Days 18-21
We're on our fourth day in Darjeeling and unfortunately after initially looking promising the hill station has gradually went down hill since we have been here. Its still a fantastic little town but the weather has deteriorated badly along with our health meaning that our activities and sights have been limited. I would have liked to do a post much sooner so I would like to apologise to any regular readers. In any case I will take up our story from where we left off.
Our late train from Mhugal Sari Train Station just got later and in the end the train arrived at our destination station 4 hours late, before we caught a jeep to Darjeeling. The hills start very abruptly and steeply seemingly rising straight up out of the hot plains and as if to illustrate the affect of the monsoon, the hills were shrouded in cloud. It was 3 hours of ascending through switch backs and bumpy roads. Our newly acquired German friend and I were enjoying the amazing view as we went up however my wife was terrified, not helped my our drivers technique of negotiating the switchbacks. This involved driving as fast as the road would allow him up to the bend and then taking a wide line and allowing momentum to take him around the hairpin.
After making our way through the tea plantations and quaint villages we reached Darjeeling and to our surprise when we arrived there was no touts or rickshaws. One taxi driver enquired for a lift however we declined his 200 rupee offer and again to our surprise he wouldn't haggle so we set off on foot to our guest house. Our guest house was substantially cheaper than our previous locations as there is no need for AC in the hills. The guest house has a panoramic view around Darjeeling including the tea plantations and India's highest and the world's third highest mountain Kanchenjunga. Unfortunately for us, all we have managed so far was a brief glimpse down onto the tea plantations as the clouds have been relentlessly swirling and building obscuring our view. After much soul searching though we have decided that we will stay up in the hills until we catch a glimpse of the mountains.
Darjeeling itself was first founded by the British East India Company, however after their Army of Retribution during the Mutiny/Rebellion of 1857 the company was dissolved by the British Government, and governance of India was taken over by the British Crown under the name the British Raj. The Raj developed Darjeeling as it is today, which was a summer retreat from sweltering Calcutta and they built a little piece of England in the mountains with churches, Victorian houses and weather to match. A narrow gauge railway was built to whisk the great and the good of the Raj up to the mountains which is still in operation today and along with the similar railways to Shimla in the North and Ooty in the south was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The railway is still operated as a steam train and is known as the Toy Train, but unfortunately a ride on the toy train would be entirely pointless in the current conditions as the only view would be of white cloud.
Darjeeling looks like an Alpine resort as it is perched on the side of a hill. However it has the feel of an affluent Nepali town as the population is made up of mainly ethnic Nepalis with a few Indians and Tibetans thrown in. The people of the area have been campaigning for an independent state for a few decades and this reached it peak after a few political assassinations. The Gurkha symbol of the crossed knifes is everywhere and the people look and behave differently from the rest of India. This comes somewhat as a relief as the stares and hassling are greatly reduced, although there are Indian tourists here which means that they do take photos of us, mostly on the sly and are also quite starry. The town is extremely clean (by Indian standards!) and there are no cows gallivanting the streets, although there is still a substantial feral dog population, they appear to be much better fed that their counterparts on the plains. The town also shuts down by 9pm along with the clouds wandering the streets give the town an eerie ghost town feel at night.
Our activities here have been light on the ground but we did make it to the zoo on Wednesday, which is small but has a lot of rare animals. Although we intend to do a safari later on our trip, the chances of seeing a tiger are rare so we thought at least this would be a good opportunity to see one in India however he didn't make a showing for us as he was hiding in one of his enclosure's caves. Although to brighten our day we did see the even more elusive snow leopard strutting about his enclosure and a Himalayan Bear which looked keen on jumping out of us enclosure! Next to the zoo is the Himalayan mountaineering institute, which is a small museum documenting the mountaineering activities throughout the 20th century. Interestingly Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, one of the two first ascendants of Everest lived in Darjeeling and he was a director of the Institute before his death in 1986.
By this stage in the day my illness was starting to come on, although it was the evening before it got in full flow (literary!). With a cold fever and fluid flushing all directions with a viscosity completely unsuitable for any hydraulic pump, I struggled through the night before feeling gradually better throughout yesterday. My improvement though, was mirrored by my wife's deterioration and as I was holding in my first full meal yesterday evening my wife was going through the very same symptoms as I was.
Sitting having breakfast this morning suddenly a very familiar sound erupted to anyone in the North of Ireland, a pipe band! We looked out and what was coming towards us only a full on pipe band (Yes, Bagpipes!). The colours of the coffin were also familiar, that of the Indian Flag saffron (which looked very orange to me!), white and green!. As it paraded past us in the familiar rain we enquired what is was from the restaurant owner. He told us that this was the funeral of a Freedom Fighter who fought against the British. Now I have heard about funerals for Freedom Fighters who fought against the British before but I had never heard of one headed by a pipe band! But maybe Northern Ireland could use this as an example as the way forward .
