What happens when an eligible bachelor and an engaged couple go on a 3,500km road trip through India? Oh, and don’t forget the tiny, rickety tuk-tuk they’ll be using for the epic journey.
A recipe for heartbreak you say? Nah… an adventure of a lifetime, of course!
Nope, this is not a clichéd plot for a reality TV show or Hollywood movie. It’s Johann, Nessa and Hafiz – three sort of out-of-work 20-somethings – who decided that their cushy yuppie lifestyles needed a major kick in the pants.
It all started when Nessa, the group’s self-professed ‘token white girl’, saw a Youtube video of the Rickshaw Run and immediately got hooked on the idea. The Rickshaw Run is one of several annual extreme adventure events organized by The Adventurists (but of course!) who market their adventures with adrenaline-boosting copy like: “Chances of being seriously injured or dying as a result of taking part are high. Individuals who have taken part in the past have been permanently disfigured, seriously disabled or lost their life.”
Nothing like the threat of death and physical harm to whet your appetite, eh?
The rules of the ‘race’ are simple – you start from Kochi in the south of India and make your way to Jaisalmer (2500 km away, way the hell up in northern India) on a rickety tuk tuk that packs all the bone-shaking power of a 70’s era Honda C70 kapchai. Of course, there are some minor engineering differences – the kapchai engine now has to pull a carriage, carry 3 people instead of 2 (and don’t forget the carriage), as well as lug all the luggage and equipment of said 3 folks. And it doesn’t have safety features. Or cushions. Or even gear changes.
Ee-yup. You are supposed to drive the single gear tuk tuk through 2,500km of remote rural villages, off-road tracks, the world’s most dangerous highways, stunning coastal roads, mountains and a bit of jungle. And cows. Lots of cows. Besides that, they have to face the torrential monsoon rains and scorching equatorial sun of the south, making their way up to the cold winter winds of the north.
Sounds doable. And what about the race itself? What does that involve?
Route? Find your own way, you wimps – this is a “proper adventure”!
Accommodation? Find your own, this is an adventure not a holiday!
Itinerary? Drive when there’s daylight. Stop when it’s night. Avoid getting killed or maimed. Repeat.
Activities? Stay alive until you reach the finish line! (Staying healthy is highly optional.)
Here’s what it sorta looks like:
Not only that, participants have to raise a minimum of GBP1000 for charity too. The Adventurists are “hell bent on saving the world as well as making it less boring”, so all participating adventurers have to raise cash for charity.
For their cause, the Jenggols (as they call themselves) chose Cool Earth, a charity that works alongside indigenous villages to halt rainforest destruction. Cool Earth is working alongside 65 rainforest villages throughout the world, protecting over 350,000 acres of forest. Team Jenggols’ target is to raise GBP1000 for the cause.
(There’s actually a really cute side story about the team’s name, but that’s a story for another day. But if you want to know its origins like right now, why not ask them to tell you about “The Jenggol” themselves AND help the team raise funds for their chosen charity – Cool Earth? Click here to pledge some cash in return for their “Jenggol” story.)
Chatting with them in a nice café in Sri Hartamas, it was hard to imagine that these 3 fellows will be braving all sorts of uncertainties in a week’s time – with no set route, no back-up, no way of knowing if they would make it. The only certainty was that they would get lost, get stuck and break down – probably in more than one sense of the word, too.
So what would drive three young, urban, and sane people to join in The Rickshaw Run – “easily the least sensible thing to do with two weeks”?
Johann, the Eligible Bachelor of the trio, is a media practitioner who recently quit his job. He’s currently figuring out his next career step, and since he loves travelling and “doing random stuff” (in his own words), this was right up his alley.
When I asked Johann what preparations they had made in view of the dangers involved in the journey, he merely said, “We haven’t really prepared very much. We’re just going to take it a day at a time over there.”
What?
So I turned to Hafiz, hoping for a more sensible answer. Hafiz is also leaving his current job in as a marketing executive in Singapore to come back and help in the family business in Malaysia. So, a solid guy. And since he’s getting married to team-mate Nessa, maybe he’s got a plan.
“Yeah, I mean, we’re pretty much left to our own devices for the entire journey,” he explains. “Because there’s no set route, we don’t even know where we’re going to sleep along the way.”
Urm…
Nessa? She’s the one who first got the idea to get a team together. Surely, she’d had more time to than the rest to think about how to get the team through the journey hale and hearty. Especially since she’s in the media/PR industry, where a lot of strategic planning is involved.
“Well, I got the idea to make the trip from watching a YouTube channel and I spoke to Hafiz about it…”
Hafiz chimed in, “Yeah, and I thought, ‘nah, this is way too epic! Johann’s the one crazy enough to do it.’”
After a couple of rounds of “Hey, you interested?” and “Yeah, I’m interested if you’re interested,” the trio gathered enough courage (or enough insanity, depending on how you look at it) to make the trip. After some slight discussion, Team Jenggols decided to seize the day and take a month off for this epic trip.
Given the unpredictable and potentially dangerous nature of the journey, I asked what precautions they had taken.
“We’ll be taking the more tourist-friendly route, passing through some major towns,” says Johann.
What about night stops? Have you booked your places to stay lined up along the route?
“We’ll be depending a lot on AirBnB. But at the moment, we just have our first place booked, at Kochi (the starting point),” says Nessa.
“The difficulty in planning is because there’s no fixed route and we really don’t know what’s going to happen on the way,” says Hafiz, “So we’re just going to have to firm up the plans once we reach Kochi.”
“We’re also a bit rushed because we wanted to do it before Hafiz and Nessa gets married,” explains Johann.
“Yeah, we were supposed to do it after we got married, but then we decided to do it before,” said Nessa.
“And we were all headed for a career change at more or less the same time, so we thought ‘let’s just do it!’ So that’s how you get 3 ‘jobless’ 20-somethings going on this epic trip!” continues Johann.
Other difficulties they foresee are the infamous quality of Indian drinking water, the foreign food, cultural differences, and cashflow and security issues (bandits, pickpockets and such). Of course, phone & internet connections are a big question mark, as documenting their journey online is a big part of the journey.
But despite all the uncertainty, the trio are clearly excited and raring to go.
Given the nature of the adventure, uncertainty is a certainty. Danger is a given. And you don’t really expect to come out unscathed.
But it’s all worth it because that’s what a life-changing experience is all about, isn’t it? And they’re doing it for charity! How awesome is that!
So let’s raise a salute to our three hardy friends as they set off on a journey of a lifetime, and wish them all the best.
The guys will be leaving for India on 23 December to acclimatize themselves to the country. The Rickshaw Run kicks off in Kochi on New Year’s Day and is scheduled to end at Jaisalmer 2 weeks later, with an epic party waiting to welcome them.
To find out more about the Rickshaw Run or The Adventurists, go here.
For more information about Team Jenggols’ chosen charity – Cool Earth – go here.
Help Team Jenggols reach their goal of raising GBP1000! You can make your pledge here and (get to enjoy a little bit of the fun yourself in the process).
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