Days 2 and 3 of the Mumbai Xpress 2017.
By now the Mumbai Xpress Rickshaw Challenge 2017 is well underway, and teams are braving the Indian roads and… rain. Here’s Princely with his update from Day 2 and 3:
Suburb Driving
Being a Sunday, the second day of Rickshaw challenge Mumbai xpress 2017 had a mini challenge to do. It was about driving to a suburb of Mumbai called Mallad. I went in to the hotel by 9 am and there was a team who had already done the challenge and were waiting for me. They were surprised to see the empty roads of Mumbai. It was Team 2 ‘3 amigos/Salvation Army’. They had planned to have a sightseeing in Mumbai and that’s why they finished the challenge early and were waiting for me in the Lobby. Once I see them they handed over the sheet and started with their plan for the day.
Daft Punk are Breaking Down in Your House
One by one all the teams came to reception and all had their own plan of doing mini challenge. The rest of the day went on smoothly until I got a call from Team 13. Team Draft Trunk Garage had a break down and they messaged me. Within half an hour the Super team of Chennai Garage went and attended the call. They were back on road again.
Submarine Required
By 3 pm almost all the teams had made it to the base hotel. Team 10 and Team 11 did not turn up for quite a while but they turned back in another hour from the rest of the teams. Both teams known as Swole Team 6 and Sgt pepper’s Submarine had fixed a blue siren light on their rickshaws. Eventually they were pulled up by cops for that and they had to pay money to get out of the situation. They also told me that they had a savior in the form of a local person who spoke to police officer who asked them to remove it.
Costumes
The first day on road has not failed to excite the Challengers. Costumes and themes of the team were innovative and that added colour to the opening. But the dampening stuff was rain during the start. It started raining when we were briefing and did not stop till we flagged off.
Help from Locals
Rest of the day I could see about 4 teams on my way to Alibag. I did not receive any call from anyone regarding a break down on the whole day. By the finish of the day when the teams started arriving at the hotel, I heard stories of a few teams who made to the express highway and one of them ran out of petrol as well. But that is not the end, they were helped by few locals and they were back on track pretty quickly.
