Team Life uhh...finds a way.

Indescribable.

I do not posses the mastery of the English language to accurately portray this experience. Every day brought several completely unexpected encounters. And the range of emotions, where to begin? Excitement, awe, elation, fear, stress, anticipation, wonder, perseverance. I felt those, and countless more emotions every day. While they don't have to do a rickshaw run of their own, I hope that everyone is able to find their own adventure to expierence something like what we underwent.

It was a hell of a finish, celebrating our accomplishment by spending the evening riding camels in the desert and sleeping under the stars.

Forgot putting good ol' "Ricky" on a truck. We put in 400km yesterday, and we're driving this whole damn thing. Oy 160 km to go today; with any luck, we'll get to Jaisalmer  by noon. We've perfected the art of the driver change while at speed, so we stop for nothing, except for chai breaks.

Day two in search of shipping our rickshaw. An early start, and found the recommended truck depot in Ahmedabad where we should be able to load our tuk tuk.

Sunday. Holy day, not open. Not open all day. Guess we keep driving until our luck changes.

So...now I see what the fuss is about with Ahmedabad traffic. That's is about as hectic if a drive a I've ever seen. We spent about two hours wandering around the train station talking to several people trying to give our rickshaw a ride to the end, we finally got a hard answer that it wasn't possible. A major disappointment on that wild goose chase.

The next step was driving straight through the heart of the city center to get our hotel - talk about stress! After that, I could really go for a drink to calm down; oh wait we're in a dry state...sigh.

At least I can take advantage of all my travel for work and cash in on a free night at the Marriott here. S so I got that going to for me, which is nice.

Making good progress, nearly to Ahmedabad. The selfie game is even stronger here up north

Had our first run-in with Johnny Law today. They pulled us over and gave us an agonizing interrogation consisting of 2 questions.

1) Selfie?

2) Where are you from?

After a quick pic, they sent us off with a smile and a wave. They're probably just as confused as everyone else as to why a couple foreigners are driving this weird-looking rickshaw across the country.  I'm thinking I've been previously underestimating the power of the selfie. I wonder if it gets me as much clout one I get back to the States...

"What day is it today?"

"January"

That question and response has been uttered on several occasions during this trip. In a rickshaw, time has lost its meaning. I could swear we've been driving this bloody thing for months already. We're either going to make it to the finish line, or lose our wits trying. I love this journey.

After rolling into to Aurangabad, we left our 'shaw at the hostel and sprung for a taxi to be tourists for the day; oh what sweet relief it was to have doors and A/C for once! At the Ellora caves, we were just bombarded with natives wanting to take pictures with us - it made us question if the locals came to see the caves, or us. To our surprise when on returning to the hostel, we see this big sign posted in the common area. Apparently all the other guests were asking about the rickshaw, so the owners took it upon themselves to organize an impromptu Q&A session with a short video talking about our adventure. Like I said before, it feels like we're famous everywhere we go.

Since we didn't have time to prepare a speech for the talk, we decided to just wing it - much like everything else we've done over the past week. Make no plans, roll with whatever comes your way, and it works out (well, usually works out. Except for when Tim gets swindled by a holy man in a temple) .

Day 8: in search of internet

We have 1 sim card for the thee of us, and it does not seem to work in this state. The past couple hotel we've stayed at have non-existent internet. Once again, we've gone a full 24 hours without seeing any other gringos on the road. Dearest parents, if you see this, do not fear, we have not yet died. Our journey continues north towards the finish line and in search of internet.

Wherever we stop, we draw a crowd from the locals. They'll circle around us until one if them gathers the courage to ask us for a selfie; once they see it's ok, the floodgates open and the entire village comes to get a picture with the "white guys." Part of me feels bad when we say no to pictures to some people, but if we stopped for everyone that wanted a pic, we'd never get anywhere.