Rickshaw Run South India to Kathmandu sponsored by WAYN.com

Battered and bruised, overwhelmed, and mostly wearing seriously dirty clothes, the teams taking part in the WAYN sponsored Rickshaw Run are experiencing the seriously extreme end of self-driving across the whole of India and into the hills of Nepal in a wholly unsuitable 3-wheeled auto-rickshaw with an engine about as powerful as a standard kettle.

The teams started in Fort Kochi, southern India, on New Years Day and many have already covered more than 2000km on their way to the finish line in Kathmandu. Each team raises 1000 for charity, paid directly to the charities via justgiving.com. Now many are more than halfway and due to arrive in Kathmandu by this weekend after two weeks of mud, sweat, some tears and plenty of adventure straight from the top drawer.

So far updates from the teams taking part have revealed a shed load of major breakdowns, incredible road-side sights ranging from dead bodies to monkeys and elephants. There have also been a couple of injuries too. This adventure is extremely dangerous and the teams are responsible for all aspects of their journey. Two rickshaws have been rolled and teams have sustained minor injuries in their search for proper untamed adventure

The organisers The Adventurists - supply the vehicles at the start line and provide no back up or support on the road until the teams reach the end. The unimaginable terrain ranges from bad roads to no roads, and from arid plains to mountain passes and the often chaotic nature of Indias roads is one of the biggest challenges

WAYN.com bring the adventure to their 10 million worldwide members by tracking the teams progress online. Annika Erskine, Marketing Director commented: The teams have to sign away their lives for this race yet throw themselves into it with full relish, grins and pimping of vehicles. Its great to see people from all over get together for a valued charity such as Mercy Corps, helping people in a mad, crazy fashion, and ultimately showing our WAYN users a real insider view to the beauty of India!

Team Tikka-to-Ride from the UK sent an upbeat text about their progress: Our amazing machine is running like a dream. We're all great and lovin every moment -full of determination to make it to the end.

One of the teams that rolled their rickshaw, called Clacton-On-Sea Mystery Tours, from the UK, reported in their text update to the website: Good news is we are all ok. Bez was concerned for a hole in his jacket until i showed him the one in my arm!

Father and son team, Sam and Roger from the UK, wrote about the traffic and their recent toilet trip: Busy lunatic highway, fast in Mad Max sort of way. Went for quiet pooh in bushes but they were already occupied. Population!

All the text message updates from the teams taking part can be found at www.rickshawrun.com, or on WAYN.com, the worlds largest travel and lifestyle social network.

- Ends

For more information, hi-res images and interviews please contact:

Dan Wedgwood
Press Officer
The Adventurists
+44(0)7787521995
+44(0)1179541515
dan@theadventurists.com
info@rickshawrun.com

Annika Erskine
Marketing Manager
+44 (0)20 7336 8088
Annika.erskine@wayn.com

About WAYN
WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?) is the worlds largest travel and lifestyle focused social networking community website in the world. The site operates in over 200 countries and membership has grown from 45,000 users in March 2005 to over 10 million today.

WAYN.com allows its members to keep track of their friends whereabouts and make new friends based on where they are now, where they have been and where they are going.

Top services on WAYN.com include travel guide, trip planning tools and profiles, unlimited photo and video storage; interaction tools such as email, SMS and instant messenger, forums and many other travel services.

About the Adventurists
Let's face it 21st century life is dull. When did you last walk off the edge of the map when all your friends told you the earth was flat? We have been cheated of a life of adventure by the mere coincidence of our birth date. Our mission is to redress the balance.

A raft of adventures have been built in an urgent bid to save the world from the tyranny of boredom and the scourge that is backpacking... They will either make you wet yourself with excitement or fill you with rage and an urgent need to grab the nearest clipboard and blow a whistle of sensibleness...

We're also a big fan of the earth so our adventures give back by raising buckets of cash for awesome charities and their most excellent projects. We've set ourselves the goal of raising 1 million for awesome charities as a starting goal.