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Published: September 23rd 2006
Darjeeling....what a place. Over 2,000 metres above sea level, perched on the side of a verdant mountain, with snake path streets and steep stairs going in every direction and the most amazing views of the nearby Himalayan mountain range. I've been here for almost a week now and it's been the perfect place to recharge the batteries, with it's cooler climate, laid-back atmosphere and of course breath-taking scenery.
It's a weird experience looking down at clouds rather than up at them. Some mornings here an almost etheral mist lingers on the streets like dry ice at a cheesy soft-rock concert. No rickshaws, no taxis - the only mode of transport here is four-wheel drive jeeps, tiny custom-built buses, or by foot. There is a narrow-gauge steam driven railway up here but I can walk faster than it can travel!!!
The people here are also very different - with Nepalis and Tibetan people far outnumbering Indian people. You certainly realise you are close to the Indian border with other countries. There are less travellers up here too. It was certainly worth the effort to come up here - I can safely say it's like nowhere else in India.
I
Sunset over the West Bengal Hills
Especially for Willy - I know he likes a nice cloud picture!arrived from Kolkata after another funny journey. I got my over-night sleeper from Kolkata to New Jalaipuri station (which left on time suprisingly!) and shared by berth with a very nice bloke called Nawaaz from Hydrabad (he reminded me of an Indian Roger DeCourcey!). Nawaaz and his mate both worked for the railway there in the accounts department, and were going up to Darjeeling for a holiday. We had a good old chat on the train (I still find it weird when Indians shake their heads vigourously when they agree with you - it looks like the opposite!) and Nawaaz said to leave to the negotiating to him when it came to getting a jeep from NJP staion to Darjeeling. I wasn't going to argue! The train arrived at NJP station the following morning at 7.00am - we got off and went to the jeep rank....and then sat down on a nearby bench. Nawaaz winked and shook his head - "Now we wait Mr Sean". Lots of jeep drivers went up to Nawaaz and his friend, but all negotiations (in Hindi) all seemed to end with the Hindi equivalent of "You're having a laugh mate" from the jeep driver.
After 45 minutes the station had quietened down but we were still waiting there. Nawaaz was holding out for 70 rupees each but no driver would go under 100 rupees (this is about 40p by the way). I was beginning to question Nawaaz's logic as I just wanted to get to Darjeeling, when he came up with plan B and said we can get a tempo (a sort or big autorickshaw) to Siliguri station 10 minutes away - "More jeeps there Mr Sean". A tempo chugged past with 4 people already inside - Nawaaz and his mate took the 2 remaining seats then said "Come in Mr Sean - quick quick". I said "No room".
Nawaaz smiled, said "Yes yes get in", grabbed my rucksack, squashed it between everyones legs, and pulled me in. Lots of tuts and groans from the other passengers, with me sitting on the floor on my rucksack with my legs danging out of the tempo as it took off at high speed - what a riot!!
We arrived at Siliguri 10 minutes later (someone else unbelievably managed to get on board the tempo after 5 minutes by sitting on my lap) and sure enough
View from my bedroom window - Darjeeling
Ah...this is slightly better than my view in Kolkata! there were lots more jeep-drivers there and Nawaaz seemed very chuffed when he got a jeep for 3 of us at 70 rupees each. As the jeep travelled down the main street in Siliguri however, more and more people got on board, until there were (I'm not kidding) 14 people in one jeep! I had my legs tucked up somewhere under my chin, and just smiled as an old bloke had to sit on one of my knees to get in. The 3 hour journey up a continuously uphill bumpy narrow snakepath road was interesting to say the least - especially if a bus was coming in the opposite direction! Lots of reversing was required, with huge drops into the valleys below if you pressed your accelerator too hard!!
We finally made it - I walked around in circles for around 10 minutes to get the feeling back in my legs - and said goodbye to Nawaaz and his friend with a shake of our heads. He wanted to go for the budget end of town (I could see a lot more negotiating), and after Kolkata that was the last place I was heading!
The Hotel Dekeling is
Me tea-tasting at the Happy Valley Tea Plantation
"Why - this one is almost as good as one of Blakey's cuppas!" run by a Tibetan family and is absolutely charming. The lady who owns the place could tell I had a cold (remenent of the Cockroach Inn in Kolkata I think), and made me a steaming hot cup of lemon tea. My room is incredible with huge windows in two corners overlooking the town and with great views of the Himalayas. Absolute luxury after my last place!
