Rallies and Mountains

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So. I had been hoping to be writing this from Patna right now. I expected to be writing this from Patna right now. I had bought a train ticket to get me to Patna. In order to get to the train station I needed to take a jeep down to NJP station in Siliguri. I'd assumed this wouldn't be a problem as there are always jeeps ready to take backpackers down to the station. But, unknown to me, the day my train was leaving (7/5) there was a huge Gurkha rally in, oh the irony, Siliguri. All the jeeps, indeed all the vehicles, in town were now 80km away, where I needed to be, but wasn't.

As I prepared to check out of my hotel the lady in charge was, in hindsight, understandably curious about where I was going. It was then that I discovered that there was no way I was leaving Darjeeling today. Even with the assurance that there would be no jeeps down in the town, I still proceeded to walk all the way, with my fully laden rucksack, to check. She was right. I then walked all the way back up to the hotel. I'm not sure I can express how un-fun this uphill walk is, just know that it's hard when it's just you, let alone when you're carrying 50 litres of detritus as well.

When the lady in charge saw me again, she burst out laughing. She also, for some reason, laughed every other time she saw me for the rest of the day.

Sidenote: The Gurkhas are the ethnic group that make up most of the population of northern West Bengal, including Darjeeling. They want to form a new Indian state, splitting away from West Bengal. From what I've heard they are unhappy with the land they've been offered by the government and so hold lots of rallies and protests in Darjeeling and also, apparently, Siliguri.

So I'm in Darjeeling for another 2 days. But I've found an upside. Because if I had left Darjeeling yesterday then I wouldn't have met Lee and George (who is a girl). Due to Darjeeling being a ghost town, with shutters down at all shops and restaurants, all the people staying in the Long Island hotel (where I am), spent the day in the restaurant in the hotel. So over tea and dinnner I talked to Lee and George. They've been boomeranging their way through India and keep returning to Dehli. In a week or so they flying to China and from there Lee's going to work in Oz and George is doing Vietnam and Cambodia, like me!

They had just arrived in Darjeeling and we agreed to go to Tiger Hill in the morning which is a sightseeing point a couple of km outside the town. From it you can see the whole Himalayan mountain range. However to get the best chance of doing so you need to get up at 3.30 in the morning and see the mountains at sunrise. For reasons I haven't quite worked out we get dawn at about 4.30 in the morning, I explain this away with my standard Darjeeling excuse: It's because of the altitude.

It's both exciting and masochistic getting up early in the morning. Luckily to get to the bus stand we had to walk downhill, if the alternative was true I might have given up. We were also really optimistive that we'd see the mountains as the sky over Darjeeling was unbelievably clear. The sky over Tiger Hill was not.

We were in a cloud basically. At 4.30 in the morning we were in a cloud. It was not warm in the cloud. You could not see anything from the cloud. Because we were in a cloud.

Darjeeling is a major visiting point not only for backpackers but also for Indians from the rest of the country. Darjeeling is much cooler than the rest of India and because they haven't grown up in Britain most Indians are really unsure how to react to cooler temperatures. There approach seemed be based around grabbing any fabric they could lay their hands on and covering themselves with it. Consequently among the sartorial choices on Tiger Hill we had towls, tea towels and bed sheets. There was a particularly memorable pair of women dressed in bobbly tangerine towels.

Despite the fashion staements the mood of the crowd on Tiger Hill was decidedly British. Despite being disappointed they were making the best of it and had convinced themselves that they were having a good time. This Anglo-esque atttitude resulted in the funniest moment I've had so far in India. At the time when people started to get bored and were beginning to leave the sun appeared from behind a cloud. The Sun. There was a cheer and a shout and an 'ooooooo' noise from the crowd as all the Indians rushed to the front of the barrier and struggled to get their cameras out. The sun disappeared before most could take a photo of something that's in the sky everyday.

A minute later a joker shouted and pretended that something could now be seen, like before. Everyone laughed. Indians can take a joke. Indians are British.

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