Meeting Barnaby
On August 1st, 2016, we, the Globetrotters Independent Traders, finally made the acquaintance of our auto rickshaw. We named him Barnaby (Barnes for short).
After registering and meeting some of the other Adventurists, we set about learning the ins and outs of rickshaw driving. Matt (the director) gave us a brief lesson on starting, changing gears, and stopping. We also had a lesson in the mechanics of the beast...essentially three parts - Fuel, electrical, mechanical (that has been drummed into us over and over).
And then it was time to take him for a test run! It seemed easy enough; we were confident in our abilities. We had definitely paid attention in the briefing. To every detail. After all, we are three highly educated women. How hard it could be?
Well, as it turns out, how quickly do the mighty fall. Our excitement and fervor for driving Barnes was swiftly derailed when trying to start the engine. Margo took the first turn. No luck. Perhaps her arm wasn't strong enough. Kate next. Still no luck. Even Wylie couldn't get the thing to budge. Humbled and with our tails between our legs, we sought out our rickshaw guru, Matt, and asked for a personal demonstration. Matt hopped into Barnes and with one jerk of the lever, had the engine humming.
We gave it another try. Still nothing. All of us at this point are thinking, we can't get the bloody thing started...we're going to have to drop out of the race!! It was then that Matt pointed out to us that you should not pull the clutch in when pulling the start lever. And...SUCCESS!!!
Getting To India
First big lesson of the trip. Direct flights and nonstop flights are NOT the same thing. Apart from almost missing the train to Seoul (Incheon), we (Kate and Michelle) arrived at the airport to find out that our carefully planned schedule had gone awry. What should have been an 8-hr flight to Cochin, India, turned into an unexpected 30-hr adventure. The flight staff on Air India took pity on us and it soon became an all-you-can-drink flight, which we took full advantage of. Of course, in our inebriated state, Kate made the novice mistake of leaving her passport on the plane, from which ensued a frazzled rush to retrieve it and make the next flight.
Of course, once we arrived in India, everything went swimmingly because we had booked in to stay at the Four Seasons, Mumbai.
Meanwhile, Margo, who was vacationing in Bali at the time, received an email about 24 hours before her flight to India, that the flight had been re-scheduled. She had to book another flight, spend 3 hours going through immigration in Kuala Lumpur, arrive in Kolkata to an absent airport pick-up, and sleep in a hotel with very thin walls whilst the Bollywood beats echoed from the club upstairs.
The three of us met up at Kolkata airport where we caught a (delayed) flight to Guwahati and all clambered into a taxi to settle in for a 4 hour journey to Shillong late at night. As seems to be the case with India, our taxi driver took us to the center of town and told us to wait, where we were then treated to a lovely show of a dog ripping a rat to shreds. Our taxi driver came back and told us we had to switch to another taxi for the long trip to Shillong. Then as we were arriving into Shillong, around midnight, we find out our hotel has lost or misplaced our booking and so we all rather grumpily crammed into one room together.
Who knew pimping the rickshaw would be such a hurdle!
None of us are artists, I need to stress that...none of us. That fact coupled with it being the end of the semester for some of us, PhD deadlines for others and wandered off into lala land for yet another of our teammates...basically we have fully failed on the first task. This is not inspiring confidence in our abilities for the actual run...for me at least.
So we are finally, and past the deadline, sending in our (pretty pathetic, to be honest) design in the hope that some more talented than us can make something of it....a silk purse out of a sow's purse! Here's hoping...Optimism don't fail me now!
WTF?! and Hell ya
So girls as you know I am the reluctant, FOMO suffering member of our team...but never fear that as much as I complain on the front end, it is only a fraction of what you can expect during the event...only to be eclipsed by how much I rave about it after the fact :) That being said, there are no others that I could possibly choose to undertake this exciting, idiotic, life affirming, death-defying experience with! Let the fun begin! Here's to your 30th Margo (hope we make it to my fabulous 50th!)
