Day11

“Do something stupid and take a picture of it I”

 
The first school visit in the rally was planned for the day. The Manglore day was a bright start. Being a long distance, teams were well informed and we did an early briefing at 7.45 am. Team 12 Rickshaw Lady and Team 14 Spider Flamingo wanted to start early and they skipped the school visit. The other teams assembled for the school and we arrived there on time. The day is the Independence Day for India, so the school had planned for flag hoisting. The Round table India’s Manglore chapter arranged the event for us. After assembling in the school, the teams were introduced to the project by the Round Tablers. Then we moved on to hoisting the flag and the ceremony was witnessed by the teams. By 9 am all got over and 10 to 15 minutes were taken for Photo session. After photo session all the teams were on the way.
 

“Do something stupid and take a picture of it II”

 
By routine I had my breakfast and kept moving towards the next destination.  Team 4 9 Inch Males gave the first service call for the day, after two hours of drive. The service team attended them and found out that they had burnt the piston of the engine. It was fixed in 30 minutes and the team could get back on road. When I had lunch in Medikeri, I met Team 1 Axles of Ignorance and team 11 at the lunch place. After that, there was absolutely no call for the day.
 

“Do something stupid and take a picture of it III”

 
The final approach to Mysore had pouring rain and the teams had to drive slowly because of the visibility. Finally all the teams arrived at the hotel before 7 pm, except Team 12 The Rickshaw Lady and Team 14 Spider Flamingo. There were plenty of fun moments on the road and as usual Team 1 Axles of Ignorance had their part this day as well. Their handle bar was painted gold when they had parked it in the hotel for lunch.
 

Extra points for spotting an elephant

 
Team 6  Desert Gypsies had a lucky moment when they crossed an elephant and all the other teams were jealous of that.
Team 12 The Rickshaw Lady and Team 14 Spider Flamingo went the wrong way and entered another state called Kerala. Eventually they made it to the hotel around 8pm. The day witnessed many locals wanting photos with the teams as they were all high on Independence Day Celebration. The Rickshaw Challenge never had any dull movements and it lived up to the participant’s expectation.
 

Day 12

A great welcome

 
Another school visit in Mysore was on the agenda for the day. A Round Table member from Mysore joined us in the hotel lobby, 15 minutes before the start of our briefing. After a quick briefing we started in convoy to the school at around 8.15 am. There was a band to welcome the participants in the school. The school arranged a dance and we had some interaction time with the kids. Teams introduced themselves to the kids and spoke a few words on how they feel about India. After a request from the kids, participants sang and even danced for a song. It was a warm and happy interaction and all teams enjoyed the visit.
 

First the talking…

 
It is an easy day drive as the distance is less than 150 km. There was absolutely no service call for the day and the Bangalore traffic was the only challenge for all the teams. Some of the teams stayed in Mysore for the morning session as they visited the palace. All the teams arrived at the hotel before the flag off time, except 3 teams. Team 11 Sgt Pepper’s Submarine, Team 12  The Rickshaw Lady and Team 14 Spider Flamingo stuck together from the beginning of the day and they reached the hotel at 8.15 pm. 10 km for 1 hour was the only information they could pass on after they reached the base hotel.
 

… then the dancing!

 
The day came to end with Banglore Red FM taking interviews with the participants. All ended well and preparation for the makeover challenge has been finished by some teams. As there was some sudden pour of rain, some of the teams wanted some time in the morning before they start. With a long distance to go, teams are prepared to face it. See you tomorrow, until then bye.
 

Scores, scores, scores!

 

We have a new leader with Team 13 Daft Trunk Garage, but they are very closely followed by Team 1 Axles of Ignorance and Team 5 Oh Yeaahh. There are still some days to drive and some challenges to do, so nothing is decided yet!
 

Day 6 – When You Show Too Much Enthusiasm For The Picture Challenge

Yercaurd morning is a beautiful morning with mist on the hill station and the pleasant sound of birds added music to the scene. In this idyll the teams prepared their tuk tuk for the makeover challenge. Except team 4, 6 and Team 11, all participated in it and they showed the eagerness to win the championship. By 8 am all the teams gathered for the briefing.
 

Day 7 – A Rickshaw Loving Ambassador

The final day excitement and the thought of the  finish line gave all the participants a mixed feeling. As usual we planned for an early start and wanted to regroup at Tambaram (a suburb, 30 km before Chennai) for the finish ceremony. Team Neruppu Da called for assistance about half an hour after we left the hotel.  Otherwise, it was a lightning day. Teams arrived at the regrouping place, well in time except Team Indiaree and Team Let’s go Jozi. The late quickly joined us but Team Indiaree missed the finish.
 