Keeping or getting anything dry in Darjeeling is proving near impossible as the rain is near constant and the fact that we are living in a cloud means that any clothing hung out to dry appears more likely to get wet than dry! But a slight respite in the rain and with my wife appearing to be on the mend we decided on climbing Observatory Hill above the town. Although as we suspected there was nothing there to observe only cloud there was a number of temples and to lift my wife's spirits there a couple of troops of monkeys to greet us and scavenge for food. Now I am not the greatest fan of these creatures, viewing them as somewhere between a mix of feral cats, rats and magpies. But my wife thinks they are "the cutest things ever!" and had a great time feeding them popcorn amongst the temples.
From here we head on to the mountain state of Sikkim and hopefully a glimpse of the mountains.
The All-Ireland hurling final ended in a draw last Sunday so hopefully Galway haven't missed the boat for beating the seasoned Kilkenny this coming Sunday. Also congrats to Andy Murray on winning the US open, even though he has the personality of a crow at the end of the day it was thoroughly deserved.
We're on our fourth day in Darjeeling and unfortunately after initially looking promising the hill station has gradually went down hill since we have been here. Its still a fantastic little town but the weather has deteriorated badly along with our health meaning that our activities and sights have been limited. I would have liked to do a post much sooner so I would like to apologise to any regular readers. In any case I will take up our story from where we left off.
Our late train from Mhugal Sari Train Station just got later and in the end the train arrived at our destination station 4 hours late, before we caught a jeep to Darjeeling. The hills start very abruptly and steeply seemingly rising straight up out of the hot plains and as if to illustrate the affect of the monsoon, the hills were shrouded in cloud. It was 3 hours of ascending through switch backs and bumpy roads. Our newly acquired German friend and I were enjoying the amazing view as we went up however my wife was terrified, not helped my our drivers technique of negotiating the switchbacks. This involved driving as fast as the road would allow him up to the bend and then taking a wide line and allowing momentum to take him around the hairpin.
After making our way through the tea plantations and quaint villages we reached Darjeeling and to our surprise when we arrived there was no touts or rickshaws. One taxi driver enquired for a lift however we declined his 200 rupee offer and again to our surprise he wouldn't haggle so we set off on foot to our guest house. Our guest house was substantially cheaper than our previous locations as there is no need for AC in the hills. The guest house has a panoramic view around Darjeeling including the tea plantations and India's highest and the world's third highest mountain Kanchenjunga. Unfortunately for us, all we have managed so far was a brief glimpse down onto the tea plantations as the clouds have been relentlessly swirling and building obscuring our view. After much soul searching though we have decided that we will stay up in the hills until we catch a glimpse of the mountains.
Darjeeling looks like an Alpine resort as it is perched on the side of a hill. However it has the feel of an affluent Nepali town as the population is made up of mainly ethnic Nepalis with a few Indians and Tibetans thrown in. The people of the area have been campaigning for an independent state for a few decades and this reached it peak after a few political assassinations. The Gurkha symbol of the crossed knifes is everywhere and the people look and behave differently from the rest of India. This comes somewhat as a relief as the stares and hassling are greatly reduced, although there are Indian tourists here which means that they do take photos of us, mostly on the sly and are also quite starry. The town is extremely clean (by Indian standards!) and there are no cows gallivanting the streets, although there is still a substantial feral dog population, they appear to be much better fed that their counterparts on the plains. The town also shuts down by 9pm along with the clouds wandering the streets give the town an eerie ghost town feel at night.
Sitting having breakfast this morning suddenly a very familiar sound erupted to anyone in the North of Ireland, a pipe band! We looked out and what was coming towards us only a full on pipe band (Yes, Bagpipes!). The colours of the coffin were also familiar, that of the Indian Flag saffron (which looked very orange to me!), white and green!. As it paraded past us in the familiar rain we enquired what is was from the restaurant owner. He told us that this was the funeral of a Freedom Fighter who fought against the British. Now I have heard about funerals for Freedom Fighters who fought against the British before but I had never heard of one headed by a pipe band! But maybe Northern Ireland could use this as an example as the way forward .
The All-Ireland hurling final ended in a draw last Sunday so hopefully Galway haven't missed the boat for beating the seasoned Kilkenny this coming Sunday. Also congrats to Andy Murray on winning the US open, even though he has the personality of a crow at the end of the day it was thoroughly deserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment