Darjeeling

In my last days in Varanasi, I made two interesting encounters. First, I met this German guy who really wanted to go and bathe in the Ganges. He was the type of guy totally embracing the local culture, dressing with large pants and locally made colorful shirt, wearing the red pigment dot on the forehead and willing to go for any aspect of the Varanasi "experience". He thought that nothing bad could really happen by bathing in the river (well...). The next day, I saw him again and he was so happy because he had done it! He said he tried to swim and completely went under water, until he was hit by pieces of shit carried by the stream. He also said he could not eat for the rest of the day and took four showers to try to get rid of the smell. Other than that, he seemed fine. I am not sure  on what account I need to put that: courage? craziness? being German ;-)?, but I must say I bow to the guy as I would have never been able to do what he did.

Second interesting person I met was Surendar, an Indian guy from Tamil Nadu (South India), filming a documentary about Hindu holy places. On top of being a very cool guy with whom I spent a few evenings chatting and getting drunk, the mot interesting part of his story is that despite being Indian, people from Tamil Nadu do not really speak Hindi (their official language is Tamil and is completely different). As a result, in Northern India, he was being treated as a foreigner and even a tourist, being ripped off on any opportunity. I did not realize the extent of the cultural differences across India, but I suppose it makes sense on such a big country.

My exit out of Varanasi was as difficult as my way in had been: first, my train to Darjeeling was delayed by 15 hours, which meant that I had to spend another night in town. When I got back to the train station, the delay had changed to more than 20 hours. Therefore, I waited another seven hours in the train station before finally leaving. When I finally arrived in New Jailpaguri (the nearest major train station to Darjeeling), it was with a delay of 24 hours from what I had initially scheduled. My journey continued with another 3 hours jeep ride on mountain roads that need serious refurbishment and with tires that should have been changed years ago by the look of their surface... It is with happiness that I found a clean and well maintained guest house to spend the next few days. 

Darjeeling is referred to as the "Queen of the Hills". Well, geography experts might disagree, but in my book, when the "Hills" are over 2,100 m high, we call them mountains. The town is located at the foot of the Himalaya and when the sky is clear, you can see the Mt. Kanchenjunga (third highest mountain on Earth after the Everest and K2) overlooking the landscape. The place is nothing like what I have seen so far in India: it is much cleaner and quieter, there are no touts, very few beggars, no underfed mongrels fighting at every corner, no cows (and their shits laying everywhere) and no rickshaws honking every second and clogging the traffic. This is a nice parenthesis from the rest of the country (and a much needed one!). Darjeeling is famous for its tea, and you can see some tea fields all over the hills on the way up. The town is linked to the valley by a "toy train": an old steam-powered train that is still working, but takes eight hours to make the journey (instead of three ours by jeep). I only took it for a short ride to the next town, and could take some nice pictures of it in action. They also have a zoo with lots of the local animals (tigers, snow leopards, black leopards and Himalayan bears) and a mountaineering institute where they train people for the climb of the highest mountains of the nearby Himalaya. A very interesting exhibition shows there the history of the various attempts to climb the Everest. Lots of people here are from Nepalese descent (they are called the Gurkhas and militate strongly for some sort of independence) and there is also a large Tibetan refugee community living in the area. In addition, the dominating religion here is Buddhism, with lots of pagodas and gompas (temples) to visit.

The long travel with that unbearable AC (damn, I really hate this stuff and the man that invented it should be hung with his own bowels...), the lack of sleep and decent food and most of all, the altitude took their toll on me and I was a bit sick for the first few days I spent here. Nothing major though and I am now back on track for new adventures. I am leaving tomorrow on a four-day trek in the region, to try to see this Mt. Kanchenjunga a bit better, as the sky is overcast here and does not allow good views these days. Now, those of you who have known me for a while know that this is not something I would do normally. Well, there not much I would have normally done since the beginning of this trip... and don't worry, this is an easy one (I know I cannot erase years of not doing much exercise and spending too much time boozing in that little time!).

Take care,

Matt

 The Queen of the Hills

You can see the Kanchenjunga in between the clouds, in the middle of the picture... my camera is probably not made or that type of picture 

Those monkeys are everywhere... and they can be nasty: one tried to attack me in Varanasi 

Someone does not seem to trust his vehicle...or the roads!

I probably won't get any closer than this in the nature when I go and try to spot them... 220 kg of muscle, teeth and claws! 

A big pagoda 

Some young monks playing marbles in a monastery 

Old ladies turning the bells in the pagoda 

Another young monk, before going to class 

The Toy Train from the back, still working with the old machinery

The Toy Train in action