US tourist hitches rickshaw, weds driver in a week: report

Posted 09 26 2009 2:58PM

NEW DELHI (AFP) – A 26-year-old American tourist travelling in India hitched a ride in a rickshaw last week and married the driver a few days later, a report said Friday.

Whitney from Chicago met her prince charming in Jaipur in Rajasthan, a state west of the capital famous for its stately palaces, after hailing a motorised rickshaw and hiring the driver for her stay in the city, the Mail Today newspaper said.

"On the third day, he surprised me by popping the question," Whitney told the paper. "'I want to spend the rest of my life with you', he told me. I fell in love."

After meeting last Saturday they were married on Wednesday in a simple ceremony. Whitney was pictured in the paper, standing with new husband Harish Hotala, wearing a traditional sari that covered her head.

The paper said Hotala was "a cabbie with a difference," however. "Though a school dropout, he is fluent in English and owns three autorickshaws," it said.

Whitney, whose surname wasn't given by the paper, is to fly back to the US on September 30 to face her parents.

"My father was surprised but my mother took it sportingly," she said.