I love riding rickshas; there is just something about riding in an open-air carriage, nothing separating you from the outside world, feeling the air tousle your hair as you whistle down darkened streets, pulling a shawl round your shoulders to guard against the frigid air. (I know most of you won’t believe that it gets that cold here….but in December a shawl is a necessity!)

Of course, most of the time we hop onto a ricksha in the sweltering heat of mid-day, and spend most of the ride clinging to the side as the ricksha wallah dashes and weaves through traffic. For many commuters, rickshas are an affordable and relatively quick way of getting around. For buses, trucks, cars and CNG’s that also ply the streets, I’m sure rickshas can be the bane of their existence! As a result, they are left to the mercy of the bigger monsters! Many times my ricksha has missed the broadside of a bus by mere inches! (thus the title for this post!)

Hundreds of rickshas crowd the streets, and most of the time there are several to choose from just outside your door. However, their construction is anything but standard, and to assure a comfortable ride, there are several things you should look for! Some rickshas have rounded seats, which look amazing but usually make you feel like you’re going to slip off at the slightest bump. Other rickshas have so little space between the passenger seat and the drivers seat that you are constantly banging the poor man’s back as he peddles! After a while, you get to the point where you can glance over a ricksha and make a pretty good judgment. Once you’re settled, you need to prepare yourself for the sometimes-harrowing journey. I usually try to keep one hand on the side, and a foot propped up against the driver’s seat, just in case.

It is not uncommon to nudge another ricksha at an intersection (or anywhere else that traffic piles up!) and keeping a good grasp on the side will definitely help prevent you from performing an inadvertent forward somersault, should your ricksha be the victim of a serious shove. The law of inertia is clearly and terrifyingly experienced here; once the ricksha wallah has managed to get up to a good pace, he will stop at nothing to….well, that’s about it, he will stop at nothing. If this means squeezing by a hair’s breadth between two cars, he will attempt it. Ricksha wallahs are often extremely competitive, swerving into the middle of the road to overtake another rickshaw. This happens with multiple rickshas, gradually pushing the farthest rickshaw into the path of large buses, trucks or SUV’s. Sometimes it reminds me of a derby.

Most of the time, I thoroughly enjoy my ricksha rides through town. I have time to think, time to watch, time to see things you would miss driving in a car. This is definitely an experience of Bangladesh I will always love, and one that you can’t get in many other places!