Driving ‘Ultimate


BY ANDRÉA PROULX (W/HELP FROM DAN THOMSON)


1200 km on strange roads and no maps. Welcome to India, autorickshaw-style – don’t forget to pack a Frisbee!


This past January, my partner Dan and I competed against 12 other teams from around the world in the Rickshaw Challenge, a two-week rally across southern India. There’s just one catch, only three wheels allowed in this race.


For 12 days, ‘Ultimate Tuk-Tuk’, our


hardy, Frisbee-themed autorickshaw was our home. With no headlights, turning sig- nals, seatbelts, or gas gage, it handled just about everything India had to offer. Rain? Don’t bother with the manual windshield wiper, it just smears the dirt around. We navigated dirt roads with giant pot-


holes, narrow bridges with transport trucks – all while dodging cars, children, scoot- ers, goats, bicycles, dogs, and of course, the sacred cows.


With anything and everything on the


road, you can imagine the first few days were quite stressful for two novice Canadi- an drivers. Several near-death experiences left me with the sweats and some serious stress-induced heartburn, or maybe that was the food? One of my personal favourite disasters-


in-waiting was the ‘Road Safety’ gates, usually waiting around a corner, just as we were picking up speed. These four-foot tall metal barricades were strategically set-up


Tuk-Tuk’ An adventure through India with discs


on highways to force our little rickshaw careening into oncoming traffic. Clearly I missed the “playing chicken” section in my Official MTO Driver’s Handbook. With a little trial and error (mostly er-


ror) we began to get the hang of things. Like the wild, everything in India travels in packs. Once a critical mass accumulates at any intersection, you can force your way


34 Ultimate Canada Magazine — www.canadianultimate.com


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