The First Few Days

We had read a bit on the internet about the problems associated with buying a rickshaw as a foreigner, particularly as they are almost 100% registered for use as commercial vehicles and how changing to private use was very difficult, again especially as a foreigner.

To be honest we had no real idea how we were going to actually get to buy a rickshaw, we just decided to gamble on the flights and see what we could sort out when we arrived.

Our initial idea was to ask everyone we met and hope that we would bump into the right person. During our first breakfast we asked the owner of the hostel we had stayed in - he rang his friend, who asked another friend.. etc etc. By the end of breakfast we had an appointment to view a second hand rickshaw in the afternoon. During the morning we paid a rickshaw driver to show us the town and again asked everyone we met. Most laughed and said it was not possible. We visited the auto-consulat and they said that even if we did buy one it would take at least 30 days to transfer the paperwork into our names and to -register as a private vehicle. Shit.

After asking a load more people we found one person who said they may be able to do it in ten days. We were beginning to be a little disheartened by this, being as we only had a limited time for the trip we couldn't afford weeks of waiting. Nevertheless we decided to press on with our viewing of the rickshaw in the afternoon.

Around 8 guys turned up to show us a 2006 Piaggio Ape - a slightly bigger rickshaw with a diesel engine rather than the two stroke petrol - better for our trip. It was in fairly bad condition with a cracked windscreen and lots of dents. We dicked around pretending to know what we were looking at and even went for a terrifying test drive, with Prior continually changing down when he meant to change up and us kangarooing down the road. One of the guys - who seemed to be the main broker despite not owning it said he could sort the deal and transfer the paperwork within three days. We were skeptical but said we'd have a think and call them in an hour.

We decided that we'd really like to see at least one more before plunging into a deal as it was a reasonable amount of money for something that we knew next to zero about, but the lure of having the difficult paperwork done in an impossibly quick three days was tempting. We rang the guy and arranged to meet him again, he said that he had a friend who was the local rickshaw secretary and that was how he could sort the paperwork, he also said that he could show us another rickshaw although it was older. By now we had started to get the feeling that this guy, who was called Shakira, might be worth trusting.

We arranged to view the older rickshaw later in the evening, it was again the slightly larger model - perfect for our slightly larger size and weight (Fyvie). We decided to go out for food and discovered a nice restaurant by the sea with cheap premium Kingfisher beer. For some reason we lost track of time and after a big meal and quite a few beers suddenly realsied we were late for our appointment, after legging it back we just made it in time to meet them. Shakira was there again, this time with a completely different group of around 7 guys. The big factor in this meeting was the 'several' beers we had beforehand, this time, despite looking at it in the dark, we were confident. We kicked the tyres and looked knowingly at the engine, this one had the added benefit of chrome, spear type things on the side, a rubber crow type bird mounted above the windscreen and also 'disco' style headlights. After a risky test drive we all agreed we were in and so 'The white crow' was purchased.