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Published: August 11th 2010
I know that some of you might have been thinking that maybe I’m writing a book entitled “Eat, Pray, Eat”, but I can assure you that I’m not. In fact, it’s called “Eat, Pray, Drive and then Drive Some More”. While I’m kidding about the book, I’m not kidding that we drove some more today! That’s right, another hair-raising seven hours or so for a return trip to the hill station known as Darjeeling.
Our driver picked us up this morning at 9 am and it took us about 3.5 hours to climb up this REALLY steep mountain in order to get to this really nothing town. We endured switchback after switchback in the heavy rain and fog (why oh why did we think this was a good idea at this time of year) on another pitiful one way road that somehow had both directions active. Many times, I actually wondered if anyone would find our bodies after we fell with our tiny Tata Indico car off the cliff because yet another gigantic truck going the opposite way downhill might not see us. The fog was so thick and we couldn’t see anything even 6 feet in front of us! An
hour and a half into the drive, we stopped at some restaurant for some Darjeeling tea and I seriously asked Jayesh if he thought we would die today. I wanted to turn around so badly. Jayesh said that he wasn’t scared really, but he was worried. I know that semantics can be given too much importance, but really, what is the difference between worried and scared?
Okay, so we did make it up miraculously. Once we got up it wasn’t bad at all and the scenery was pretty and interesting. We saw plenty of monasteries (but I only went into one). Then, as you probably know, Darjeeling is famous for its tea. So, we saw lots of tea estates. Didn’t stop at all of them, but we saw a lot. We even went to a tea factory to learn about the complicated process of turning these green plants into what we drink - very interesting indeed. Had a light lunch ("cheese grill" sandwiches, finger chips (French Fries) and Sprite) while we were there of course and then headed back before it got dark. There was no way that I was going to chance driving down those killer roads in the
dark. I have lots of pictures of today.
Yesterday, we took it easy here in Siliguri…as we plan to tomorrow as well. We did manage to go to the one major mall here called Cosmos. Jayesh needed to buy some pants and shirts and it was good to get out. In the evening, we took it nice and easy. Watched tv and read for the most part.
We’re still having a wonderful time here. One more day in Siliguri and then we are heading back to Mumbai on Friday for the last few days of our India trip. Hope all is well over there too!
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Steph
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Darjeeling
The photos of your drive up that winding road took my breath away! You are both very courgeous (and I'm glad you lived to tell the tale!) What a road! Oh my!