Tuk-Tuk to the Road

Tuk-Tuk to the Road
Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent

Jo Huxster

AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE FOR A LIMITED TIMETwo girls, three wheels, one mission.If you've ever been to Bangkok you'll have most likely been catapulted through the streets in a tuk tuk, one of the city's ubiquitous three-wheeled taxis. With white knuckles and ringing ears you'll have stepped out at the end and vowed to take a regular taxi next time. But one summer Jo Huxster and Ants Bolingbroke-Kent decided to drive a tuk tuk that little bit further – to Brighton, a mere 12,561 miles away. Their mission: to raise £50 000 for the mental health charity Mind.Tuk Tuk to the Road is the inspirational story of the ultimate road trip – the countries they traverse, the people that help them, the nail-biting border crossings, the extremely friendly policemen… Every detail of their record-breaking tukathon is chronicled in colourful and often hilarious detail.Twelve countries, two continents, one earthquake and the odd snapped accelerator cable later, this is the entertaining, honest, and above all, remarkable story of two girls who proved that with a little bit of determination, anything is possible.

Tuk Tuk to the Road

two girls, three wheels, 12,500 miles

Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent and Jo Huxster

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u41445f58-2808-50ce-998f-83e5d6dca9e6)

Title Page (#ud05c6e6c-25b2-561d-847b-25e5a42dec21)

Dedication (#u6f31c8d5-b9ce-5e3f-b67b-05dd86609240)

Introduction (#uc2e637dc-3f49-5333-beaf-1b7666badaa4)

Prologue (#u648a6c99-dca0-513d-b1a1-b14fdfe523e7)

Planned route (#u3b4e4c95-7682-5bcd-840c-5f50703cb0ab)

Chapter 1 Countdown (#ua16fc924-1463-5ec4-bbcd-0316dbce66f7)

Chapter 2 Lift Off (#u32520fd4-124d-5bea-90f9-406c53865409)

Chapter 3 The Dragon’s Den (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 4 Ladaland (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 The Final Furlong (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 Touch Down (#litres_trial_promo)

Two months later (#litres_trial_promo)

Frequently asked questions (#litres_trial_promo)

A tukking quick guide to fundraising (#litres_trial_promo)

A bit about Mind (#litres_trial_promo)

Useful sources (#litres_trial_promo)

Equipment list (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

A note from the authors (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

In memory of Rose and Livs, our guardian angels

Introduction (#ulink_96d28dac-dcdb-5b21-b86a-d1d0dc1c61a4)

People often ask us where the inspiration to drive a tuk tuk from Bangkok to Brighton came from. The answer is simple—five years ago Jo went to Bangkok, fell in love with tuk tuks and decided that one day she would drive one back to England. Four years later we turned Ting Tong out of the gates of the British embassy in Bangkok and headed for home. Two continents, 12 countries, 14 weeks and the odd snapped accelerator cable later, we made it to our final destination—Brighton, England.

Anyone who has spent even five minutes in a tuk tuk might question why on earth we would consider undertaking such a gruelling journey in one of these noisy three-wheelers. Why not a nice comfortable Land Rover? Well, quite frankly, that would have been dull. The primary motivation for this trip was to take part in a challenging and novel experience, to explore the world in a vehicle that most people would consider travelling in for only a few miles. Plus, as we were going to be doing the trip in aid of the mental health charity Mind, then what better way to attract attention and sponsorship than a bright-pink tuk tuk?

Having ideas is one thing, but making them happen quite another. Turning our dream into the reality of a 12,500-mile tukking- extravaganza took determination, tears, stress, excitement and an unwavering desire to succeed. Last January we dived head-first into the unknown, spending the next four months working full time to organise everything: technology, insurance, medical training, finding sponsors, raising money for Mind, learning Russian and much more. It was often difficult to comprehend the enormity of what we were actually doing; instead of feeling scared, we felt like we were planning the trip for someone else. At other times, it felt like galloping flat out towards a vast brick wall with no idea what was on the other side.

But all the hard work paid off in the end, as the trip was a unique and amazing experience. After being back for six months, we are still digesting and reliving those 14 weeks on the road. It was the best thing we have ever done and, although it may sound like a horrible cliché, this past year has taught us that if you are determined enough, anything is possible.

Jo, Ants and Ting Tong

March 2007

Prologue (#ulink_cff79c1d-cdab-54c9-a9ec-db61a614c59e)

Life before tukking—Ants

It was a typical May day in Bangkok. The streets were the usual gridlock of tuk tuks, taxis and kamikaze bikers, the air stiflingly hot. In the Khao San Road dreadlocked travellers rubbed shoulders with immaculately dressed ladyboys and women hawked their wares to passers-by. There was nothing to suggest that today was anything but ordinary. But for Jo and I this was D-Day, the day when we would embark on a dream born years before. In the cloying, pre-monsoon heat we loaded up our tuk tuk for the first time and wove through the traffic towards the British embassy. Neither of us could get our heads round the enormity of the task that lay ahead—that finally, after months of planning and preparation, we were about to take the first tuk on the long road home. Was a tuk tuk really going to be able to make it all the way to Brighton? It was too late now for such questions. It was time for Lift Off.

