7 March, 1999. New Delhi, India.

The Rickshaw

I'm not sure when the idea first hit me, but when it did, it stuck. It was my sixth day in India and I still hadn't ridden in a bicycle rickshaw.

A van? Yes. A taxi? Yes. An elephant? Hell yes! We'd swerved around monkeys, cows, camels, dogs, pigs, and entire families packed onto a single motor scooter. The roads of India are an adventure however you navigate them, but I was set on a bicycle rickshaw.

So I found a driver (pedaler?) and asked the price. 50 rupees. Fair enough, I said, as long as I could drive part-way.

With that he was in the back of his own rickshaw and I was pedaling. The driver took it pretty casually, but to everyone else I was clearly a sight to behold: a six-foot white guy pedaling my Indian driver around in his own rickshaw. Everyone who saw us either laughed, waved, cheered, or simply stared in disbelief. We left a wake through Old Delhi: a grinning, giggling wake like a stampede of circus clowns had just passed through.

I was grinning and waving right back at everyone, swerving around pedestrians, potholes, rickshaws, dogs, and gawking bystanders. We banged into another rickshaw going the other way but the driver urged me on. "But stay left. Left!" he said. I handed back my camera and was turned half around saying cheese when we nearly rear-ended two more rickshaws. I screeched to a halt and the driver thought maybe it was best that he drive for a while.

When I got off that bike and looked back at the sea of happy faces, all thoroughly amused by our swapped roles, it was truly the greatest moment of this entire trip.

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