Race Day 1: Kochi to unknown location
Money raise for charity: $134
Distance Traveled: 250 km
Near Death Experiences: 3 Narrowly avoided collision via giant potholep, nearly taken out by head on traffic and ran off the road b y a GIANT semi.
Today's the day! We wake at 7am and have 3 hours before the race starts. We pickup our rickshaw and proceed to "pimp it" as Daniel Gonzales (our videographer) says. We get fancy chrome fog lights, a flower rosary and a fresh set paint to pretty up our tuk tuk.
We arrive at the starting line fresh faced and ready to go. When the organizers ask our team name… we have no idea… someone blurts out, "Rabbit Foot!" Hopefully the name brings us a bit o' luck, we're gonna need it.
All together there are 72 teams of charity adventurers from all over the world, it seems the adventurous spirit knows no limits and doesn't discriminate by race or region.
At 10am the race officially starts… we're off... and immediately get lost. Eventually we find a ferry from Cochi to the National Highway #17 (NH17) and have a ruff idea of where we are.
After an hour of driving we pull over and come to terms with the a simple fact… driving in india is completely INSANE! We had no idea what we were getting into. Reality is now sinking in, there are no apparent rules, huge trucks barrel down one way roads... going the wrong way and run anything smaller than them off the road.
We drive and drive and drive… and get lost more times than we can count. Eventually the sun drops below the horizon and darkness comes. We think, "Surley the traffic must improve at night…" oh how wrong we were. Somehow driving at night is even worse than driving during the day. Drivers become even more aggressive at night and armed with ultra bright headlights they blind us before running us off the road. After an hour of trying to drive at night we give up and try to find lodging.
The first hotel we stop at rejects us flat out. "So sorry mister, we're full" says a head bobbling manager guarding an empty hotel. The hotel is clearly empty and something about the managers demeanor tells us he doesn't want 3 dirty rickshaw driving tourists staying in nice hotel. So, it's off to the next option. We drive another twenty minutes in the increasingly insane traffic and eventually find another hotel. The hotel manager takes 1 look at us and tries to shake us down, "2,500 rupees!" (about $55) he demands. After 20 minutes of haggling we talk him down to 1,500 rupees, stumble up to our room and fall into a deep dreamless sleep.
Money raise for charity: $134
Distance Traveled: 250 km
Near Death Experiences: 3 Narrowly avoided collision via giant potholep, nearly taken out by head on traffic and ran off the road b y a GIANT semi.
Today's the day! We wake at 7am and have 3 hours before the race starts. We pickup our rickshaw and proceed to "pimp it" as Daniel Gonzales (our videographer) says. We get fancy chrome fog lights, a flower rosary and a fresh set paint to pretty up our tuk tuk.
We arrive at the starting line fresh faced and ready to go. When the organizers ask our team name… we have no idea… someone blurts out, "Rabbit Foot!" Hopefully the name brings us a bit o' luck, we're gonna need it.
All together there are 72 teams of charity adventurers from all over the world, it seems the adventurous spirit knows no limits and doesn't discriminate by race or region.
At 10am the race officially starts… we're off... and immediately get lost. Eventually we find a ferry from Cochi to the National Highway #17 (NH17) and have a ruff idea of where we are.
After an hour of driving we pull over and come to terms with the a simple fact… driving in india is completely INSANE! We had no idea what we were getting into. Reality is now sinking in, there are no apparent rules, huge trucks barrel down one way roads... going the wrong way and run anything smaller than them off the road.
We drive and drive and drive… and get lost more times than we can count. Eventually the sun drops below the horizon and darkness comes. We think, "Surley the traffic must improve at night…" oh how wrong we were. Somehow driving at night is even worse than driving during the day. Drivers become even more aggressive at night and armed with ultra bright headlights they blind us before running us off the road. After an hour of trying to drive at night we give up and try to find lodging.
The first hotel we stop at rejects us flat out. "So sorry mister, we're full" says a head bobbling manager guarding an empty hotel. The hotel is clearly empty and something about the managers demeanor tells us he doesn't want 3 dirty rickshaw driving tourists staying in nice hotel. So, it's off to the next option. We drive another twenty minutes in the increasingly insane traffic and eventually find another hotel. The hotel manager takes 1 look at us and tries to shake us down, "2,500 rupees!" (about $55) he demands. After 20 minutes of haggling we talk him down to 1,500 rupees, stumble up to our room and fall into a deep dreamless sleep.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
Cheers,
Cheers,
Cedric
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