On my first full day I went to the Darjeeling Zoo and Himalayan Mountaining Institute (HMI). They are both part of the same complex. I'm not really a zoo fan - the cramped conditions animals normally live in is cruel and unnecessary in my opinion - but at least here the cages the big cats were kept in were pretty cavernous. It was quite funny watching the tourists peering through the cages into thick forests trying to spot a tiger! There were also clouded leopards, ocelots and red pandas there too. The HMI was a really interesting place with a great museum all about Mount Everest. They had lots of relics from previous expeditions, including a pair of electric socks from 1965 used to deter frostbite! There were many articles from Sherpa Tenzing's
climb up Everest with Edmund Hilary, incuding goggles,boots and mittens. I also learnt something - I always thought Edmund Hilary was British but he was in fact a Kiwi! I suppose we adopt different nationalities for our cricket team - why should mountaineering be any different?! Sherpa Tenzing was heavily involved in the HMI and his resting place is here, with an impressive statue of the man himself too.
I've also visited a tea planation called Happy Valley (they supply Twinings). You've never seen so much tea. The bushes go on for miles and cover vast acres of the surrounding valleys like a luscious green duvet thrown over the mountains. After my tour I am now an expert on all things tea related! 25% of India's tea is produced in Darjeeling. The process is pretty painstaking. After picking the leaves are dried with hih speed fans to reduce the moisture content to 30%. Theyare then crushed with heavy rollers to force any remaining water to the surface, and then fermented in a high-humidity chamber to enhance the flavour. Finally a dry-air chamber reduces the moisture to 3%, before the tea is graded according to it's taste, flavour and fragrance.
I had a tea-tasting at the end of my tour and had to grade the teas in order of cost...and I got it right! All that tea drinkingat work has paid dividends!!!
I went to a place called Tiger Hill yesterday to watch the sunrise over the Himalayas. A 3.45am alarm call was quite tough, as was the bumpy 45 minute jeep drive to the place while I was still wiping the sleep out of my eyes. But to watch it was incredible - easily one of the most memorable experiences of my life. It was like being on another planet. The Himalyan mountain range seemed to go across the whole horizon. The third highest mountain in the world (and India's highest), Khangchendzonga stood out majestically, and as the sun hit it for the first time, you felt priveleged to be there. Even the moon looked unfamiliar- not like the UK where the sun hits it from left to right, but here the sun was just hitting the bottom of it, adding to the feeling that this was some other-world experience - Mars or Venus maybe. The freezing temperatures there weren't the only thing to put a tingle down
Family enjoying some Nepali dancing
I think granny was suffering from hypothermia!! your spine.
The "toy train" is a box you feel you have to tick while you are in Darjeeling. It's the steam train service that connects Darjeeling with NJP station some 70km away and 2km below. If you took the whole journey it woould take 10 hours - that tells you how slow the thing is. Luckily you can do a return trip to Ghoom, the next town some 7km away, which takes 2 hours. It's a fun thing to do though, and the train does a loop past the Gurkha memorial which is worth seeing.
Unfortunately it's been raining here for the last couple of days. The clouds rolled in and the whole town was surrounded in a thick mist making it difficult to do much. I met a very nice Dutch couple in my hotel called Hans and Ellen who have both got a great sense of humour .
Hans and I decided to visit the Darjeeling Planters Club a few days ago - an old colonial club in town for the "hoy-polloy" of the town - all the tea plantation owners go there to talk tea! What a fascinating place! 100 rupees for day
Nepali dancing at The Shrubery in Darjeeling
They needed to dance to keep warm - it was bloody freezing once the sun went down! membership and a chance to walk around a place that seemed to belong in a different century. There were plenty of animal head trophies on the wall, along with musty leopard skins from donkies years ago, and old dusty paintings. It was almost like looking in a museum. We went into dingy old sparsely populated bar lit by gas lamp and asked for two beers.
"Are you members sir?" asked the suspicious looking Nepalese barman.
"Er Yes..." I said and proudly produced my day membership card.
"Then it's a pleasure to serve you sir" he smiled.
Hans and I just started giggling!
It really was all slightly surreal. We went for a tour of the place - it all looked a bit tired and in need of some TLC to be honest - paint was peeling off the walls, carpets were worn through - the dining room looked good though (it has it's grand opening tonight - Sat 23rd - after being closed two months for redecoration). Robin (a nice man who runs the restaurant) has invited us there for dinner this evening!
