By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : Scuttling along on three-wheels and derisively overtaken by powerful cars and motorcycles, the humble auto-rickshaw of South Asia has been given a new image by a 28-year-old ingenious Briton.
It is now the symbol of adventure in India and Nepal, and poised to canter through Bangladesh and perhaps Pakistan in the future.
“People in the West need a bit of adventure,” says Thomas Morgan, a fine arts student who left sculpture and filmmaking to embrace adventure tourism.
“Someone has already climbed the highest mountain in the world, sailed all around the world and discovered all the continents.
“We need to make our own adventures, we need to make things difficult for ourselves,” Morgan told IANS.
During his visit to India three years ago, Morgan went to Kochi and found the perfect vehicle for adventure: the three-wheeled auto-rickshaw that has been converted into a means of cheap public transport in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
“It is unreliable, uncomfortable and smelly,” he says. “So it’s the perfect adventure vehicle.
“All the smells and sounds of the country come to you. A rickshaw ride provides quick connection to the culture of the place and makes the journey indigenous.”
When he returned home from India, Morgan started the Adventurists, an organisation that mixes adventure with philanthropy, planning rickshaw runs in the Indian subcontinent.
The winter Rickshaw Run 2008, which started in January from Kochi and ended in Kathmandu, saw 64 teams take part. Held twice each year, the summer run will head for Puducherry from Kathmandu in June while the next one will trek from Puducherry to Assam and then on to Bangladesh.
Morgan says the journeys are crammed with adventure.
Adventurists also raise funds for local charities. One of the charities they assisted was Maiti Nepal, one of Nepal’s best-known NGOs that rescues and rehabilitates trafficked women and children.
Once bandits chased them in Puri town in India. While nearing Kathmandu, one of the rickshaws lost a wheel while making its way through high mountains.
Morgan is thinking of adding still more hurdles to make the rickshaw run even more difficult in future.
“We would like to start a run from the Everest base camp,” he says. “Or perhaps in future use the cycle rickshaw.”