still not ready to face the Indian loo at the bar, throwing them together in an unconventional bonding session on the first day.

But once back at the hotel, the party wasn’t over, at least not the unofficial one. The teams stormed into the bar in the Annamalai Hotel for a nightcap, which despite the closing times managed to leave with handfuls of beer and made a beeline for Aussie superheroes the Bob Billies, who became the Rickshaw Challenge’s unofficial party host for the entire event. Things got a little out of hand, as rumours circulated about someone passing out in the shower… naked. The morning after it seems everyone knew of a certain participant’s special tattoo.

Madurai, 31 December 2015
New Year was a little challenging for the organizers as the original venue fell through at the last minute, but we managed to pull through and kick start 2015 at the Heritage Hotel in Madurai. While we all thought we had escaped the cyclone, we got treated to a downpour that turned our New Years party more Monsoon Wedding than Club Tropicana. But that didn’t stop us from having fun. The German team Bavarian Barbarians made sure they kept the beer flowing under the covered pagoda in the garden, along with Dukes of the Green, The Trashbags, The Wacky Racers and Team Shawmacher, while other teams kept themselves inside the main area. Some teams even set up a strategic garden umbrella to make it to the temporary bar set up in the middle of the uncovered garden.

As the open bar ran out, we got shuffled into a tent into a surreal Bollywood themed-Wild West fusion talent show. At this point most of us were too drunk to realise what was going on. The countdown to midnight culminated in fireworks and drunk hugs, before we were rallied back to the hotel like Cinderella after pumpkin time at the early hour of 12.30. This wouldn’t fly with our already drunk, party lusting Rickshaw Challenge participants, so the Bob Billies donated their room yet again for the after party. Cramming in around 40 people of course turned it into a drunken pandemonium, where random items from the conference room turned up, including a serrated knife no one knew the origins of.
Some of the participants fared worse than others and some found themselves enjoying the hallway as their bed. Things got a little out of hand. One of the Norwegians Game of Horns got dragged down the hall by one of the Shawmachers, and even though the Aussies kicked everyone out around 2am, people were still running up and down the hotel, getting locked out, losing shirts, and just general chaos. It was no surprise that the morning after that many people struggled to make it out to the temple in Madurai.
Tuticorin, 2 January 2015

The small sleepy fishing town of Tuticorin didn’t seem like a party hub, but where the Rickshaw Challenge goes, the participants bring the party with them. Things started up on the roof top in a civilised manner, since the hotel wanted people out of the roof by 10. However, across the grape vine there were stories of an afterparty and an after-after party that went on late into the morning. Some of the residents may have been woken up by the Bavarian Barbarians who knocked on the doors chanting “Ze Germans are coming!”

Kanyakumari, 5 January 2015
A bit more of a chilled out night by the pool at mainland India’s most southern tip. Despite the signs saying the pool was closed, our Rickshaw Challengers still jumped in for a bathe. Things were kept pretty kosher tonight after the long drive south, dealing with the mountains, monkeys and the most scenic drive of the trip. Although, many stayed up by the pool, some of the participants wanted to take things easy for the final run and to catch the sunrise over Cape Comorin.
Trivandrum, 6 January 2015

The GamingZion Rickshaw Challenge Classic Run 2015 was over, the awards given out and our teams were getting ready to head their separate ways, but not before one more bash. Everyone gathered to the rooftop of the nearby Hotel Horizon for a chilled out drink with views over the Keralan capital, but in true Classic Run 2015 style, the Bob Billies invited everyone back to their room, yet again, for some final crazy antics.
Things got a little heated, as our Rickshaw survivors got into a few wrestling matches, with Dukes of the Green’s Harry getting into the wrestling more than anyone else in the group. François from the Wacky Racers dazzled everyone with his bright green pyjamas and somewhere along the line, a lamp got broken, and drunken travel plans to Goa were made.
Thus wraps up another Rickshaw Challenge, but we hope that most of the participants went away with new friends for life.