I have now been on an official, proper, live adventure.

Plain Lazy clothing label founder Mark Hagley and I set out from Pokhara, Nepal to Fort Kochi, India in an itsy tin can aka “an auto rickshaw” on January 2 this year. We would have started on New Year’s Day if it weren’t for pesky petrol strikes which seemed to bring the country to a halt.

In case it wasn’t obvious that it was an adventure, our rickshaw run was organized some fellows who have dubbed themselves “The Adventurists.”

Since I am now a qualified adventurer, I’m going to wax lyrical about the “why’s” and “what-for’s” of the whole business. I had plenty of time to think about “why’s” and “what-for’s” while being jiggled in the back or behind the handlebars of our mighty Tuc Tuc.

I wanted to get to the bottom of what drives people to pursue this kind of adventure. So I thought about our rickshaw run lot.

The odd thing is that they aren’t kids on their gap year. The majority seemed to range between their late twenties and early thirties, with a sprinkling of rickshaw runners in their forties and a couple in their fifties.

It’s not just for toffs

I wondered, was adventuring a class thing? We all know the toffs, jolly-hockey sticks, old money – people who don’t need to do a real day’s work. You know, the Ranulph Fiennes type who goes off on an adventure because [insert stuffy accent if you wish]: “It’ll be a bloody good laugh and what else is there to do, old boy?”

Yes there were some of those types here but I also met Aussies working in stock markets, cyber-journalist Kiwis, English blokes in sales and English girls in publishing, travel and festival production. And, of course, I was there too and I’m in marketing.

We were a bunch of, you know, normal, working, middle-classed people.

Nah, it’s not about the “worthy causes”

Something else that’s pretty obvious about all this is that people doing a rally, cycling a bike around the world, canoeing across the Atlantic almost always do it for charity.

So are they driven by a sudden sense of the injustice in the world? Has someone hit them with a philanthropic stick?

I’m pretty sure that is not the case especially with some of the shockingly small amounts of money people raised on the Rickshaw Run (thought I hasten to add that some such as Tuc Tuc companions ‘Chasing Souse’ have been impressive in their fundraising).

Adventure’s not a bloody holiday

And another thing, these adventurers aren’t taking time off to recuperate from their stressful working lives. That’s for sure. Any adventure takes its toll, mentally and physically.

Grab your club and load up on adrenaline

So here’s my theory: I think people are driven to adventure because deep down, we’re all a bunch of bored cave men.

Sorry. Cave people.

Cave people were driven by survival. They were not farmers, they were not shoppers and they did not order their groceries from Tesco online. They were hunter gatherers.

Both of these activities – hunting for the majority of men, and gathering for most of the women – were fraught with danger.

Whether sampling an unknown (and quite possibly dodgy) mushroom, foraging for food in forest, the realm of tigers and other mean beasts, or trying to bring down a gi-normous woolly mammoth, their lives were in constant peril.

I figure that because we no longer have this danger on a daily basis, we go searching for it either by driving our cars too fast to work, going skateboarding, playing rugby or (da da DA!) seeking an adventure.

That’s why people go to India to drive a completely inappropriate vehicle, a rickshaw, from one end of the country to the other because there is a risk of getting seriously hurt.

There is nothing like the thrill and excitement of a near injury experience to get the blood pumping and the mind racing with the buzz of endorphins.

In the regular day to day we wake up and, at most, we might cross the road using only our ears to detect traffic – life on the edge! Or we might jump as a tube door closes. Or we might perform an amber gamble.
But none of this quite cuts the mustard for most of us.

We’re all just cavemen lolling about in our caves with our packed Tupperware lunch or a meaty Prêt-a-Manger sub, staring out of the rocky entrance and wishing they were off being “real” men or women.

So go on. Do it. Find an adventure, pick a meaningful charity (we rickshaw ran for the Street Child World Cup – please donate!) and get in on the action.

Laurence Jarrett-Kerr

Check out for some adventuring inspiration:

Sir Ranulph Fiennes’:

Or Bear Grylls:

Or Sir Earnest Shakelton:

The Adventurists’ website.

The Plain Lazy Adventures website to donate.