The Rickshaw Run is the brain child of fellow idiots, The Adventurists.
They are an award winning socially conscious company, working to make the world more interesting by creating real adventures for those that like the appeal of challenging themselves, whilst raising vital cash for charities working in third world countries.
What especially drew us to these guys was their candid approach to the challenge, and how they wish this to be a genuine challenge and not some namby-pamby softcore weekend excursion.
Heres an example of how they describe themselves.
Travelling is for wimps, where’s the fun in lounging on a beach surrounded by guitar wielding chumps having a spiritual epiphany? What’s the point of going to a country if you’ve bought a guide book – you know what’s going to happen before it does. The phrase ‘adventure travel’ conjures images of guided tours for pensioners to Everest base camp. We want real adventure, not a sterilised imitation. We want to be stuck up to our armpits in mud fighting a giant snake or thundering across a desert miles from civilisation. If the thought of all this adventure makes you shit yourself a touch, there are a plethora of lovely holidays to the Isle of Wight.
We focus all our adventures around raising fat chunks of change for charities. Teams taking part have to raise a minimum amount of cash for charity, which they do through sponsorship and fundraising. We keep the charity money completely separate from the cost of running the events so when people donate they can be sure their money is going to the charity not to pay for someone else to get lost in a desert.
And from their explanation of the Rickshaw Run this year -
Hotter, wetter and just as stupid the winter Run the Summer Rickshaw Run is the perfect way to spend a couple of weeks. The Summer Run takes two weeks to complete and takes place in June. The distances involved are similar to the Winter Run, but as usual there is no set route to spoil your adventure. Starting 4000 feet above sea level in Kathmandu, Nepal, teams will be pitted against the Himalayas before heading south through the madness that is India. Altitude and monsoon rains added to the usual dirt tracks, jungle, bad roads and awful driving combine to make the Summer Run a fine vintage of adventure and stupidity.
In recent years they have managed to raise over £1 million for genuine good causes, and all that money has been provided direct to the charities themselves via online giving sites such as justgiving.com and WillWeMakeIt.com
This giving facility was something that was of real concern to us, as we had to be convinced that ALL the monies raised were to go direct to the charities, and that those charities were efficient and did not squander all our hard earned cash.
The Adventurists also organise and run the now famous Mongol Rally, which was something that got our attention also, but4-6 weeks was just too long for us. We highly suggest you go and have a look at the website for this, the craziest of adventures, if only for a laugh.
