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| Our favorite place in Darjeeling...the bakery! |
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| Chowrasta Square |
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| Temple pathway on Observatory Hill |
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| This natural cave also held a temple. |
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| The black bear at the zoo! |
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| What an incredible view from our ride on the cable car! |
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| This little darling became our new friend when her parents asked to take our picture with her. |
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| Himalayas calling.... |
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Though train tracks grace the hillsides for the toy train that runs to Darjeeling, pedestrians and cars also share the winding roads.
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After only two days, Katie and I decided to take our time
reaching Darjeeling. We found a train leaving from an outlying station of
Varanasi which had a foreigners’ quota reserved. We were able to get two great
seats (beds) for our 15 hour journey. By this time, Katie and I were pretty
tired, so sleeping on the train was not a problem. But, as our train was about
8 hours late (!!!!!) we did miss a bit of sleep. In the morning, Katie and I
looked across the aisle to discover a little girl about 4 years old staring at
us and giggling! She decided that Katie and she should be best friends, so from
then to our stop in New Jalpaiguri, they were (while I continued sleeping!).
They watched the movie PK on the girl’s father’s laptop, sang the songs
together, and enjoyed crackers and fruit together.
When we arrived, Katie and I found a shared jeep in the
parking lot on its way to Darjeeling. We began traversing through the small
train depot-centered cities, Siliguri and Jalpaiguri, until the hills began to
rise. Squat tea fields popped up around us and the jeep lurched through the
turns of the road. This lasted for almost 4 hours. Unfortunately, both Katie
and I were too carsick to admire the beautiful sunset blanketing the hillsides.
Once we arrived, though, darkness had set in and our driver instructed us as to
how to reach our hotel from the taxi stand. After a bit of wandering through
winding streets and some help from the locals, we found our lodging, Three V
Lodge with a total of four rooms, in a beautiful corner of Darjeeling.
Waking in the morning, we realized our stay in the foothills
of the Himalayas would be gorgeous. The view from the hotel balcony stunned us
into silence! From there we could see a few snow covered peaks, very near to
Mt. Everest, in the distance, along with multiple hills crisscrossing the
bases. Colorful houses dotted the sides of the hills and small brownish tracks
of roads were barely visible. Quickly, we learned that Darjeeling is a very
distinct region of India. Part of the State of West Bengal, many people in
Darjeeling desire their own state, called Gorkhaland, remaining part of India
but with Nepalese, Tibetan, and Chinese influences in their culture. The people
of Darjeeling, we were told, are not like the people of the rest of India—they
treat women as equals, desire participation in government, desire free
enterprise but also a myriad of social services for citizens and tourists, and
eat less spicy food! Personally, I think we may have happened upon a critical
issue, the treatment of women in India, at a prime time. With International
Women’s Day on March 8 and the government of India banning the BBC documentary
about a young girl being raped in 2012, the people of Darjeeling seemed
restless, yet hopeful for change. Katie mentioned that walking through
Chowrasta square of Darjeeling she saw a demonstration by school children of
some prayer flags encouraging human rights. This type of art is common in
Darjeeling, attesting to the popular sentiment for change.
Aside from the view and the culture, Katie and I hoped to
fill our time with tea. Darjeeling is well known for its tea plantations and
has tea flavors specific too it, named after the town. Tea tasting at
Nathmull’s tea shop provided us an education in tea. In order of bitterness and
bold flavor, we tried white tea, green tea, silver tips, and black tea, each
with multiple different qualities. Based on the time the tea is picked, tea
farmers term it first, second, third, or autumn “flush,” usually collecting
about four flushes per year. The first flush consists only of the tips of the
topmost leaves on the tea bushes. Its flavor tastes light and has hints of
grass. After that, the tea becomes full leaf and has bolder and bolder flavor.
Also famous in Darjeeling are Observatory Hill and the
Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and Zoological Park. On Observatory Hill,
Katie and I walked through a joint Hindu/Buddhist temple. The beautiful temple
was adorned with Buddhist prayer flags of primary colors and several
incarnations of the Hindu gods held sway in their own personal enclaves. Each
god was kept company by a guard and priest who offered blessings in exchange
for monetary offerings. In the zoo, we managed to see red pandas, many types of
mountain goat (perhaps to have been expected!), a tiger, snow leopards, black
and brown leopards, and many types of birds. The Himalayan Mountaineering
Institute, though, proved to be too adventurous for Katie and me. Since we did
not plan on trekking or hiking much in Darjeeling, besides what we were
required to do to get around, we wandered through the HMI museum with high
regard for the mountaineers scaling the dangerous peaks. Displays in the museum
consisted of gear used by climbers on treks from as early as the 1920s!
