I am traveling 2,000 miles through India by motorized rickshaw, raising $15,000 for Charity: Water.   While I’m sweating buckets, becoming one with my horn, avoiding cows, and getting grease under my nails on the road you can follow along with my Instagram updates kindly put together by Cailin O’Neil of Travel Yourself.

The rickshaws are looking pretty sexy getting ready for their launch on Sunday! We spent the day running around town getting oil, jerry cans, spark plugs, Windex, tarp, and pricing stereo installations. More pimping tomorrow to happen. Plus we already had to have a clutch repair- but she seems to be running better now. Our driving skills also saw a bit of improvement today. At least we learned how to start the thing ourselves when we stall it!

Getting the important stuff done – adding twitter & Instagram handles to the Rickshaw.

More pimpin’ today! Stereo installation today. Check out those speakers in the back window. Any bets on how long they will last?

At the launch party for the #RickshawRun – getting fired up with some ancient Indian fighting! I may invite this guy to join our rickshaw. I think we would be in good hands!

Our last sunset at Fort Kochi – a memorable one. We spent our day adding more pizzazz to our rickshaw and then went to the kickoff part thrown by the Adventurists. Can’t believe we start tomorrow!

Some team actually upholstered their car with blankets.

Packed and ready for blast off!

From Charlie’s Twitter: Minutes before the mayhem begins!

On our way via boat ferry! The hardest part abt the ferry was having to back the Shaw off the ferry.

Stopped for a snack of fresh coconut for 30 rupees (50 cents) and to let our Rickshaw have a little breather!

We are the low man on the vehicle totem pole in India.

UPDATE FROM THE ROAD DAY 1 – An early start on very little sleep – had us rolling through the start line, and killing it, loosing the team we were supposed to follow, realizing our alignment was screwed up and our tire was severely low and that landed us at a mechanic within 5 minutes of starting! However, what we learned today is that even though we lost everyone we were supposed to convoy with – it didn’t matter – we kicked butt and did it all by ourselves. We drove a numbing, high pitched 180 km today we think – but with a non-working odometer and speedometer we really have no idea!

People were completely dumbfounded when they would see us drive by (especially because we were women) – which was my favorite part – the surprise on their faces and then the joy. The woman at the gas station looked at us as if we were two unicorns and said ” Where is your driver?”. After we explained our mission, then we had a photo shoot with the entire gas station crew.

We had a news crew chase us down on the highway for an interview…literally chase us down. Yes, that’s right, we are going to be in the paper next to big Bollywood stars I’m sure. We figured out how to get gas, drive on the left side of the road (most of the time) and sweet talk policemen. All in a day’s drive on the Rickshaw Run.
Not many pics today – because internet is horrible! But collecting a ton!

Monday April 7th, Day 2 – This is how our morning started! Oh no!