"Driving in my Tuk -Tuk"

One thing you should know about us members of Bears Unlimited is that we always keep our promises. We have therefore, not forgotten that, a while ago, we promised to report on our tuk-tuk driving lesson. If you've been waiting for this report your patience will now be rewarded.

As we've told you, our tour leader, Andrew, was very kindly disposed to bears. He appreciated that we couldn't do quite as much cycling as the rest of the group in view of our rather short legs, so arranged a number of alternative forms of transport for us to complement our cycling.

We simply loved our tuk-tuk driving lesson - really we should call it an auto rickshaw as that's what they're called in India, but we prefer to call them tuk-tuks. We simply cannot understand why they are not all the rage at home as they are such fun, and we are seriously considering importing them as a new Bears Unlimited business venture.

Most of the tuk-tuks in the area were black and gold in colour but we got to drive in a special blue one, complete with L plates. We got our vehicle started fairly easily and checked the horn was working, as our instructor told us that the most important tip he could give us was to use the horn at every opportunity as most drivers don't obey any rules of the road. As we took to the streets this became quite apparent and we began to wonder why every driver in India doesn't have L plates as most don't appear to have had any lessons!

Mastering the tuk-tuk controls didn't take us very long and once we had established that the best way to get anywhere was to drive like a maniac so we would fit in with the traffic flows, we were well away and left our cycling minders far behind. In fact we had finished a bottle of Kingfisher in a local restaurant before they caught up!



Lots of love, George & Yorkie xxx (beep beep!)