North - East India

Arriving back in India was a good feeling, back to the familiar, where you have a (vague) idea of how things work. I headed up to Darjeeling, an old British hill station, and of course famous for its tea. It was fantastic, it was cold, overcast and rained lots; just like home. It doesn't quite have the Victorian grandure of Shimla I was expecting, but the views of the mountains around were amazing if it was clear enough, or if you could be arsed getting up at 3:30 am to go to Tiger hill, which I didn't. But it was a nice enough place to wander round, watch OTT bollywood movies, wander round tea estates, sit in Coffee Day, and watch the rich Indian tourists getting exciting at buying a wooly hats. I seemed to be meeting new people all the time, mainly in Glenery's Bar, which curiously closes the doors at 9:30 kicks out at 10:30 - rubbish!

Back to Siliguri, and further east. Siliguri is not a nice town to spend any amount of time, just a gateway to the northeast, and one of those horrible train stations where you spend hours waiting on your own (my train was only 5 hours late), surrounded by a crowd of beggars, grabbing you, a massive crowd staring at you, with blood-like paan dribbling from thier mouths, and no idea when your train is coming! India seems to stop at Siliguri. The north east is very different to the rest of India, almost forgotten out on a limb, the transport is rubbish and peoples attitudes are different, but the wierd thing is that they speak good english and there are loads of churchs and some areas look like home too.

Megalaya was my next stop, after a change of plan of route, after meeting 2 of the most obnoxious Americans I have ever met (correctly) told me 31 people had been gunned down on a train a couple of days ago on the train line I was planning on going on. So I missed Majulee island - the main claim to fame it has is that Micheal Palin went there, so I decided to go to the rainiest place on earth instead! I was in Shillong for a and met James and Charlotte and wandered round the local area, a few view points, went peddloing, waterfalls, drinking the cheapest beer in India and laughing at the Hip-hop bad-boy look all the local lads go for in thier Suzuki bangers. We watched the local archery (the most complicated process I have ever seen of generating 2 random numbers, involving firing about 3000 arrows at a stick wrapped in straw.

The journey on from Shillong was horrible, 21hours (they told us it would be 14), the guy next to me elbowed me alnight, the 2 people in the gangway were resting there heads on my legs, the 2 kids on the seat behind me, wobbled my headrest all night and pulled it off at one point and just gave it back to me, then the guy next to me got off and I have another person who just kept resting his head on my shoulder - it was hell and got no sleep. We then for no apparent reason we stopped in the middle of nowhere, then 2 armed jeeps rock up - our escourt through the forest (bandits are their apparently), althuogh it started raining so they just hit inside - bloody useless! The expression on James face in the photo sums it up. Anyway we were at the border and going to Bangladesh, wondering what it was going to be like.

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