Tuk-Tuk to the Road

Five weeks until Lift Off

Gee, where do I start? So much has happened in the past few days that it’s hard to keep track of everything. Organising this venture is the ultimate emotional rollercoaster: some weeks you feel like you are trying to climb a never-ending mountain, other weeks everything goes right and you are bowled over by the kindness and generosity of people. This week has definitely fallen into the latter category.

On Tuesday Jo and I drove down to Winchester to see Brussels-based expedition guru Sam Rutherford and his wife Bea. Sam was one of a team who drove from London to Sydney in two pink Land Rovers in 1997 and since then he and Bea have set up their own company, www.prepare2go.com, organising rallies and advising people like me and Jo on how to travel the world and make it back in one piece.

Talking to people like Sam, you pick up tips that you would never discover in a month of research. Perhaps his best pieces of advice were to keep our sense of humour—particularly in China, which allegedly makes India seem like the proverbial stroll in the park—and to never lose sight of the fact that the main thing is to get home safe. He also allayed our fears that someone might steal Ting Tong: it seems that our decision to paint her pink is in fact a stroke of genius since it would be pretty hard for someone to steal her without being caught pink-handed. Sam and Bea also kindly offered to have two rather grubby tukkers staying with them in Brussels on the last leg of the trip.

Having had lunch with a world record holder on Monday, we were spurred into chasing up Guinness to see whether our journey would make it into the record books. The answer came back that upon completion we could well break the record for ‘the longest journey ever by auto-rickshaw’, currently held by Ken Twyford and Gerald Smewing, who drove an Indian auto-rickshaw 11 908 miles (19 165 km) between Hyderabad, India, and Great Harwood, Lancashire, England, from 17 December 1999 to 23 June 2000. The only slight caveat is that the rules stipulate that the vehicle must have ‘no modifications’. Do roll-bars, a comedy horn and shocking-pink paintwork come into this category, I wonder?

Our wonderful web designer, Brian at Indrum in Brighton, has been busy adding all sorts of gadgets behind the scenes this week. We can now see how many hits we’ve had at www.tuktotheroad.co.uk and where our hits are coming from. You can imagine our excitement on seeing that in the past three days we’ve had over 3000 hits. Amazing! Who are all these people looking at our site? And no, it’s not just us, although we might have added a few to the counter.

On the press side of things, Marie Claire is interviewing us for a feature on 3 May, and the Mail on Sunday has said it wants us to write a piece on our return. And then there was the journalist (who shall remain unnamed) who, in a brilliantly camp voice, asked Jo whether our ‘luxurious’ tuk tuk was equipped with a microwave. Dream on!

Thursday 13 April, Brighton, UK

Happy Easter!

Ants has really put me to shame with her blogging skills. She had to remind me yesterday how to actually use our blog. So, this is the first post from me.

It’s now only 35 days until we take off for Bangkok, but still this whole trip doesn’t feel real. Ants has likened it to doing all the preparation and reading for your university dissertation before having to sit down and write the bloody thing. We are so involved in all of the planning and preparation that it is difficult to comprehend that in five weeks we will be flying out to Bangkok.

I went to see the nurse at my doctor’s surgery today and was informed I will need to have four jabs before I go, including a polio booster, which I was most upset to learn is no longer given on a sugar lump. I have also been advised to have a meningitis jab and to consider jabs against rabies and Japanese encephalitis. So, next Tuesday I have an appointment with the nurse and will have the pleasure of two injections and my overdue smear test. I can hardly wait.

