Driving a rickshaw? It's another string to my bow

“Hi corncups

You're absolutely right, and the Rickshaw Run isn't a race - we encourage people to take their adventures slowly. There's no prize for arriving first and we don't encourage anyone to race - in fact we encourage the opposite - usually the first team to arrive at the end of one of our adventures has the least number of comedy stories from the road... Which is rather boring - I think the guys have used the term as an expression here - their team has been in all sorts of adventures since they launched and aren't 'racing' as far as I can see from their updates!

The description of the highways in this region as being 'lawless' is only really useful as a description of how the teams may feel in certain areas, though not quite on the money as a statement of fact as you say. Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia all of course have strict highway laws and regulations... However, in some areas, it's widely known that some of the rules aren't observed as precisely as they could be and localised areas have higher level of crime, I think that's what the writer was probably getting at. Dave got it spot on when he described parts of the route as 'hairy' - probably a bit of an understatement - the teams have been driving through some quite risky areas and generally speaking this adventure is very, very dangerous.

Dan”

“Dear FishpondsMan and bobob3

I can understand your scepticism - there are adventures and trips out there where people use fundraising to support the costs of the trip itself, sometimes without making it properly clear where the cost-covering ends and the direct donation to charitable projects start...

If you take a minute to look at the Rickshaw Run website you'll see that's not the case with this adventure (though I will take a wild guess that you haven't read the website and give you a brief summary of how it works to avoid confusion!)

The teams pay us (a private Ltd company) an entry fee to run the adventure, organise the vehicles and various other things and they commit to raising at least £1000 for charity (£500 to the nominated official charity and £500 to a charity of their own choice).

The charitable donations have to go directly to the charity, they don't come via our company in any way. We think it's best to separate the two things - the entry fee for their adventure, and they use that adventure to highlight a charity project and encourage people to donate directly...

So far this new adventure - the Rickshaw Run in South East Asia has only happened once before and raised £12,904.10 for a brilliant project in the Harapan rainforest.

Overall since our adventures were first launched back in 2004, teams taking part in them have raised £3.7 million for various charities, and we've expanded to run 6 different adventures.

For more info check out our website at http://tinyurl.com/6updvq7 (See 'Saving the World' for our modestly titled section about the charity aspect of things and the reports)

Cheers, Dan”

“@1Samantha:
"FishpondsMan - It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Should you need advise on a sense of humour, Dingslady believes she is able to purchase you one?! Perhaps she has been drinking from the same 'idiot pond' that you have?"

Everyone wishes these guys much luck and supports their efforts to raise money for charity - and applauds their originality in going about it. I apologise to them for neglecting to mention this when indulging in a bit of harmless jest.

Having said that, Samantha, if you want my "advise" (or even 'advice'!), you might take care not to resort to name-calling on a public forum when you have no knowledge of the people to whom you refer, especially when your literacy is as absent as your appreciation of the concept of irony.”

“FishpondsMan - It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Should you need advise on a sense of humour, Dingslady believes she is able to purchase you one?! Perhaps she has been drinking from the same 'idiot pond' that you have?

Now onto those that actually matter - Ed, Jim and James - all the very best in raising money for such a worthy cause! Good luck to you!”

“Can we all have a whip round to get Char and Gemma a sense of humour each?”

“'Lawless motorways'?

I think you'll find that the 'motorways' in Thailand and Indonesia are, in fact, subject to the traffic laws of their respective legislatures.

'Unreliable rickshaw' ? Why not use a reliable one? Besides, their very simplicity makes them easy and very quick to repair in the event of a fault by the operator at the roadside. Try doing that with a modern western car.

'The dangers include navigating lawless motorways, terrifying mountain tracks and chaotic city streets... we will be racing'

Racing in chaotic city streets and any other public highway is as illegal in Thailand and Indonesia as it is in the UK. Who's lawless now?

I wish this charitable event every success, despite this terribly prejudiced piece of publicity.”

“Negative people - you're not funny and you're not clever. No one is laughing at your pathetic comments.
Go Ted and Co!!”

“If you take the time to review the donation links and the information about the team you will find that it is completely self funded and as such 100% of the money raised will go to either Birdlife or Wateraid. I think that negative comments will detract from the charities and this is not constructive. This team, the Adventurists and other teams taking part are working hard to raise money for charity and it is unfair to judge them based on cynicism. Here are the links to the charity in case you decide to do something more positive for others: http://tinyurl.com/7b6pfa2 CharityChariot-BirdLife”

“I'm doing a sponsored test match watch this summer, 5 days of Eng v SA at the Oval. The charity bit is based on how many bottles of red wine we can consume over the 5 days. Been approached already this year by a colleague with a sponsored visit to Peru, only the first £3k raised was to actually pay for the trip anything over that went to the charity.

To be fair as long as they are paying for the trip (not coming out of the money raised) it is for charity.”

“I'm thinking of going to Ibiza on a marathon drinking session in the summer if anyone wants to sponsor me, purely for charity you understand!”