Autorickshaws

2 weeks into our Ahmedabad stay, I'm still amazed that the streets are not littered with the dead and injured from traffic accidents. It's cheap, convenient, mostly cheerful, sometimes exhilarating and always somewhat terrifying. Dad tells me that the relative chaos on roads in the cities of developing countries like Ahmedabad is reflected in the road toll - about 12 times higher. We go everywhere by rickshaw, doing at least half a dozen rides each day.

These are some of the funny (scary) things we've had on our rickshaw trips (if only I'd had my camera in hand):

• Josh saw a bloke riding pillion facing backwards typing on his laptop
• goat in with the passengers
• talking on mobile phones while driving passenger laden rickshaws, or riding motorbikes is commonplace
• the usual street fauna - cows, camels, donkeys, goats walk slowly across the path of fast moving traffic

Mum captured the road rules (or lack of) well in her email:

There are no road rules that anyone obeys and regular opportunities for road rage but one rarely sees any!  The first person to fill a gap has right of way and that includes driving the wrong way down a 2 lane highway - 2cm seems to be the accepted lee-way.

No one seems to have change ever - and I don't think it's a ploy to rip you off. You're greeted with much eye-rolling and huffing if you present anything bigger than 50 Rs (AU $1.25). One honest rickshaw driver wanted 10 Rs (25 cents) for a trip. I only had a 50 which I was prepared to give him. He appeared an hour later with the 40 Rs change - he's accumulated some good karma. On my way home from Darpana today after lunch there was a line stretching about 100m out the front of the "Reserve Bank of India". I asked the rickshaw driver why - "change".