India 2016 | Rickshaw Run, Day 7: World War Z – 10 April

Agra reinvigorated us, and yet it also left us for dead. We were getting into the meat of our journey, the most boring and yet conversely potentially the most treacherous. The heat for the following few days would be oppressive. The people we were told, not nearly as friendly, some possibly dangerous. The crowds could have a World War Z feel, eyes vacant, smiles absent, mobs evident. Of course, it wasn’t that bad, but it was what we were warned.

As the hours mounted each day, Darjeeling seemed further and further away from us. Agra further and further behind us. Our connection to the outside world ceased to exist as wifi was unavailable wherever we stayed for the night. Accommodations were rat holes at best, each morning and night an exercise in futility in fighting with the staff, tempers flaring.

The more closed off we felt, the more we looked to each other for solace. Sometimes, it was easy; sometimes, it was anything but. Luckily, we had another team we convoyed with the rest of our journey from Agra. Paul, Lisa and Anthony were a godsend. Kind, wonderful and funny, they traveled well with us. But they were tired too. I’d like to think that we had just a positive affect on them as they did us.

And so our unspoken mantra became something Anthony had randomly said one night.

“In India, things are either really, really good or they are really, really funny.”

That line applied itself upon so many situations post Agra, and except for our time in Darjeeling, all the way through to Shillong as we stopped in Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Darbahanga, and Jalpaguri, all towns that are best passed through than lived in, but all rather funny.

We had four days to reach Darjeeling, just in time for my birthday. There was no other place I wanted to spend the day.