Robert Lindsay (Actor)

Well it’s been a chilly Winter since our last blog, and it would seem our tuk tuk Tulisa dislikes the cold as much as we do - possibly more. After a night outside she simply refuses to start. There’s no persuading her; she’s dead as a doorknob. This lesson has exposed another cold, hard truth, this time about ourselves: our woeful lack of mechanical knowledge. After locating the battery & the engine – which took far longer than it should have done considering the simplicity & size of vehicle we’re talking about – the only solution we were able to conjure up was to make ourselves a cup of tea & try again later. Looks like we’ve got some work to do here…

We did eventually get her going, and we’ve since had a great time scooting around the streets of London in Tulisa the tuk tuk. One of the highlights had to be going to the Royal Haymarket Theatre & meeting the lovely cast of ‘The Lion in Winter’. The play itself was an absolute treat – Trevor Nunn’s take on James Goldman’s portrayal of Christmas festivities in the court of King Henry II, centring on the devious & cut-throat manoeuvres of national & familial politics. Robert Lindsay & Joanna Lumley were kind enough to come & join us in the tuk tuk – the first royalty to do so! Here’s us trying to keep calm next to these two legends.

Afterwards we whisked James Norton – young, up & coming British actor, & one of the play’s protagonists – away in the tuk tuk for a quick twilight tour of the city. He gave us a fascinating insight into life working as an actor in the West End & told us all about Backpact, a travelling theatre company he founded while at university. Backpact sends a small group of young actors out to Northern India & Nepal each year, engaging children through a series of theatre workshops at their schools. Through the means of acting this theatre company encourages & fosters creativity in education, helping to build the confidence of young students while empowering them to address & consider important societal issues, including health and sanitation. Education is clearly an important issue in James’ eyes, having volunteered for a few months as a teacher out in Nepal after leaving school. He hopes in the future to explore & develop further the potential of theatre in advancing education, particularly in India & Nepal. We wish him the best of luck in doing so & look forward to visiting some of the schools James worked with next year.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes, OBE (‘World’s Greatest Living Explorer’, Legend, Follower of Tuk Tuk Travels)

The Long Way Round

Watched the first episode of a Long Way Round today - which I really enjoyed and thoroughly recommend - and I saw many similarities between what they were doing and what we are attempting. Of course there were also few key differences like:

None of us are movie stars (yet)

We don’t have very much money- it doesn’t appear that they have the same financial pressures that we do.

We don’t have a base to run everything out of. Our living room has a big table and I have a map of the world I picked up at a poster fare at uni.

We don’t have full time members of staff doing the countless amounts of admin needed. This was to get them through the 12 countries they needed to get through- we might be going through up to 50, essentially doing the long way round and the long way down.

We don’t have a support crew/doctor/cameraman. Shouldn’t be an issue as a tuk tuk is a safe vehicle and we are going to be going through loads of politically stable countries on good solid roads. Also I like taking photos and my dad is a doctor which makes me a ‘half-doctor’.

They are experienced bikers. We have never driven tuk tuks and nay have the skill set of a mechanic between us.

They took 3 months. We might take 2 years.

They have more personality than us. There’s no real way of fixing that one.

Oh. Dear.

Simon Bird (Comedian, Star of The Inbetweeners, Patron of Tuk Tuk Travels)

I’m not sure how I feel about blogging.

A couple of warnings:

·         There will be spelling and grammar mistakes throughout.

·         I will often use the medium of sarcasm (much of which will be lost in blog and probably make me seem like even more of an arse) in order to display my feelings on a variety of interesting issues (cue yawn).

So… here I go.

The whole process of this expedition so far has been a number of highs and lows. Here are some of them from the past few weeks.

1.       High: Pick up the Tuk Tuk- it looks cool, and people’s reaction to seeing it are amazing.

Low: It’s noisy, cramped and very slow.

2.       High: It goes further than we thought it would on a tank of petrol.

Low: Went to fill up the Tuk Tuk for the first time: 8 pounds 23 worth of diesel…that’ll be fun in the desert in Sudan.

3.       High: Website looks great and having a design team on board for our adventure is amazing, generous and quite frankly makes us look better than we really are.

Low: Constant self promotion isn’t something I enjoy doing (contrary to popular belief.)

4.       High: The excitement of working out the intricacies of the route- and some of the places that we are going to look and sound incredible.

Low: The vehicle specialists told us in no uncertain terms that we will be carrying too much weight for the Tuk Tuk to be able to get through the African roads- (yes this was followed by an ‘i told you so’ from our mates about us being ‘big boned’ and needing to shed some/ a lot of pounds.)

5.       High: Listening to people’s excited (and sometimes jealous) responses to our ideas and what we are doing.

Low:  Listening to ‘luke warm’ responses to exactly the same delivery.

6.       Low: Re. Corporate sponsorship- ‘don’t look  gain corporate sponsorship- you will get more money working an extra part time job.’

High: Re. Corporate sponsorship: ‘we were strategic and got all the corporate sponsorship that we wanted.’

7.       High: Receiving so much help from all the different experts in the relevant fields.

Low: Getting shafted by an insurance company who cancelled our insurance because we didn’t provide them with a photo, taking 352 quid and then telling us we were ‘unable to insure with them’ again.  

These are a few. I fear interest in my blog might be waning at this stage. So, follow us on twitter to get the latest updates- obviously this will be better once we are on the road. If you haven’t got twitter, get it. We’re also on Facebook so add Tuk Tuk Travels. Please recommend us to your mates as we look to raise the profile of the trip and education for all. That’s enough of this blog lark. Over and out (which apparently is an incorrect use of the phrase).

