Day 22
This is just a quick post to let you know whats happening as our plans have changed again and much to our frustrations we are still in Darjeeling. It has been raining here constantly for at least 72 hours and counting.... It seriously hasn't stopped once! As a result there was a landslide on our chosen route to Sikkim and the road is now closed so we are still in Darjeeling. After a readjustment of our options we have decided to take a plane south to Mumbai tomorrow, where we will arrive tomorrow night.
I once saw a documentary about the world's wettest place, Mawsynram, Meghalaya State in the East of India, which is a few hundred miles from Darjeeling. One of the things that I found difficult to believe was that residents said that it once rained for 2 years without stopping. After being in the midst of the wrath of the Monsoon in Darjeeling I can now believe it. In Ireland it can rain every day for 50 days, but it doesn't rain all day everyday! Of course there are times when it can rain all day maybe even for two days but it will stop and give some respite before hitting you again with another shower or some drizzle. Here it has rained non stop for 3 days solid, usually heavy, sometimes light but one thing has been consistent and that has been water coming from the sky, and still it comes! It is extremely frustrating and to compound this as we were dreading setting off this morning through the downpour the restaurant owner told us about the landslide and there would be no jeeps going to Pelling in Sikkim. So along with the landslide, my wife's trepidation about the mountain roads and the the prospect of getting stuck in the hills we have resigned to defeat from seeing Sikkim. Also the prospect of staying in damp old Darjeeling is not a great one either, so unfortunately we have had to accept that we will not get to see the Himalayas on this trip. :-( Which is a serious disappointment as the mountains would be a definite highlight of any trip to India.
On the back of this we decided to head south with a trip to the Andaman Islands via Calcutta which was to come next on our itinerary. We began searching flights to the tropical islands in the Bay on Bengal, however the flights appear to have shot up by 3 times their original price, so we decided against this option. Our only other option appears to be to take up our Southern India leg of the trip and we decided on booking a flight to Mumbai (Bombay) via the local airport in Siliguri, which is a 3 hour jeep trip back down the mountains but at least after that we skip a torturous train journey across India. A bit of careless booking later (by myself!) means that we are leaving sooner than intended, but it worked out as it will see us arrive in Mumbai by tomorrow evening.
Our current predicament aside as I am sure you are aware world events have got a little bit nasty as they tend to do from time to time. I am not going to comment either way on the subject and hopefully the whole episode should blow over soon, and our travels in India hopefully should not be affected. Also sorry for the lack of photos in this post but there has been nothing worth photographing only grey white cloud!
This is just a quick post to let you know whats happening as our plans have changed again and much to our frustrations we are still in Darjeeling. It has been raining here constantly for at least 72 hours and counting.... It seriously hasn't stopped once! As a result there was a landslide on our chosen route to Sikkim and the road is now closed so we are still in Darjeeling. After a readjustment of our options we have decided to take a plane south to Mumbai tomorrow, where we will arrive tomorrow night.
I once saw a documentary about the world's wettest place, Mawsynram, Meghalaya State in the East of India, which is a few hundred miles from Darjeeling. One of the things that I found difficult to believe was that residents said that it once rained for 2 years without stopping. After being in the midst of the wrath of the Monsoon in Darjeeling I can now believe it. In Ireland it can rain every day for 50 days, but it doesn't rain all day everyday! Of course there are times when it can rain all day maybe even for two days but it will stop and give some respite before hitting you again with another shower or some drizzle. Here it has rained non stop for 3 days solid, usually heavy, sometimes light but one thing has been consistent and that has been water coming from the sky, and still it comes! It is extremely frustrating and to compound this as we were dreading setting off this morning through the downpour the restaurant owner told us about the landslide and there would be no jeeps going to Pelling in Sikkim. So along with the landslide, my wife's trepidation about the mountain roads and the the prospect of getting stuck in the hills we have resigned to defeat from seeing Sikkim. Also the prospect of staying in damp old Darjeeling is not a great one either, so unfortunately we have had to accept that we will not get to see the Himalayas on this trip. :-( Which is a serious disappointment as the mountains would be a definite highlight of any trip to India.
On the back of this we decided to head south with a trip to the Andaman Islands via Calcutta which was to come next on our itinerary. We began searching flights to the tropical islands in the Bay on Bengal, however the flights appear to have shot up by 3 times their original price, so we decided against this option. Our only other option appears to be to take up our Southern India leg of the trip and we decided on booking a flight to Mumbai (Bombay) via the local airport in Siliguri, which is a 3 hour jeep trip back down the mountains but at least after that we skip a torturous train journey across India. A bit of careless booking later (by myself!) means that we are leaving sooner than intended, but it worked out as it will see us arrive in Mumbai by tomorrow evening.
Our current predicament aside as I am sure you are aware world events have got a little bit nasty as they tend to do from time to time. I am not going to comment either way on the subject and hopefully the whole episode should blow over soon, and our travels in India hopefully should not be affected. Also sorry for the lack of photos in this post but there has been nothing worth photographing only grey white cloud!
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