Pimped up autorickshaw

A pimped up
autorickshaw

Could this be the funkiest way to travel?

On the way to the caves at Ajanta we stopped to get a drink and an autorickshaw pulled up at the same cafe, however it wasn’t just any rickshaw, it had been pimped. I wonder if India has a version of America’s Pimp My Ride programme with theirs being called Pimp My Rickshaw?

So what made this rickshaw special?

Usually autorickshaws can fit up to four people if you’re willing to be squished along the narrow bench seat, although if you’re little – like me – you get to sit on someone’s lap. The pimped version had a comfy padded sofa in the back for only two passengers, in this case it was two Japanese ladies also going to Ajanta, which is at least 50 miles from Aurangabad!

The driver’s normal very narrow, hard bench seat had been replaced by a matching seat which looked like a comfortable armchair.

Autorickshaws’ mirrors are usually round, dirty things on the inside on the vehicle and are rarely used, but this one had bright pink metallic wingmirrors that if you looked at an angle looked like mobile phones.

The only sound you normally get while travelling in a rickshaw is ‘beeeep’, ‘beeeep’, ‘beeeep’ as they whizz through the traffic but passengers in this vehicle can listen to music pumped through the large speakers installed in the roof.

Windscreens on most autorickshaws are dirty with often a big crack somewhere in the screen whereas this one had a gleaming spotless screen with a sun visor above it. Above the sunvisor a unicorn like figure sparkled and glistened in the light making the autorickshaw look like a Rolls-Royce.

Here is the same picture a little bigger so you can see it easier:

A pimped up autorickshaw