Before that, however, it is Easter—which means a couple of things: hot cross buns and chocolate. See, being made to go to church every day at school doesn’t necessarily make one a good Christian. I am totally clueless about the Bible and its contents. Not that that makes me a bad person, does it? I think I am just one of the hundreds and thousands of young people out there who are not particularly religious and God-fearing. The closest I get to God is probably uttering the phrase ‘Oh my God!’ on a reasonably regular basis. The god on our trip will be Ting Tong, and I hope that she can undergo a blessing before we leave Bangkok. I will kiss her every day and worship her beautifully formed three wheels and pink bodywork. Actually, that reminds me that I probably need to read my latest purchase, Auto Repair For Dummies. Plus, I need to get intimate with my unloved motorbike and learn how to remove her front wheel, because on our trip we will need to change our front brake pads roughly every 2000 miles.

Tuesday 18 April, Kelling, Norfolk, UK

‘Prozac Nation’

This was the headline of the Independent on (Easter) Sunday. Not exactly uplifting or Easter-Bunnyish but an extra reason why you should all sponsor us and help Mind fight the war against the depression pandemic that seems to be sweeping our green and pleasant land.

According to the article, 3.5 million Britons are popping pills daily. Fluoxetine, citalopram, paroxetine, sertraline, mirtazapine…you name it, we’re on it. In the past decade, our collective misery has seen prescriptions of these pills rise by more than 120 per cent, costing the NHS £400 million a year. Alarming stuff. And not to mention that the World Health Organization predicts that depression will be the second biggest health problem globally by 2020. Mind and other charities campaigning for better mental health hence need all the support they can get.

Friday 21 April, Brighton, UK

Stress, depression and the twenty-first century

The article in the Independent on Sunday made quite shocking reading. Are that many people really suffering from clinical depression caused by a neurochemical imbalance? Maybe, maybe not. Unfortunately, there are no conclusive scans or blood tests that can be carried out by clinicians to diagnose mental health problems. Diagnosis is based on reports from the patient and observations from clinicians, friends and family.

Is the fact that modern life is so stressful the cause of so much unhappiness? A recent report in a scientific journal demonstrated that animals exposed to high levels of stress can exhibit depressed behaviours. This is not exactly a new finding, and extreme stress can lead to the development of a state called ‘learned helplessness’, characterised by apathetic behaviour.

I often feel stressed, but I usually feel stressed because I choose (or have learnt) to interpret situations as stressful. For example, when I am stuck in traffic and am going to be late for an appointment, there is little point getting stressed, as me being pissed off and uptight will not clear the motorway of traffic. I am sure that there are a lot of people out there who get stressed about things that they cannot alter. Over long periods of time, high levels of stress can eat away at one’s physical and mental health. But are our lives today really more stressful and harder than those of people growing up 50 years ago? Are the causes of stress in modern society really the end of the world? No, they are not. I think in many cases we all need to re-evaluate our lives and work out what is important and what is not. Also, we need to remember that being a stress-head is generally not helpful and conducive to being a contented individual.

Another problem is that GPs are under huge pressure to treat patients within a finite period of time; it takes more than a ten-minute consultation to diagnose and treat mental health problems correctly. Unfortunately, the waiting times for non-drug therapies can be far too long—often months. While a patient waits for a referral for a talking therapy, is it better to just prescribe them antidepressants? Many people may be better suited to a talking treatment rather than medication, but what can GPs do with such long waiting lists for these psychological treatments? It also very much depends on the individual patient: some respond brilliantly to medication alone, some to psychological therapy alone, and some to a combination of both.

From personal experience, I honestly believe that antidepressants saved my life, although it took a while to find the one that worked best for me. I think the government needs to invest a huge amount of funds into NHS mental healthcare, because the problem is only going to get worse. It has been predicted that the cost of mental health problems to the country’s economy already runs into billions of pounds. Surely that in itself is reason enough to increase funding?

I also believe that we need some kind of social revolution in this country. What has life come to when the majority of assaults are drink-related and 30-year-olds are being treated for cirrhosis? I think the media need to become more responsible to the young people in today’s society, because many popular media aimed at young people are promoting superficial ideals. The majority of women are now dissatisfied with at least one part of their body, and many are just too caught up in our ever-expanding consumer society. We need to wake up to what is really important in life and get real.

