A somewhat frustrating week...

Look, look! I'm back on target! Only a week between entries - go me.

First, a short memo. To those lovely people who have been messaging me to ask for advice about travelling/itineraries etc, please please don't think I'm ignoring you. As I've said before, travelblog doesn't allow me to respond to messages, so if you want me to reply then please include your email addy and I will contact you that way. Obviously I'm willing to help if I can, though I shouldn't put too much trust in my recommendations!

So, its been a kind of interesting week here on the sub-continent, using the adjective 'interesting' in a somewhat broad manner...
I spent a couple more days in Kathmandu after my last blog entry, visiting nearby towns like Patan (cool old medieval place full of wooden temples) and Boudha, home to a huuuge Buddhist stupa, but I had to leave Nepal by the 15th Jan, my visa coming to an end on that date, and I wanted to head eastwards back into India and up to Darjeeling, former British hill station and, of course, home of tea. I knew from the start it wasn't going to be a fun journey, estimated at 18 hours due to the mountainous terrain. Additionally, there were only nightbuses available, and they are supposedly meant to be a *really* bad idea in Nepal, where you see the crushed remains of tourist buses lying at the bottom of canyons on a regular basis. Nevertheless, there seemed to be no choice in the matter - if I wanted to get to eastern India, I had to do it this way. So, I took the precaution of letting Cooper know what I was doing, told her to start worrying if she hadn't heard from me by the following afternoon, and set off at 4.30pm on Tuesday 13th, slightly nervous. At 6.30am on Wednesday we reach a big river. Without a bridge. Instead, they have a kind of raft which can fit one coach or lorry onto at a time, which they pull across to the other side. We are about, hmmm, 10th in line? I have a diary entry from 7am that day, jocular and affectionate towards a country whose main highway doesn't have bridges, and discussing my pride about how I was dealing so patiently with the situation.

I have another diary entry from 8 hours later, still waiting at the river. This one is mostly unrepeatable. Clearly I haven't grown as much as a person as I thought I had.

It was kind of justified though. Not only had we been there 8 hours with no info about when we might finally make it across, there was no toilet, nothing to do, and just a couple of makeshift stalls where opportunists were selling chowmein and coke. It was these that really infuriated me. In my last blog I praised Nepali people for their lack of 'hustling', and the way I seemed to appear less of a cash cow to them than Indians. This is true, at least for the most part. But there is one thing they seem to do that truly makes my blood boil. Go to any roadside stall where they are selling food or drinks and ask for something, and they will immediately charge you at least double what they would charge a Nepali person. They don't even attempt to disguise this. You stand in line behind a Nepali guy, watch him hand over 20 NR for a plate of chowmein, and then get told, by a smirking vendor, that chowmein costs 70NR, before he turns to his friend and laughs. Any complaints bring a response of a shrug and "You're white. You can afford it." Arrrrgh! I'm sorry, I don't give a crap about exponetial differences in wealth. I don't see that its any different from a Japanese guy coming into an English bar and getting charged 9 quid for a 3 pound pint of beer, "because Tokyo is doing well at the stock market at the moment". Now, I'm sure there are loads of people out there who completely disagree with me, and think I'm not considering the poverty of Nepal etc etc, and maybe they're right, but personally, it really pisses me off.

As an addendum to this: I've since read a bit more widely (this is my first time outside of western Europe after all!) and realised that such practices are normal and occur everywhere in backpacker country. Guess I'll just have to get used to it.

Anyway, the nightmare continued. At 5.30pm that evening I get told that we are at the border (given that I had expected to be across and in Darjeeling by 3 at the latest), and I set off down the road in the direction pointed out, while the bus trundles happily off. 2km later and I'm starting to feel anxious. The border shouldn't be this far, but everyone I ask keeps saying its in the direction I'm walking. Finally I find a police checkpoint. "Which way is the border please?" "That way" [ pointing in the direction I'm walking] "Okaaay... but how FAR is it please?" [Policeman pauses, considering] "Ummm... I think.... minimum 20km" "WHAAAAAT????"

The bus has NOT dropped me off at the border. It has dropped me off at some random town in the middle of nowhere. It is now almost dark. I hope you won't lose all respect for me, dear readers, if I admit I crumpled at this point. Barely any food and no sleep in 24 hours, plus the prospect of a 20km walk with my huge backpack, in the dark. I fairly wailed at the police officers, and bless them, they sat me down and started hitchhiking for me, eventually pulling over an Indian family that were willing to take me to the border. Of course, by the time I finally get to the border, it is closed, and I have to shell out for a dive of a hotel room, with a pack of biscuits for dinner. I wake up early next morning, go through the formalities at the border, and hop on a bus to Darjeeling about 7.30am, estimated time away, 3 hours travel. "What time will we arrive in Darjeeling?" I ask the conductor. "About 4pm madam" he replies. I stare at him blankly, get off at the next stop, and hire a damn jeep to Darjeeling.