Nelson Mandela

I am now the proud owner of one third of a tuk tuk. I bought it with two friends - Nick & Sasha - & it’s sitting in my parents’ garage. In 10 months time we’re leaving our jobs, friends & family behind & are going to try & drive this little machine around the world, through some of the most inhospitable terrain known to man. How on earth did we get to this stage?

I guess it started just over 5 years ago when Nick & I went to Thailand during a summer off university. We fell in love with tuk tuks. What’s not to love about them? The fact that they’re cramped, uncomfortable, unreliable little things, completely exposed to the elements, with questionable safety records is irrelevant. They’re fun! The novelty of scooting around, weaving in & out of traffic, being open to the outside world is exhilarating. We were hooked.

Since then, having experienced the Indian, Guatemalan, Laotian & Khmer (picture a motorbike spliced with a carriage!) versions of this machine, this love has blossomed into the dangerously giddy sort of infatuation that can lead to impulsive, life-changing decision making. Google started to get bombarded with tuk tuk-related questions. An idea started to emerge. I wanted to draw upon the friendly, open & inviting nature of this vehicle to explore & discover different cultures, communities & the individuals that comprised them; to learn about & learn from their ways of life, the daily struggles they face, their customs, philosophies, values. It needed focus though, a cause…

Having left university & (refusing to give up my extended holidays) having moved into the teaching profession, in August 2008 I found myself in Ratanakiri, the jungle province of North Eastern Cambodia, running educational workshops in remote indigenous villages with the French NGO, ‘Pour un Sourire d’Enfant’ (‘For the Smile of a Child’). I already knew that, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to an education, & I could appreciate the crucial role education plays in combating poverty & inequality; it is, to plagiarise Nelson Mandela, the great engine of personal development, the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. It was there in Ratanakiri though, that I first experienced the magnitude & seemingly forlorn nature of the ‘Education For All’ & ‘Millennium Development Goals’.

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While there we visited various ethnic minority villages, but one school in particular is still ingrained in my memory, typifying education in the area. The school was a dilapidated wooden building, practically falling down, with children peering out at us through gaping holes in the walls. It was packed full of students, ranging from babies & toddlers right up to young adults, jammed in together on cramped benches. The room was full but, as a school, it felt empty. They had no paper, pencils, books; there was a blackboard at the front but no chalk; there was a teacher stood in the corner but he didn’t speak the same language as the students. Now these children, in the quest for universal primary education, are a success story. They’re in school. They’re ‘learning’. Several villages we passed through simply had no form of education at all. Is it possible for communities here in Ratankiri to experience universal primary education (let alone other educational goals, such as improving the quality of education on offer) by the target year of 2015? According to NGO workers in the province, not a chance.

Ten years after the MDGs & EFA targets had been proposed, some striking advances had been made in education. Over 40 million children who were out of school now have access to education. 68 million children still have no access to education though. And now, in the aftershocks of a global financial crisis, slower economic growth, budget pressures and rising poverty are threatening to undo the progress made over the last decade. Current predictions suggest that the number of children without access to education may in fact rise to 72 million by 2015.

Having seen these communities, their children, a handful of the faces that comprise these impersonal statistics of those millions lacking this basic human right, it is impossible not to be affected. Is there a way of giving some of these children a voice? Highlighting the valuable work of a number of charities & NGOs in this area? Establishing links between potential donors & these worthy projects to increase all-important funding? Raising awareness about the MDGs, the progress (or lack of progress) that has been made towards realising them &, as a result, increasing the accountability of the world leaders & governments who made these promises back at the turn of the Millennium?

The plan had evolved. The aim is to circumnavigate the globe in our tuk tuk, thereby breaking the Guinness World Record for the longest journey in an auto-rickshaw. The purpose, however, is to raise as much money as possible for educational projects worldwide & awareness about the Global Campaign for Education. We’ll be visiting areas lacking education, witnessing the work of charities & NGOs attempting to alleviate this problem & talking at schools & universities about the development issues encountered on the way. We’ll be blogging & video-blogging to document our adventure, our experiences & to tell the stories of those we meet throughout, setting up a form of interactive giving allowing individuals & companies to donate to specific projects that may appeal to them around the globe.

So where are we now? I’ve found two awesome companions; two of my closest friends who share the same ridiculous dreams as I do. We bought a tuk tuk (her name’s Tulisa). We’ve lucked upon an incredible marketing team - Will & Sam - who’ve already done so much to help out, including designing our wonderful website (www.tuktuktravels.com). We’ve partnered with the global charity ActionAid, allowing us to draw upon their expertise & providing our trip with an element of continuity throughout as we visit their projects. We’re on Twitter (@tuktuktravels) & Facebook (Tuk Tuk Travels (Tulisa)), currently boasting a massive 31 followers & 26 friends respectively. We have our first celebrity patron, comedian & star of ‘The Inbetweeners’, Simon Bird. We’ve also almost written & uploaded our first blog…

What do we need to do? Well the list is intimidatingly extensive. Sorting out a route is pretty high up there though. As is finding some companies to sponsor our endeavour (our personal funds will probably carry us through Europe, Africa, the Middle East & leave us stranded somewhere around Tajikistan).

The important thing is, it’s happening. We’re leaving from London in September 2012, after the Olympics, & are doing everything we can between now & then to maximise the potential of our expedition.

Keep an eye out for future updates. Please don’t be put off by this monstrous tome. Nick & Sasha’s contributions will not only be far more eloquent & grammatically correct (well Sasha’s will at least), but will be far more humorous (well, again, Sasha’s will at least). Stay tuned, Rich out.