Wednesday 26 April, Kelling, Norfolk, UK

Meetings with remarkable people

Aside from raising money and awareness for Mind, one of the best things about doing a trip like this is the people you meet. In the past few weeks we’ve met and spoken with a plethora of explorers, world record holders and all-round expedition gurus. Each of them has been truly inspirational. We’ve already recounted our meetings with Sam Rutherford and Hugh Sinclair, but since then we’ve had the pleasure of speaking with two more remarkable individuals, Simon Wilson-Stephens and Olly Hicks.

First up was Olly. Olly is younger than Jo and I—23, I believe. On 28 September 2005, after four months at sea, he arrived at Falmouth having rowed solo across the Atlantic, the youngest person ever to do so. Mind-boggling: just him, the ocean and a pair of oars. And not a lot of food by the sound of things. My great-uncle won a bronze medal in the Olympics for rowing, and I was always pretty good on the rowing machine at the gym, but the thought of rowing all that way—on my own—defies imagination. Even more remarkable is Olly’s next project—rowing around the world solo, due to lift off at the end of 2007.

Next in the line of remarkable people is Simon Wilson-Stephens. Simon had suffered from depression since the age of 15 or 16. His depression came to a head after the turn of the new millennium, when, as Simon says, his ‘wheels came flying off’ and he had a breakdown, his foundations crumbling as he tried to settle back into life in the UK after a stint in Africa organising safaris. Simon recovered and decided to go back to East Africa and follow one of Henry Morton Stanley’s expedition routes by bicycle and kayak. He, with new friend Stanley the dog, completed the trip and in the process raised £16 000 for the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust. When I spoke to Simon a few days ago, he had just run the London Marathon and Stanley the dog was off for a walk.

It’s Simon’s fault that we’re now booked in to give a talk at the Royal Geographical Society on 12 December. The prospect fills me with more horror than a wrestle with a Ukrainian gangster.

And finally, Jimmy Goddard. I haven’t actually met or spoken to Jimmy, but my friend Tom Townshend is in training for not one but two triathlons this year in order to raise money for Jimmy’s Trust. Jimmy is in his late twenties and was paralysed from the chest down by a horrific climbing accident in 2004. Jimmy refuses to be beaten by his disability and is about to be the first paraplegic person to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Hearing about people like this is a humbling experience and makes you regret those times you whinged about your own petty problems.

Wednesday 3 May, Kelling, Norfolk, UK

Sponsorship and naked marketing

Only 16 days to go until we leave for Bangkok, and there are still a million things to do. Our main tasks are fundraising and sponsorship. Letters have been flying out of Tuk to the Road HQ beseeching individuals and companies to part with their hard-earned cash. Subsequently I come down to breakfast most mornings to find a pile of cheques, which I rip open in anticipation—£790 came in one day last week, and over £200 arrived this morning. Mental health is something that affects so many people, and almost everyone we speak to about our trip and Mind has been affected by it either directly or indirectly. No wonder the cheques are flowing in. We’re up to about £10 000 now, but I am sure that once we get on our way and show people that we are really doing it—really driving 12 500 miles in a pink tuk tuk—then more people will donate. They had better do, because otherwise Jo, being a naturist, is going to tour the country naked on our return. And ‘they’ thought the Naked Rambler was bad.

The past few days have been frustrating in terms of sponsorship. Although we have been consistently bowled over by the kindness of individuals, when it comes to dealing with big corporations the matter is very different. One particular company, which shall remain unnamed, has led us up the garden path. Over three weeks ago this company replied enthusiastically to a proposal to sponsor our flights, asking us what dates we wanted to fly, telling us they loved the idea, etc., etc. Now, 16 days before we leave, the company says no. Grrrr! But have no fear, for we’ve found some cheap flights via Kuala Lumpur on the afternoon of 20 May.

