Brookline woman rides a rickshaw through India, for charity and fun

By Brianna Limebrook, Guest Columnist

The three of us are sitting here in Varanasi, India, having driven over 1,000 kilometers in the last four days. The days have consisted of dodging cows (which are everywhere), lorry trucks and people that seem to pop up from out of nowhere. With a road map of India sprawled out as we bounce along in our tuk tuk, we’re trying to figure out how to cover 2,000 more kilometers in 10 days in a 3 wheeler, while keeping our sanity and sense of humor. Some call it an exercise in self-torture. We call it the adventure of a lifetime.

Courtesy of Brianna Limebrook

Our team, Raiders of the Lost Tuk, consisting of Brookline resident Brianna Limebrook, Kate DeWald and Jim Matheson, is participating in one of the strangest charity events in the world, the Autumn Rickshaw Run. Alongside 70 other teams from around the world, we are here in India with high hopes of forcing 150cc of Indian engineering at it's...well, not it's finest...over 2,000 miles of a diverse Indian landscape. We're attempting to make a 2,000 mile dash across the sweaty jungle heat, dirt tracks, monsoon rains, and Himalayan peaks in our little 7hp, 150cc, 30mph max and prone-to-breaking-down auto-rickshaw (also known as a "tuk-tuk"), all for charity.

Leveraging the unorthodoxy of the Rickshaw Run to do a lot of good for charity while also having heaps of fun and touring India was a win-win. We have dedicated our journey to raising money for two great charities: Boston-based Friends of Maiti Nepal, who works tirelessly for the prevention and rehabilitation of victims of human trafficking in many of the areas we are traveling through, as well as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a cause dear to our team as teammate Jim has been living with Type 1 diabetes since being diagnosed at the age of 10.

Last October when we signed up to participate it seemed so far-off I don’t think the magnitude of the adventure actually hit us. A lot of people have asked “How in the heck did you find out about this?” and “Why would you do this?” Strangely enough, it all started with a flight home from a business trip when Brianna had picked up the in-flight magazine and read the diary of two Rickshaw Runners that had participated in the Run the previous year. It all seemed so intriguing, something so different than the day to day corporate grind. Brianna emailed the article to friends to see if anyone was brave enough (okay, and crazy enough) to do it. She feared one of them may have her committed but was pleasantly surprised to receive a resounding “Yes!” from Jim and Kate. Faster than a Tuk-Tuk can go from 0 to 30mph, Raiders of the Lost Tuk was born. As we learned more about the charities we decided to raise funds for it became much more than just a personal journey. The passion for these causes has fueled our efforts to continue to raise funds for and awareness of these two incredible charities.

We landed in Kolkata late on Monday night. It was total culture shock. There is no book, movie or website that can truly do justice to India. We are now 4 days into our trek and what an experience it has already been. It feels like 3 months have gone by! People flock to us wherever we stop. We stop in what appears to be the middle of nowhere, and within two minutes a crowd of 10 to 15 has surrounded us asking us questions about our family, where we're from, what we're doing.

Each state has been like its own country. The Himalayas left us with no words to describe their majesty, the countryside of West Bengal, the horses and carriages in Purnea, the holy cerand everyone from rickshaw cyclists to cow herders, talking on their cell phones. It is like being taken into your history books and watching various decades of history unfold simultaneously before your eyes. A melting pot of culture and thousands of years of humanity in the works.

People do anything to avoid hitting cows, even the large and brightly colored lorry trucks careening down the 1 lane roads at 70km+ per hour. There is heat worse than east coast humidity, flies everywhere, overcrowding and noisy city traffic that has already rattled our eardrums and the occasional smell of raw sewage. The roads are dented with potholes and only after 1,000km we saw our first stop sign (which no one stopped at) and can count the number of traffic lightswe’ve seen on one hand. Amidst all this chaos though, there is this sense of serenity and reverence in being in the birthplace of the world's oldest religion. Knowing that we are doing this to raise awareness for our charities helps us get through the low points. All we want at the end of this trip is to be able to look back and say wow, “Look at what we just accomplished.” And of course, “What a ride!”

To find out more, visit LostTuk.com and become a fan today at Facebook.com/LostTuk