Rickshaw Driving Lessons

A friend of Stacie’s (Anji) who’d heard about our Rickshaw Run adventure insisted on setting up rickshaw driving lessons and mechanic instruction. He’s scared to death for us and wanted to make sure we had at least a little bit of training under our belts. He runs motorcycle tours around India, but still cannot fathom why in the world we would set out on something like this with no support vehicle, no fixed route and above all no training in how to drive a rickshaw! So, in December, the whole Karma Kab family (Karilyn, Paul, Stacie & Janikka) took a weekend trip to Pune to make him feel a bit better about our adventure! It was excellent and we are so glad that Anji set it up for us.

We were all feeling quite anxious about the lessons especially when it became clear that we weren’t going to be taken to some deserted parking lot to learn, we were going to learn right there on the streets of Korageon Park! Paul went first and rocked – he’d never driven anything in his life before his 15 hrs of driving lessons and he somehow just had the knack. Up and down the same street, learning how to shift and make uturns.

I was scared to death to try since the last time I tried to drive a rickshaw I couldn’t make it 2 feet without stalling. But after Paul’s nice display of driving skills, I had to give it a go. I amazingly did quite well and didn’t even stall the first go around. I was feeling quite proud of myself even though the one thing I just could not manage to do was start the rickshaw! I tried a good 15 times with no luck. I had given up and decided that Paul will just have to start the rickshaw for me the entire trip. But later in the day I finally realized I just didn’t have the arm strength, but that it might work if I used both arms…and it worked! I was so excited that I immediately stalled and got to do it again.

Then it was Janikka’s turn to get behind the handlebars – she was also petrified. She did great though and slowly got more comfortable with the insanity on the streets. Through most of our lesson we had no idea how to stop the rickshaw, which bothered us immensely but gave the instructor no worries. As we’d freak out coming up to a section of the road filled with kids, cars, bicycles, motorcycles and stray dogs he’d just say “no problem” and somehow we’d meander our way through without incident. I guess that is the only way to do it in India. We have to learn to rid ourselves of our natural instinct to slam on the breaks when something crazy lies in our path!
Since our driving instructor didn’t speak much English, he had little phrases he’d tell us to get his point across. When he wanted us to slow down he’d say “No Race, no race” and when we needed to give it a little gas he’d say “Small Race”. It was hilarious and kept us highly entertained!

We all got several trips around the neighborhood driving. We practiced our turns, uturns, down-shifting and stopping. Although I am still not convinced that these little tin cans on wheels actually stop when you want them to! It seems that it takes about 10 feet before it fully stops. We'll have to test our rickshaw out first thing and make sure we know the proper stopping distance. And after we left we realized that we didn't really learn how to deal with stop and go traffic. Our hope is we won't be stuck in traffic too much, but I am sure we will.

Next up was mechanics class! We met up with a local rickshaw-walla who then took us for mechanic lessons. We'd driven by the mechanics graveyard all day long, so when they saw that we had come for lessons on fixing the rickshaw they were very excited! I can’t say that I learned much though – but Paul really took to this and got right in there with the mechanics, getting his hands greasy in the process. He seems confident that he can change the gear cables, throttle cables and check the spark plug. I took notes, but I just hope that either Paul can fix it or that a mechanic isn't too far away!

After our day of training the excitement level grew 10 fold. People kept telling us how hard it was to drive a rickshaw, that there was no way we’d be able to do it, etc, so after an ego boost of lessons we all were able to brush off some of those concerns and feel more confident in the adventure that lies ahead. And I am psyched about driving the rickshaw. I kept wanting to tell the auto drivers today that I also know how to drive :)