Who Needs Mirrors Anyways

Day three has passed and Ricky is holding on as our trusty steed. This will only continue, however, if our questionable driving skills don't kill him (or us). On the first day, after loading Precious Cargo with tinsel and sparkles and nothing useful or road trip related, we had a magnificent beginning to the journey; we stalled approximately 6857 times trying to leave the polo grounds, exiting last and getting lost in Shillong. Being the first to pick up the concept of shifting gears comfortably, Kirby drove most of that day, proceeding to tip over and slide along the bus, smashing into the handrail with our mirror. It's a good thing she's cute, the driver didn't seem too mad. We drove long into the night on a back road that was so full of potholes that we managed to pop a tire. What an awesome first night! On the plus side, though, all anyone wants in this beautiful country is to help you. Before we knew it there were ten men successfully changing our tire for us, while we sat in chairs they seemed to pull out of a magic fucking hat. Yesterday and today went by relatively smoothly - smoothly except for the pavement on the roads, that is. We all seem to be getting the hang of this driving a rickshaw across the whole country thing. Then again, we also have to cross the WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY in 12 more days, and right now I can hear the terrifying honks of trucks and buses outside of our hotel room in Maldah; I'm not getting cocky any time soon. The adventure begins.

Slowly Release the Clutch

Hello, hello,

Despite the mild hangovers and residual shame resulting from last nights “casual beers”, the three of us managed to mosey on over to the rickshaw holding point earlyish this morning. Our glorious rickshaw, Richard, sat there waiting. He was just begging for us to start him up and give this adventure the old college try. After the race organisers gave us a very short and ambiguous driving lesson/introduction to the concept of a clutch, the three of us tried to look confident, prepared, and experienced with all things rickshaw-related as we sat there unable to move the thing. Clearly we were fooling no one, and a very gracious man named James came to our rescue and delivered an incredibly patient “how to do everything” lecture. Love him. Cam started Richard up first and was, unsurprisingly, really good. There’s truly no sweeter sound than the gentle purr of Ricky’s 145cc vespa-esque engine. I went second and had a significantly worse go of things. Getting into first gear was no problem, and soon enough we were gracefully cruising across the parking lot at a snail’s pace. See, this is where I got a little too confident. Second gear isn’t all fun and games, and 15km/h is no laughing matter when there's an idiot behind the handlebars. I’ll never forget the sound of Cam’s voice screeching “braaaaaaake use the braaaaaake!!!”, or the sound of Azura laughing and crying at the same time as I headed straight for a concrete wall, parked car, and innocent bystander all at once. A major bonding experience was had when we all confessed to having peed ourselves slightly (whether from laughter or fear is yet to be decided). Despite my dangerous tendencies, I was entrusted with the final task of driving the team to our respective washroom facilities for freshening up. I’m comforted by the fact that Azura struggled with Ricky as well. He seems to be in favour of stalling out way more with her in the driver’s seat than anyone else. I mean, Azura has been using some pretty colourful language to describe her feelings towards him, so I can’t say I’m completely surprised that their relationship is rocky at best. Let’s all send those two loving vibes and positive wishes for the future. In fact, I think we could all use some happy thoughts and good karma for the scary task ahead.

xoxo Kirby

Take Care of Your Body

Is your idea of a spiritual experience having a man indirectly call you fat while forcing your limbs into unnatural positions? Bring in White Baba, decked out in skull jewelry and orange dye. Bring in cups of chai tea enjoyed on the floor of a cow barn. Bring in the holy city of Varanasi. For real though, the spirituality of Varanasi is evident everywhere - from the ghats along the strongly flowing Ganges to the comfortable haven we found at STOPS hostel, where we stayed for the past five days. It was the perfect place to unwind and rejuvenate before starting our rickshaw adventure. These days were filled with numerous trips to the tasty and close by Kerala Cafe, walks through the old town streets, evening ceremonies, new friends from all over the world, and fruit picnics on our dorm room floor.