Day 9: Panaji to Murudeshwara

 

 
August 15 is Indian Independence day. To commemorate it, the Goa round table had arranged a school visit for that morning. This was planned well in advance and teams Two, Three, Four, Five and Six took part in it.
By the time we arrived, the flag had been hoisted in the premises and the kids were performing the skits they themselves had prepared. The Teams enjoyed the show and rewarded the children with the gifts they had prepared, together with the gifts from Round table. We waved them goodbye just before 10 a.m., and went on our way.
When I had crossed Karwar and was heading for Batkal, I ran into Team Eight who had a technical glitch in the vehicle. I checked it and it transpired that the tuk tuk had had this issue since day four. We suspected that a bottle cap was causing a blockage in the fuel tank, interfering with transmission and dampening Team Eight’s spirits. I called the service team, who promptly replaced the tank that same day. Thankfully, all went smoothly for Team Eight after this.
I’ve noticed that that there are two distinct clans that the groups have formed: the first comprises Teams One to Six, the second Teams Seven to Nine. The first one calls on the support team and staff as a matter of course, while the second one is more self-sufficient. They took care of all their own repairs as they came up and also ended up filming all the hidden treasures of India.
I reached Murudeshwara at around 2.30 p.m.; the first team to arrive caught up with me at 4.30 p.m. Some of the teams visited the beach of Agoda as suggested in our day plan. They found the big Shiva statue and the tower exciting. They also admired the view that the base hotel had. We wound up the day sharing our meandering Indian storied over a few beers at Naveen residency.

Day Ten: Murudeshwara to Mangalore

 
Driving through the state of Maharastra has made the participants experts drivers. They had negotiated some tough terrains, challenged by heavy rains and bad roads – all this had made them adept at handling any situation. In contrast to Maharastra, the drive from Murudeshwara is an easy task for everyone because it is pretty much a good road all the way.
Udupi is the stop in-between for a moderate challenge; most of the teams visited it and some even tried the food served in the local temple. Time just flew by on Day Ten, so we ended up discussing the next day’s drive well in advance during the debriefing. Teams were well aware that there was to be a school visit the next morning, followed by an 250-odd km drive to Mysore.

Day 11: Mangalore to Mysore

 
 

 
Only four teams, One, Two, Three, and Six took part in the Maglore school visit in the end, because the day is one of the longest day in the entire journey, and the rest of the teams wanted to leave early as possible. After the school visit, the teams were flagged off by the roundtable people.
On the road, I saw Team Nine attending to a glitch, and when I stopped next to them to offer help, they gave me thumbs up to show that everything was under control. They were soon back on the road.
I later learnt through Facebook that Team Eight had had some silencer issues and they had also taken care of it themselves. The long day turned out to be an uneventful one and all the teams arrived well in time and enjoyed the view of the lit-up Palace in the evening. Teams gathered in the Opium bar in the base hotel; it was a rocking session for them.

Day 12: Mysore to Bangalore

 
The morning in Mysore started with a school visit; we went there with all refreshed and reinvigorated. All the teams came and every one had a super time with the children at school. Many Participants danced and asked the kids to show off their moves. The kids happily obliged.
After this, Team Two and Team Six danced to a salsa tune and the kids enjoyed the small gesture from our Participants. Even though our distance from our destination was not a concern, the day’s drive ended up longer than planned, from having to negotiate the Banglore traffic and find the base hotel. In the end, all the teams made it in style except Team Three who needed some help with navigation to find the hotel.
Team Two participant Hector Gabriel from Puerto Rico had his birthday that day. He threw a party in Bangalore in the base hotel’s new pub space. All the teams went. I heard the next day it had been a wild party: some of the team members could not even get out of bed the next morning.

Day 13: Bangalore to Vellore

 

The morning in Banglore also kicked off with a school visit, but because of the birthday bash after-effects, Teams One and Six couldn’t make it. Nor did Teams Seven to Nine, who had stayed in a different hotel and decided to have early start. So in the end only four teams made it to the school. The school had a terrific band and the welcome no participant will forget. Such a warm welcome and greetings blew the teams away; everyone wanted to stick around for the rest of the day.
But we had to set off to keep to schedule. It was a smooth drive to Vellore. All teams wanted to arrive and rest early as they were still somewhat worn out from the previous day. The teams had mixed feelings about the last day: most of them were sad that the fun rally was coming to end.

Day 14: Vellore to Chennai

 
The final day started with a project visit and ended in a school. All had gone accoerding to plan and all teams had made it all the way through the rally. The school visit and the atmosphere the students created gave a fitting farewell to the great rally of Mumbai Xpress 2016. After the school visit, all teams gathered in the Elements hostel to celebrate. Everyone agreed that the countless memories from the 14 days of the rally will be staying with all the participants for a long time yet.

