Tea Break
It's damn hard work doing this much kickin' back. If there is anything in this world more relaxing than Darjeeling it must surely result in a coma. For us, after two months of hard core travelling, this lazy lifestyle is a welcome change. We sit on the balcony of a Darjeeling tea house, reclining in comfy cane chairs, sipping tea and pretending that we're civilized members of the human race (no one's buying it).
The town of Darjeeling lounges at the top of a steep hill, gazing down upon a lush, green valley of endless tea plantations and bannana trees. Huge, snow capped mountains surround us, though they keep a respectable distance, not wanting to intrude upon our peaceful reverie. Deep in the valley below, fluffy white clouds drift idly by like stoned sheep.
In fairness Darjeeling has a few minor inconveniences. It's height and its proximity to the Himalayan mountains (including Kanchendzonga, the third highest mountain in the world) give Darjeeling a biting chill that we haven't felt since Tibet. In the short, two hour drive up the hill the sweltering heat of the low lands is replaced by a numbing cold and we quickly trade our shorts and sandals for beanies and thermal underwear.
Perhaps a greater challenge is the steep slope that Darjeeling sits on. Our hotel is at the top, affording us some of the most spectacular views. Unfortunately, the number one pub in town sits closer to the bottom. Our daily routine ends with us drinking in the pub while watching old Jackie Chan movies and then stumbling up the hill, weezing and gasping for breath. Any fitness we gained hiking has been totally negated by an inconsistent diet, days of idleness in Kathmandu, and endless, endless shitting.
The lazy lifestyle leaches our vitality but it's too much (or rather, too little) too soon. After a few days a sense of restlessness takes hold and we look for more active ways to spend the time. We take a small hike around the hilltops, visit the botanical gardens and take a tour of the local zoo (which contains two Snow Leopards no less).
It's not enough however. We go days without something going wrong: no one gets injured, no one gets lost and there's not even one instance of bowel failure. It just doesn't feel natural.
So we sign up for a white water rafting trip. Admitedly it's not the eight days of phsychotic, lets-all-drown adventure we had planned for the Sun Kosi but it's the best we can find. We're still a little despondent over the missed rafting trip and we need a fix.
We spend an hour on the river, in a rubber boat. It's not long, but it's enough to get a taste. Only myself, Glover and a German named Stefan are on the trip, so the boat is loaded with a bunch of Indian guides to make up the numbers and the weight. We traverse some fun class III rapids, get thouroughly soaked, but unfortunately manage to keep the boat upright and keep all bodies on board. Between rapids, we make up for this by pushing each other in and floating alongside the raft.
The rafting satisfies somewhat, but we take a last look around Darjeeling for something else exciting to do. There's a "Toy Train" that runs down the hill. It sounds pretty cool, and Glover and myself have visions of sitting on a little model steam train, wearing a conductors hat and tooting the little horn as we round the corners. It's nothing so fun however, it's simply a damn small train built in the 50's and is both noisy and slow. Stefan tells us that he caught it, but after 20 minutes he got bored, jumped off and walked back the two kilometers it had travelled.
We rule out the train. There's a cable cart with supposedly good views but this is closed for maintenance. The only thing left to see is the sunrise for which Darjeeling is famous. Unfortunately this happens at five in the morning. We ask our hotel owner if he can push it back a bit for us so we can sleep in, maybe have a 9am sunrise. The lazy bastard won't have a bar of it however. So we climb out of bed at five and watch from our balcony as the burning globe blankets the snow capped mountain peaks in a soft orange. It is an awesome sight, though the sun itself is hidden by patchy cloud.
With the sunrise viewing accomplished (after which we did the sensible thing and went straight back to bed) we decide it's time to leave Darjeeling. It would be all too easy to linger here and let relaxation become lethargy.
We head back down the hill, first to Siliguri and then on to Malda. This town is halfway between Darjeeling and Kolkata and it seems a logical place to break up the journey. It's a little touristed spot however and we are treated somewhere between celebrities and freaks by the local people.
We take a tour of some ancient Muslim ruins that litter the area. They are surprisingly impressive and it's amazing that this place doesn't see more tourist action. Our movements take us right to the border of neighbouring Bangladesh and we stand on the broken parapets of an old fort looking down on the flooded green landscape of this secluded land.
