Wednesday, September 25, 2013 • page 18
The incredible journey
Elon students plan to embark across India unaided in Rickshaw Run
Abby Franklin
Senior Reporter
M ost Elon University students
are fiimiliar with Bio-Carts, the '
small vehicles used by members ,
of Elon’s maintenance staff to travel around
campus.
If you pluck this little electric vehicle out of
the “Elon bubble” and place it in Northeast In
dia, people would probably call it a rickshaw —
a two-wheeled hooded vehicle drawn by one or
more people.
This January during Winter Term, five Elon
students will be driving two rickshaws nearly
2,000 miles in less than two weeks in an ultimate
adventure called the Rickshaw Run in India.
Seniors Maria Castine, Will Stim, Ben Do
nahue, Jack HaUigan and junior Jordan Nulsen
will be making this journey.Together they form
Team Elon Tuk Tuk
Surviving the journey
The five will tmive in India Dec. 26 for
rickshaw training — learning how to drive the
doorless vehicles.
After rickshaw lessons and various pre-
depai-ture activities. Team Tuk Tuk (which will
be divided into two rickshaws) will travel from
Jiiisiilmer, Rajasthan in Northeast India to Ko
chi, Kerala, which is approximately 1,800 miles
south.
“We have a two- to thi'ee-week period to
complete the journey and will be completely
unassisted,” Stirn said. “When our rickshaw
breaks down, which it will, we’ll have to use
our skills along with the local people and things
that exist to help us. We’U experience India in a
very in-depth, chaotic way. It’s basically a long
road trip in slow vehicles similar to motorized
bicycles.”
“More like tricycles,” Donahue said with a
laugh.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines ad-
ventiue in numerous ways but offers one defini
tion that especially pertains to Team Tuk Tuk;
-'-'v
si' •
y-' i.
.■ill
■"fc-.
J
PHOTO SUBMIT! ED BY WILL STIRN
(Left to right) Team Elon TUk Tuk is comprised of seniors Maria Castine, Will Stirn, Ben Donahue, Jack Halligan and junior Jordan Nulsen. The team will participate in
The Adventurists’ Rickshaw Run in January and will have two weeks to pull two rickshaws down the Western length of India completely unaided.
“a remarkable or unexpected event, or series of
events, in which a person participates as a result
of chance, a novel or exciting experience.”
Seventy-eight other teams will assemble
from multi-national backgrounds to crouch
into their rickshaws and embark on a journey
down the western length of India together,
thrown together by chance.
Forming the Tuk Tuks
When thinking about a trip of this magni-
mde, it’s assumed the travelers are close friends.
Although Team Tuk Tuk is tight-knit cur
rently, they didn’t start out that way.
Each member majors in a different area
of study, but all had Stirn as a mutual friend.
He seems to act as the team’s mastermind and
common tie who brought this unlikely group
together.
“You’re ridiculous,” Donahue said, address
ing Stirn as he recalled Stirn’s initial adventure
pitch. “He came up to me — completely on
a whim — and said, ‘How do you feel about
riding rickshaws through India?’ I immediately
said, ‘No. That can’t be feasible on any level.’”
Halligan laughed and responded with his
own recollection of Stirn’s approach.
“I was in the library and he came up to me
and was like, ‘Hey, what are you doing Winter
Term?”’ Halligan said. “I told him I wanted to
study abroad but I missed the deadline. He was
like, ‘How do you feel about going to India?’ I
was like,‘Go on.”’
Castine recently joined the team after Stirn
approached her at Irazu Coffee Shop.
“I had already talked to her about [the idea]
last spring and I was like, ‘Hey, we’re trying to
find a fifth person and guess what? You should
be that person,”’ Stirn said. “Texts later, there
she was.”
Stirn’s enthusiasm for adventure and his
convincing pitch sold the seniors on the idea.
But the recruitment of Nulsen happened a bit
differendy.
“My family and I were eating at Pandora’s
Pies,” Stirn said. “They saw [Nulsen] and were
hke, ‘I wonder what she does with her life.’ So
we asked, and she said she’d transferred from
the University of Vermont and grew up with
horses. My family owns a dude ranch and I