Day Four

 

Though all tuk tuks were taken and raring to go by the crack of dawn, proceedings were soon brought to a screeching halt by Team Four’s chassis issues, in need of emergency welding, unfortunately unavailable before 10 a.m. in Pune – far too long to wait around for the fired-up throng of adventure-takers that we are. Cue a round of jiggery-pokery by our star mechanic Tiger (Thyagu),  while we stood around in trepidation. And voila: his magic took hold, and the intrepid Team Four hauled the puny tuk tuk through the urban brew of Pune and bounded for a welding shop somewhere in the outskirts of town, while still holding the day’s challenge, a visit to Aga khan firmly in their sights.
 
Meanwhile, Team 3 (Just Married), apparently swallowed by the maze of the city’s streets, headed off in the wrong direction. Fortunately though, when I checked the maps, I spied that there is a way for them rejoin us on the road to Mahabaleshwar. Phew!
 
Slowly moving through the heaving traffic of Pune, we caught up with the Team Four. As if granted by a magic djinn, the wish of a welding shop on the edge of town did indeed materialize and their vehicle was duly repaired.

 
Team Eight was next on the Pune Problems list, with a rather nebulous fuel transmission issue, which first slowed their journey out of the city to a crawl, then forced it to a juddering halt in the mouth of a tunnel on the way out of town. The Chennai garage team had to rush to their rescue – a task made all the harder by the absence of U-turns anywhere near the tunnel. Once the glitch was fixed, the team moved on with the plan. While they were awaiting their rescuers, by the way, they too witnessed Team Three taking their unscheduled exit out of town. But hey, any successful  exit out of Pune is better than none, if you ask me!
 
Reassured that all was back on track, I breathed a sigh of relief, and, as I later learnt, so did all the teams. The rest of the day unfolded smoothly  and all teams started arriving at the base hotel after 4 pm. As it is a hill station, teams enjoyed the hotel views for a bit, then, to the surprise of  the hotel staff, spilled out on the dancefloor of the small disco joint and  showed their killer dance moves til lates became earlies – pics on Facebook! .
 

Day Five

The most eventful day in the journey thus far  started off as usual, with a briefing and breakfast at 8 a.m, and were on the road by  9.30 a.m. Heading towards Mahableshware, we hit a 5 km jam on the road.  I walked out my car to find out what had happened. On the way I saw that all the teams except Team Three and Team Five were stuck in the traffic. It transpired that a truck had skidded through and blocked the road all the way across. It was another half an hour before a recovery vehicle cleared the block and traffic started moving.
 
The next challenge was visibility in the mountain road. Due to the heavy monsoon, the roads were washed away in many places. This made the drive to Rathnagiri the most challenging day. Team Eight had developed the same sort of problem again with their engine: they had to clean the carburetor and the tank to make them work again. Team Four lost about half an hour due to running out of fuel. But  all the teams gradually started to pick up speed, and  the first team reached Rathnagiri at about 6.30 p.m. All the teams had to drive in the dark. Team One, who had sailed through unscathed thus far, took a bad hit – though they remained unharmed, their vehicle was not in a good shape after. They ended up getting half-towed to the hotel by around 10 p.m.
 

Day Six

Morning was spent on a general tech check and fixing of Team One’s vehicle. After briefing, all the teams set off for the day. Team Four immediately broke down, but pulled themselves up by the wheel spokes (as it were) and bounced back just as quickly, the troopers that they are. The rest of the day went smoothly: the teams enjoyed driving through the lovely mountain views and green fields. They only needed a little tech help from the support crew in the evening, as it grew too dark for them to drive.
 
With tomorrow being a rest day, the teams partied in different places. The fun night will bring lot of good memories for them all. They can be proud of themselves to have the first – eventful and dramatic – half of Mumbai Xpress 2016 already under their belts! Hopefully, their excitement will fuel their enthusiasm and keep them in high spirits all through the second one.
 

Day 5: Panchgani to Ratnagiri

Day 6: Rathnagiri to Panaji

Day 7: Panaji

Day 8: Panaji to Murudeshwara

Day 9: Murudeshwara to Mangalore (Mangaluru)

Day 10: Mangalore to Mysore

Day 11: Mysore to Bangalore

Day 12: Bangalore to Vellore

The Final Day Bash: Vellore to Chennai

And The Winners Are…

Indian Tuk Tuk Ride

This game

Created by JSplash Apps, the Auto Rickshaw Rash mobile game is both quirky and fun. Get behind the wheel and join this crazy race, but be careful as there are no rules here. In fact, this is the one place where bad driving is rewarded! Take the lead, hit, grind and smash your opponents – you’ll get coins every time you do this. Coins can be used to upgrade your auto rickshaw and you can unlock awesome achievements as you progress.
The race is set in an imaginary location in Bangalore, India, and drivers speak in Kannada during the race. A newer version will take players to famous cities like Chennai and Mumbai.