Our journey had really begun 15 years earlier when Jo and I found ourselves in the same classroom in the autumn of 1991. Despite our different upbringings—Jo’s in Surrey’s leafy commuter belt, mine in the North Norfolk countryside—we were soon inseparable, our friendship forged on a love of sport, animals and subverting discipline. Winter weekends would be spent careering around the lacrosse pitch, thrashing other schools and gorging ourselves on match teas. In summer we would while away the evenings with long competitive hours on the tennis court, evenly matched and determined to beat each other. The holidays would see us frequenting the National Express between Norwich and London to stay at each other’s houses. It’s easy to look back on the past through a rose-tinted prism, but these early teenage years were a lot of fun, both in and out of school.

I often wonder whether the signs were there during those carefree years. At what point did the cracks begin to show? Jo was always extreme, non-conformist, a rebel—you could say anti-establishment. At an age when peer pressure was at its most potent, she was someone who dared to be different. It wasn’t that she was an attention-seeker; it was just that she seemed to lack the self-consciousness that so commonly afflicts teenagers. While we thought we were at the cutting edge of fashion with our latest purchases from Kensington Market, Jo would go one step further, appearing at school in massive army boots, tie-dye, eye-poppingly short skirts and an undercut, a hairstyle synonymous with dog-on-string ketamine-heads, not public school girls. This, combined with her ridiculous sense of humour, was perhaps what I loved most about her. But was this necessarily an indication of what would happen a few years later? Did fate already have Jo in its clutch?

At the end of GCSEs, Jo left our school to do her A-Levels at Lancing College. It was then that things started to go wrong. She was miserable at Lancing from the outset, and my diary entries from her first term there speak of her unhappiness and desire to leave. On my part, I missed her terribly. But it wasn’t until the following summer that I realised quite how unhappy she was. We were walking along the street in Thames Ditton one afternoon when I noticed some marks on her arms. I had never seen self-harm before, never heard of it even, but I knew those marks were self-inflicted. Nowadays self-harm is a recognised condition and rivals anorexia for newspaper column inches. A 2006 survey shockingly revealed that 25 000 teenagers are treated in British hospitals every year for self-inflicted wounds, but ten years ago it wasn’t something you ever heard about.‘What are those marks on your arm, Ferret?’ I ventured. She looked sheepish and smiled that nervous smile you do when you know you have done something wrong. Then she admitted she had done them to herself. They were tiny scars at that point—barely visible—and she assured me that she wouldn’t do it again.

These assurances were soon forgotten. My diary from October 1996 records: ‘I went to stay with Jo last weekend…I don’t know what to do about her at the moment…she’s cutting herself regularly…who the hell do I turn to for advice?’ I felt helpless, out of my depth. We met up a few times during that term to go clubbing in London, and Jo covered up her arms with bandages and lied to anyone who asked. In November we celebrated our eighteenth birthdays dancing the night away at the SW1 club in Victoria with a load of friends, going home long after the sun had come up. In spite of the cutting, she was still the old Jo, full of laughter, energy and mischief. I could never have foreseen what lurked in the shadows of the immediate future.

A week later she was taken to a psychiatric hospital near Tunbridge Wells.

And that’s when we lost Jo.

It all happened so quickly. One minute she was there—unhappy yes, but still Jo, still able to come out and have a laugh and celebrate turning 18. The next minute she’d gone, enveloped by the dark cloak of depression. Four weeks after she had been admitted, I went to visit her in hospital with her father and brother. The first shock was the hospital itself. Just before we arrived, one of Jo’s fellow patients had cut themselves in the bathroom and there was blood everywhere. Someone else had kicked a door in. The whole place reeked of unhappiness and disquiet. Then there was the shock of seeing my friend. The Jo I knew and loved was vibrant, hyperactive and quick to laugh. The Jo I saw that day in hospital was a mere shell, hardly able to speak, her limbs a morass of self-inflicted wounds. She was also under constant one-on-one supervision in case she tried to harm herself. How on earth had it come to this?

Jo spent the next four years in and out of various psychiatric institutions in the south of England. She should have been doing her A-levels and then a degree, out there having fun. Instead she was on a cocktail of antidepressants and locked into a spiralling addiction to self-harm. As the months and years ticked by, I began to lose hope of Jo ever being able to escape from the abyss into which she had fallen. She took overdoses and cut herself so badly that she frequently had to be stitched up—with 128 stitches on one occasion. At one stage, voices in her head urged her to cut herself and to kill herself and others; thank goodness she had the strength to resist. It was heartbreaking to see her so unhappy and to see such a beautiful girl destroying her body like she was, knowing she would be scarred for life. I can’t begin to imagine how her family must have felt.

While Jo was battling depression, I was leading a very different existence as a student at Edinburgh University. It was extraordinary to think how much our lives had diverged in such a short space of time. We had gone from seeing and speaking to each other daily to barely having any contact at all. My letters went unanswered, my calls were unreturned and when I did make the journey south to see her she was usually uncommunicative and numbed by drugs. Because I had never experienced depression and couldn’t relate to her condition, I became frustrated with what I saw as an increasingly one-sided friendship; Jo didn’t seem to care at all. It was naive of me to think that the normal rules of friendship still applied, to expect anything from someone who was so ill, but I didn’t understand that when you feel like Jo did you become socially disabled and unable to communicate even with those closest to you. It was only when my own life crumbled during my second year of university, in 1998, that I understood what this felt like.