Despite the peace brought on by the air conditioners and fans at STOPS, the two incidents that stand out to me from our time at Varanasi were all but calm. The first began in the market by the river. That was a vaguely given location because in Varanasi I never knew where the **** we were - which was proven by my brilliant decision to walk down the busiest street in town in a direction that can only be described as wrong. This fateful choice was exacerbated by Kirby’s cartographic 'knowledge'. So, finding ourselves lost and hopeless (not the first time and definitely a foreshadow of future events), we hailed what we thought was a trusty rickshaw to taxi our asses home. This rickshaw, however, turned out to be of the bicycle variety, and after too many trips to the chip aisle for Cam and the chocolate aisle for me, Kirby had to position herself facing backwards on the bike seat, touching butts with the endearingly sweaty old man, while we laughed and cried along with her for the entire population of Varanasi to see. Maybe White Baba was right about our dietary decisions, but I have yet to go a day without a chocolate bar.

Another stand out part of this stop on the road was my spontaneous decision to get tattooed on the spot by an Italian artist staying at our hostel. After drawing an India-inspired design directly onto my leg, he sat me down on the patio bench and did what he has spent his entire professional life doing, while I proceeded to scream and cry like a woman going through labour for the next four hours. Kirby and Cam held my hands as I delivered this brilliant entertainment to our new friends as they drank their beers painlessly. I have never claimed that my “living in the moment” philosophy comes with no cost.

So, a few more servings of Uthapam (try it) and many attractive roommates later, we left Varanasi with hopes that a flight to Guwahati (instead of another long train full of gypsy curses and milky coffee) might kill any residual culture shock. To be determined. What Varanasi did give us was a chance to build love and motivation, so I'm thinking we will be EH OKAYYYY

Love and light, Azura

Success in Agra

Hiya friends and family,

It all began with the best of intentions and the highest of hopes. Sadly, having such magnificent and glorious expectations (or any at all, for that matter) can often lead to disappointment. I think this happens simply because things don’t always pan out in the same way as they’d been imagined, and for some reason we don’t always associate “different” with “also good/better”. For one reason or another, today seemed to be the day to visit the Taj Mahal. Everyone and their uncle was there, and they were all pleased as punch to stand in a four hour-long line up (while sweating profusely under the scorching inferno that is the sun) to see the darn thing. After getting lost, thirsty, too hot, and lost again, Cam and Azura were slightly less keen. Understandably so. Lucky for us, there was a really beautiful rooftop restaurant with amazing (and free) instagram-worthy Taj views. It comes as an added bonus that the owners were lovely and didn’t mind putting up with our lazy/cheap/kinda unsuccessful traveller bums for a fair few hours in the afternoon. It has always struck me as funny that the Taj would be someone’s prime reason for visiting India. It’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but there is so much more to a place like India than impressive architecture. This became slowly more apparent as we spent the day dodging massive piles of cow shit, negotiating rickshaw fares, getting featured in countless selfies, and basking in the kindness of locals. Although Cam and Azura didn’t get as up close and personal with the Taj as was hoped for (or it's mega-hoard of tourists), they began to see the ‘real’ India for maybe the first time. Even though things veered from our original plan, and certainly weren’t what we had expected our day to be like, we still had a lot of fun and managed to see things with a “glass half full” mentality. Let’s just hope our wee Agra 'failure’ doesn’t serve as foreshadowing for the rest of our Indian adventures….

Ta-ta for now, Kirby

Haridwar and Rishikesh

Just arrived back in Delhi after a few days in both Haridwar and Rishikesh. After leaving Delhi, I quickly got sick and have been trying to battle it off since. Feeling on the mend now, but still a ways to go. Kirby did a lot of exploring and walking around while I slept/watched movies for 3 days straight. I finally felt well enough to leave the hotel on our final day so we rented scooters to explore Rishikesh and it's surrounding forests and waterfalls, which was a ton of fun. Picking up Azura tonight! - Cam

Delhi

Safely made it to Delhi. Arrived late last night and checked in and went straight to bed. Woke up early this morning, will take some time to get used to the time change. Just visited the Red Fort which was beautiful. We had to take cover under some trees to avoid the sudden downpour. Now for some down time to recover from all this heat, I've never been so sweaty. - Cam

Toronto

First flight to Toronto complete. Only one more long haul flight to go!