We have had some luck on the sponsorship front,however,with Liftshare and Activair. Both have kindly provided us with financial sponsorship in return for having logos on Ting Tong. The great thing about having Liftshare on board is the fact that they tick the Big Green Box. The next thing to consider is how we can make our trip carbon-neutral—perhaps Future Forests could sponsor us by planting enough trees to negate the effect of our trip on the environment.

On a rather different note, Jo and I would like to send all our thoughts and love to the families of two very special people: Rose and Livs. Both girls were great friends of ours and tragically are no longer with us. I know that they would have approved of our madcap three-wheeled adventure, and we will be thinking of them often over the next few months.

Tuesday 9 May, Kelling, Norfolk, UK

The power of cyberspace

Only ten days to go until we get on a plane to Bangkok, and tuk tuk fever is setting in. I feel like I have written a thousand letters recently, telling people about our mission and asking them to support us and, more importantly, Mind. Luckily the response has been great and more and more cheques arrive daily. We’ve still got a massive amount of fundraising to do before we hit our £50 000 target, but I think a lot of people will donate when we are actually on the road. I guess our mission has to be begun to be believed. I still don’t believe it’s happening, so why should anyone else?

The past few days have been an astonishing testament to the power of cyberspace. A few weeks ago Jo got in touch with a guy called John who lives in Bangkok and runs www.khaosanroad.com. John put our story on his site’s home page and within 24 hours three more potential sponsors and several travel magazines and websites contacted us. One of these is Travelfish (www.travelfish.org), a brilliant site all about travelling in South East Asia. Ting Tong is now going to be sporting a Travelfish sticker, and a story about our mission will soon be gracing their pages. Gapyear.com (www.gapyear.com) also contacted us and is going to feature our blog on its site and help publicise the trip. Suddenly it feels like it’s all happening.

Mind Week starts this Saturday and then it’s our launch party on Wednesday. I’m vaguely terrified about the latter since between 6 and 7.30 p.m. Skype, one of our sponsors, has arranged a press launch at the Cobden Club for us and apparently there are journalists from the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Financial Times, handbag.com and various other publications coming along. Yikes! I used to find it hard enough to say anything at the South Bank Show departmental meetings, let alone open my mouth in front of an assortment of journalists.

Friday 12 May, Brighton, UK

I feel sad

I should be in bed getting a good night’s sleep to prepare for the hectic week ahead, but I am feeling sad right now. The trip is starting to feel very real and this next week is going to be a rush of acquiring more kit, fundraising, Skype press conference, launch party, etc. I feel like there’s too much to do and not enough time.

The reason I am feeling sad is because of my ferrets. The hardest thing for me is going to be leaving behind my 12 darling babies, knowing that if there is a problem I won’t be there to kiss and cuddle them. You might think I’m crazy, but if you’re an animal lover you’ll understand. Two of them are unwell at the moment: Zac has kidney failure and Pebbles has suddenly lost the use of her back legs and can’t go to the loo properly. It is quite likely that Zac will not be alive when I return, and Pebbles will probably have to be put to sleep next week if she doesn’t improve. Just writing this is making me cry.

I am at my mum and dad’s right now and am going to spend the day with them tomorrow, as it will be the last quality time I get with them before we leave.

Things seem to be taking off with regards to PR now, which is encouraging. I have done a couple of phone interviews today and was being asked loads of questions about my depression and self-harm and how it used to make me feel. It was strange to drag out old memories that I hadn’t visited for years. Why would I want to think how I felt when I used to cut myself or how my depression might have affected my family and friends? I didn’t expect it to bother me, but it has a little.

That’s another reason why my ferrets are so special to me. When I was really depressed they honestly were my lifesavers. Mum said that if I ever did anything, i.e. attempt suicide, then she would give my ferrets to the RSPCA. I know that she didn’t really mean it, but when I couldn’t handle any human affection my ferrets were always there to lick away my tears and comfort me in the middle of the night when I felt so desperate and scared. God, this is probably the most depressing blog to date, but it is just how I am feeling right now.