That night we board the train and head to the great, crowded metropolis of Kolkata. This is the last stop on my wayward journey. From here, in little over a week, I will fly home.
The town of Darjeeling lounges at the top of a steep hill, gazing down upon a lush, green valley of endless tea plantations and bannana trees. Huge, snow capped mountains surround us, though they keep a respectable distance, not wanting to intrude upon our peaceful reverie. Deep in the valley below, fluffy white clouds drift idly by like stoned sheep.
In fairness Darjeeling has a few minor inconveniences. It's height and its proximity to the Himalayan mountains (including Kanchendzonga, the third highest mountain in the world) give Darjeeling a biting chill that we haven't felt since Tibet. In the short, two hour drive up the hill the sweltering heat of the low lands is replaced by a numbing cold and we quickly trade our shorts and sandals for beanies and thermal underwear.
Perhaps a greater challenge is the steep slope that Darjeeling sits on. Our hotel is at the top, affording us some of the most spectacular views. Unfortunately, the number one pub in town sits closer to the bottom. Our daily routine ends with us drinking in the pub while watching old Jackie Chan movies and then stumbling up the hill, weezing and gasping for breath. Any fitness we gained hiking has been totally negated by an inconsistent diet, days of idleness in Kathmandu, and endless, endless shitting.
The lazy lifestyle leaches our vitality but it's too much (or rather, too little) too soon. After a few days a sense of restlessness takes hold and we look for more active ways to spend the time. We take a small hike around the hilltops, visit the botanical gardens and take a tour of the local zoo (which contains two Snow Leopards no less).
It's not enough however. We go days without something going wrong: no one gets injured, no one gets lost and there's not even one instance of bowel failure. It just doesn't feel natural.
So we sign up for a white water rafting trip. Admitedly it's not the eight days of phsychotic, lets-all-drown adventure we had planned for the Sun Kosi but it's the best we can find. We're still a little despondent over the missed rafting trip and we need a fix.
We spend an hour on the river, in a rubber boat. It's not long, but it's enough to get a taste. Only myself, Glover and a German named Stefan are on the trip, so the boat is loaded with a bunch of Indian guides to make up the numbers and the weight. We traverse some fun class III rapids, get thouroughly soaked, but unfortunately manage to keep the boat upright and keep all bodies on board. Between rapids, we make up for this by pushing each other in and floating alongside the raft.
The rafting satisfies somewhat, but we take a last look around Darjeeling for something else exciting to do. There's a "Toy Train" that runs down the hill. It sounds pretty cool, and Glover and myself have visions of sitting on a little model steam train, wearing a conductors hat and tooting the little horn as we round the corners. It's nothing so fun however, it's simply a damn small train built in the 50's and is both noisy and slow. Stefan tells us that he caught it, but after 20 minutes he got bored, jumped off and walked back the two kilometers it had travelled.
We rule out the train. There's a cable cart with supposedly good views but this is closed for maintenance. The only thing left to see is the sunrise for which Darjeeling is famous. Unfortunately this happens at five in the morning. We ask our hotel owner if he can push it back a bit for us so we can sleep in, maybe have a 9am sunrise. The lazy bastard won't have a bar of it however. So we climb out of bed at five and watch from our balcony as the burning globe blankets the snow capped mountain peaks in a soft orange. It is an awesome sight, though the sun itself is hidden by patchy cloud.
With the sunrise viewing accomplished (after which we did the sensible thing and went straight back to bed) we decide it's time to leave Darjeeling. It would be all too easy to linger here and let relaxation become lethargy.
We head back down the hill, first to Siliguri and then on to Malda. This town is halfway between Darjeeling and Kolkata and it seems a logical place to break up the journey. It's a little touristed spot however and we are treated somewhere between celebrities and freaks by the local people.
We take a tour of some ancient Muslim ruins that litter the area. They are surprisingly impressive and it's amazing that this place doesn't see more tourist action. Our movements take us right to the border of neighbouring Bangladesh and we stand on the broken parapets of an old fort looking down on the flooded green landscape of this secluded land.
That night we board the train and head to the great, crowded metropolis of Kolkata. This is the last stop on my wayward journey. From here, in little over a week, I will fly home.
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