We decided to have a game of snooker in the billiards room (sorry if
Waiting for the sun - Dawn at Tiger Hill - West Bengal Hills
It may have been 4.45am but I was wide awake by now.You can just make out that weird moon I was talking about. this place sounds like a game of Cluedo). The funny thing was, when we asked for some snooked balls at reception we were told the the man who looks after the billiards room was not at the club. They would ring him at once to get him they said. Ten minutes later this man came running into the billiards room where we were drinking our beer, apologising profusely for being late. He went to a cupboard, pulled out a box of balls and set them up on the table for us. I then went to break off....when the power suddenly went and the whole place was plunged into darkness!!! Another giggling fit for me and Hans. The billiards man came back and we said we won't be playing anymore. He said "Is there a problem sir?" For the third time in half an hour we both lost it!!!!
We ended up back in the bar and were asked to join a very friendly group of people - two doctors and a professional Bengali dancer! The doctors introduced themselves as AK and SK (couldn't get a first name out of them) - AK worked as the company doctor at a
local tea plantation and SK was an eye surgeon from Assam (they went to uni together and SK and his wife were visiting). SK's wife spoke no English but we found out she was a famous dancer who had been on TV "on many occassions". We had a great afternoon putting the world to rights over a few beers. AK and SK ordered some deep fried chicken pieces and insisted Hans and I help them eat it...but when I cut into it the chicken was bright pink! We told them we weren't hungry - AK and SK both shrugged their shoulders and then wolfed it down themselves! Obviously stronger stomachs than us!
Yesterday Hans, Ellen and I decided we needed some exercise and went on akm trek to a place called Tonglu, with amazing views of Mount Everest. Unfortunately the weather was still foul. We drove for an hour to a small town in Nepal over the border, which involved a very antiquated Nepalese checkpoint where a very serious soldier wrote all our passport details meticulously into an A4 exercise book!
It was a steep uphill walk all the way for 3 hours in pouring rain and thick
mist. What were we thinking? We'd get to the top and be able to see bugger all! We were optimistic that we'd get above the clouds to better weather though. After an hour or so we ended up in a remote Buddhist monastry. It was interesting meeting the monks. We visited their temple and were then invited to have up cup of tea.
"Have you had Nepalese tea before?" Ellen asked me.
"No - but I'm sure it's delicious" I replied. She just smirked.
We were having an interesting chat about how monastries operate (Nepali people send their second born sons for one year at a Buddhist temple as part of their education - don't ask me why it's only the second born!), when the tea arrived. It looked a bit milky but okay. One sip though and I nearly gagged - the monks make their tea with butter and salt instead of milk and sugar!!!!! Ellen and Hans both thought my reaction was highly amusing - what nasty people!!!! I managed to drink most of it out of politeness (I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it was soup) but it was hard work.
We left the
monastry and kept walking - next stop after around 7km was an oasis of a tea-shop that suddenly appeared out of the mist and the rain. The tea-shop owner was very pleased to see us - she must have thought she'd get no customers in these conditions - then two crazy Dutch and one crazy Brit turn up! Three cups of black coffee with hot milk were quickly ordered - and then I saw she had a bottle of brandy on the shelf! Hans and I both ordered a large one to warm us up - okay it was 11.30am, but these were purely for medicinal purposes! The shop also had a supply of Milky Bars (white chocolate - yummy!) that I felt obliged to stock up on! What a great shop!!!
Shortly afterwards the weather got even worse. It was torrential. The guide we had with us shook his head and told us we should go back - weren't going to argue with him! Pretty precarious walking back on a very uneven cobbled track with slippery wet stones - but we made it back to the sanctuary of our car eventually.
I've managed to get a flight
Me with the Himalalyas - West Bengal Hills - 4
Hey - Terry, Jill and Kim - Nice little backdrop! to Kathmandu from an airport called Biratnager just over the Nepal border tomorrow (Sunday). It involves a 5 hour drive from Darjeeling to the airport and then a 50 minute flight on a small 18-seater aircraft to Kathmandu - but it's got to be better than an 18 hour trip by bus. So my next blog will be from another country!!
Sorry this is a long blog - then there was lots to catch up on. Thanks for sticking with it!!
Best wishes to everyone.
Sean
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Mutha
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Amazing stuff Sean breathtaking pics. Beats sitting in an office all day eh! Lots of Luv Ma XXXXX