The Rickshaw Run

I could simply say that the Rickshaw Run is an adventure challenge for charity but that would not do justice to the scale of lunacy involved in driving a tuk-tuk the length of India.

I’ll start by stating the blindingly obvious; it’s a heck of a long way. Over 1800km as the crow flies in fact! But how many Himalayan mountain passes do you think conform to the Roman school of building in straight lines? I’ve not been to Nepal before but I’d be pretty confident in guessing the answer would be none.

Next, let’s consider the roads, if you can call them that. With potholes the size of small children, animals roaming wild (even in the towns and cities), and a right-of-way system based on whoever has the biggest vehicle interspersed with whoever chickens out first life on the road will certainly never be dull.

To top it all off June is monsoon season in India when flash flooding can transform roads into raging rivers and rural areas become cut-off until the waters subside.

Our trusty steed for this trip will be a humble auto rickshaw, also known as a tuk-tuk. Its 145cc engine outputs half a horse power and allegedly has a top speed of a G-force inducing 35mph. Being open-sided it won’t offer much protection from the rain (nor anything else for that matter since it's sturdiness is on a par with that of a coke can) and it doesn’t even have enough wheels to be four wheel drive!

I don’t want to come across too critical of our tuk-tuk, to be fair it was never designed with anything like the Rickshaw Run in mind. I just want to impress upon you that this is going to be no picnic in the park. If anything goes wrong we’ll be on our own. There is no support crew to help us out.

- Mark