This Indian Mickey Mouse cartoon

Watch Mickey speeding through the Mumbai traffic in an auto rickshaw, to get an elephant up a mountain. Unless you speak the language, you won’t understand much of it, but truth to be told you don’t even need to; this cartoon is universally funny.

The mind-blowing TUK600

The what? The Far Cry 4 Tuk Tuk replica created by Colin Furze, of course! The DYI mad man took a normal auto rickshaw and turned it into a crazy machine by putting a Honda engine on it and rigging airsoft guns on it.

The Rickshaw Challenge

Looking for a crazy adventure in India? The Rickshaw Challenge is exactly what you need! Since 2006, the rally team has been offering tourists the chance to be part of a once-in-a-lifetime experience, where partying and sightseeing combine in a unique way.
All you have to do is gather your friends or family to create a team, pack your bags and we’ll take care of everything else, so you can fully enjoy the ride! Whether you choose the Classic Run, the Malabar Rampage, Deccan Odyssey, Mumbai Xpress or Tamilnadu Run, you’re guaranteed to have the most adventure-filled vacation in India.

These badass pimped rickshaws

Driving an auto rickshaw is certainly an interesting experience, but if you’re looking for something that will grab everyone’s attention, check out these crazy pimped out auto rickshaws. Giant horns, toy guns, colorful lights, weird paint jobs – your imagination is the only limit to what your customized auto rickshaw will look like.
If you want to ride in style, you can make your rickshaw look like a limousine on the inside. If you want everyone to notice you when you pass by, why not disguise your vehicle as a giant furry rabbit, or paint flames on its sides to make it look badass? Anything is possible!

Mellowcab

Although only recently introduced, this product is already touted as the electric rickshaw of the future. Mellowcab is a service that manufactures and operated electric auto rickshaws, which have been transformed to mini-cabs to be used as public transportation in crowded cities. In addition to carrying passengers, the service also makes money from selling advertising space on vehicles.
The electric mini-cabs were created by a South African entrepreneur, who thought the on-demand taxi service would serve as a green, cheap, safe and fast alternative for regular cars.
The three-wheeler designed by Neil du Preez weighs 230 kg. It is powered by pedals and an electric-assist motor and runs on rechargeable lead-crystal batteries which allow it to run for about 110 km at a top speed of 112 km/h. Mellowcab will work through a smartphone app.

This social initiative

And last, but not least, auto rickshaws deserve all your love and admiration because they are also used in social causes. The Rickshaw Challenge supports various charities and encourages participants to donate.
The Rickshaw Project is another notable social initiative. The organization offers jobs for people with disabilities, employing them as drivers for specially-designed, hand-controlled, retrofitted rickshaws. Through this initiative, TRP is trying to fight against prejudices and campaign for the rights of people with disabilities.
We hope this article helped you discover just how awesome these tiny vehicles are. But if you still have doubts, you should join us on our next rally and we guarantee you’ll fall hopelessly in love with auto rickshaws.

So with Far Cry 4 set to be released this november 18th Ubisoft asked me to turn driving a tuk tuk and shooting (something you can do in the game) into a reality so what fool would i be to turn down being paid to create such an experiance. So armed with someone elses cash i bought a Tuk of ebay and thought they need to spend some money on some power as if you going to shoot from this thing you need to be able to keep up with what ever your chaseing and with a normal top speed of 40mph i took pride in buying a CBR600 to boost performace, its also more fun when its not your cash hehe.
The TUK600 the most insane tuk tuk rickshaw ever created or even imagined. Check it drift,light up the rears, shoot, wheelie and donut while spitting 15ft flames in fact just writing that sentence make me realise what a bad ass machine this is.

The ULTIMATE Tuk Tuk

“Malabar Rampage entails riding across the Malabar Coast of India (west coast) covering the states of Kerala, Karnataka and the Union Territory of Goa. With a distance of close to 1100 kms (680 miles), the ride encompasses some breath taking scenic views and historical cities. The pleasant weather during this part of the year, only makes the ride more enjoyable. Icing in the cake would be the stay at Margao, one of the famous beach destinations in the world.”

Tuk Tuk Harlem Shake (India)