So, mission over, I finally arrive about lunchtime on Friday, have a wonderful hot shower, and after emailing Cooper, who I think was possibly on the verge of calling my mother, settle down for many cups of hot Darjeeling tea and cake. Darjeeling is remarkably like Shimla, like it the seat of British government during the boiling summer months when Calcutta grew unbearable. It's on a ridge at about 2000m above sea level, with views of Khanchenjunga, the 3rd highest mountain in the world, and, in the clearest months, Everest, and its full of regal neoclassical buildings and 'high teas' as well as the expected Indian fare. My first afternoon there I met a Canadian guy named Corey, who showed me over the town, and we ended up in Joey's Pub with a whole group of travellers playing the Indian version of monopoly. Obviously I went spectacularly bankrupt, as I always do at monopoly (no matter what my tactics, its so unfair), but it was made up for by a proper warm stove and lots of beer.

The next morning I got up early to see the sunrise and headed off along the ridge to the zoo and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, which has lots of artifacts and info about the various attempts on Everest. Then I trundled off to a tea plantation, where, although nothing was happening (its out of season) a guide showed me around the factory and explained the process of tea making to me. Basically, I had a really good morning, and hoped to spend quite a few of my remaining days in Darjeeling. On the way back into town I met one of the guys from the night before, who said there was some kind of protest happening that afternoon, so I prudently took myself back off to my hotel for a few hours, having arranged to meet everyone at Joey's Pub that evening. However, when I ventured down again a few hours later everything was closed. And I mean everything. Restaurants, shops, parks... everything. Apparently, according to various people I asked, a general strike had been called. Asked when it was going to end, and where we were supposed to get food in the meantime, I was met with shrugs. Maybe tomorrow things might open, maybe not. Well, they didn't. Apparently, I found out later from one guy, a peaceful rally had been formed in Darjeeling to campaign for the creation of the 'Gorkhaland', a new autonomous state (I don't pretend to know much about it - I hadn't even heard of it until the strike happened), and the opposition had showed up and there'd been a riot. Consequently an indefinite general strike had been called, which included all train, bus and taxi services, so no-one could leave.

However, this is all stuff I've found out since. At the time we had no idea what was going on, only that everything was closed, and that we were stranded. I still don't know when the strike is meant to end, or whether it has ended already. Everyone we spoke to had conflicting reports on what was happening and when it was going to end, and the police were utterly useless, refusing to acknowledge that some travellers might need to leave, or I don't know, eat, and offering no help whatsoever. I met a few people who had to catch flights in the next couple of days who were absolutely frantic.

In some respects, I was lucky. My hotel had a kind of kitchen (well, gas hob) which produced some limited food for us, although it was covered in salt and the owners were ridiculously unfriendly. I have no idea what the people did whose hotels had no such facilities. Nonetheless, it was a pretty frustrating situation. Darjeeling gets FREEZING at night, and none of the hotels have heating, so a large motivation for sitting in cafes and stuff was to get out of the cold. After dark there wasn't much you could do but huddle under a lot of blankets in your hotel room and read, shivering and whimpering quietly to yourself. All the museums and sights were closed of course. Yesterday I walked the 22km round trip to Ghoom just for something to do (by the way, isn't Ghoom the best place name ever??)

So, I'd arrived on Thursday, the strike was called lunchtime Fri, and the rest of the weekend was kinda bust. And no-one could tell us when it was going to end. Last night however, I met a girl from Durham who had to catch a train today, and had managed to find someone who vaguely knew what was going on. People were saying that the strike might end this morning and we'd be allowed to leave, but no-one really knew, and eventually this guy came back and said our only chance of leaving was to do so this morning, very early, and pretty quietly. Because the strike doesn't officially start each day until 6am, we might be able to find some jeep driver exploiting the loophole who'd take us down to the nearest train station two hours away at Siliguri. So, we got up at 4am, stole down the hill, and in a piece of luck, managed to get a jeep, arriving in Siliguri. It was ridiculous, I felt like we were trying to from East to West Berlin or something equally covert.

At any rate, at the moment I'm here in Siliguri, waiting for my train that will take me to Calcutta tonight. I have no idea if the strike did end today or not, but it seems unlikely, and its a real shame, because Darjeeling was really nice! Still, with one week to go, I really can't afford to waste any more days!

Now if only I could find a streamable version of the new BSG episode, I'd be much consoled....

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Part of trip: Backpacking around India and Nepal

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