After our troublesome journey from Varanasi to New Jalpaiguri, the only thing that lay between us and Darjeeling's mountain tops were 88km of rather terrible mountain road. It was out of the question to take the train once more - it conquers the distance in 9 hours - and so we found ourselves crammed into a jeep with 15 other people and some baby chicken for about three hours. The valley soon got lost in the haze of the habitual pollution but we were soon driving through thick forests of evergreens. I couldn't get enough of the fresh green for the eye and for the first time in a month the air we breathed suddenly smelt of fresh earth, trees, nature, and not of exhaust gasses. It also became chillier and soon a first sweater covered the T-shirt I was wearing, followed by a jacket a little later. The houses started to change as well. Amongst the normal rundown Indian houses there suddenly appeared more and more old colonial buildings, small cottages and, for once, well-kept tiny shelters, all of them with rows of flowerpots alining the window sills and garden tracks. 
On the road, people's faces soon showed a distinctive Asian tough, Indian saris were replaced by thick, woolen clothing, and children ran around about as wide as they were high, due to the thick jumpers they were wearing. In fact, the whole region seemed to consist mainly of children, but not of shouting, crying, or begging trolls but of the cutest little school children, all wearing the sweatest uniforms; the smallest girls with little blue ribbons in the hair, elder ones with white ribbons, and quite grown-up girls with red ribbons... People also seemed to be less in a hurry to get through with life, they very often stopped on the road to laugh with a neighbor, to tell a fun story, to tease each other, and some grandparents were simply picking up their grandchildren from school for the pleasure of walking home with them hand-in-hand.... the whole atmosphere could not have been less India-like.
We turned around a corner and there she finally was, the queen of all hill stations: Darjeeling ("Dorjee" in Tibetan meaning "mystical thunderbolt" and "ling" "place", and a "hill station" is a village in the mountains in the North of India where the whole British government took refuge during the hot summer months during the times of the British Raj)! The great monastry at the entrance shimmered golden-red in the afternoon sun and the houses seemed to cling to the hillside as if they were fearing to fall off. Tiny streets wound their way into the mountain sides and small shops flanked the roadside. When the jeep dropped us off and we had a rather bizarre feeling. Something seemed wrong. Something was not as usual. Oh yes, we had not been attacked by a group of aggressive rickshaw drivers, in fact, there were no rickshaws at all! After a short period of panic - how were we going to get anywhere without a rickshaw?!?! - we remembered that we actually have legs toughing the ground and after a second check of the roads, which were extremely quiet due to the lack of rickshaws, we figured we might dare walking without being run over or annoyed to death in this city. And so we went, up and up and up the hills, through the tiny roads, friendly people explaining the way to us without wanting to sell us their grandmas afterwards, and after quite a while and many, many steep roads my only thought was: Please, let them have a room, please let them have a room - as we had no reservation as usual. 
They, however, had a room and it was the cutest thing we had ever seen in India. The walls were covered in wood (almost like in the Alpes), the bed was covered with clean linen and thick winter blankets, the windows offered a view over, well, the city and the hills in the rare moments when they were not covered in clouds or haze... on the top floor, there was a restaurant decorated in the same way, with huge window fronts, wooden pannels on the walls and a whole wall covered in books (Dickens was there, and Oscar Wilde, and Jane Austen, and Bronte, and Fitzgerald, and Hesse, and Tolstoy, and Hugo,... (Sorry Monsieur Durand, Zola was missing)! We looked at each other and new that India had surprised us once more. After hell, we had found paradise again (no idea how India does it to combine those two all the time) and I already imagined us strolling or hiking through those evergreen forests and up and down those hills until the cold drove us inside for a hot chocolate or a cup of tea and a good book.
Well, in the end, things always turn out differently and so it was with our ten-day stay in Darjeeling. Somewhere during our travels, we must have eaten something really bad (not the fish or meat in the pic so) and considering our state of health and the last couple of days, it hit us badly. The famuous Indian stomach flue had finally caught up with us and the day after our arrival found us in bed. I'll make it short but especially I, having carried around that cold and fever with me for the past two weeks, couldn't get up again and after a couple of days had to fall back on some strong antibiotics... not nice but we could have chosen a worth place to fall sick. 
Darjeeling proved nontheless to be as beautiful as I had imagined it, even more charming, extremely friendly - a great place to be. Even though we couldn't venture out for any long day or overnight hikes, we didn't mind too much considering the fact that we only had about three days with blue sky and the general haze and pollution coming up through the valley makes it basically impossible to even glimps Mount Everest... on the picture you may guess the mountain range behind me but that was a clear as we ever saw it. 
To my great pleasure, we spent a lot of time in cafes enjoying the calm, watching the people passing by, and reading or writing. However, after my first night here, I never dared drink tea in a cafe again because of the water they use to brew but as we had started to cook for ourselves again there was no reason why I should not make my own tea! :) Moreover, I could still participate in a professional tea testing with good water done by the local experts. You just walk into the store, you let them explain all the different teas they have, you choose the ones you want
to try, they brew them freshly for you.... hmmmm. They had some really great Darjeeling teas there and if you are lucky, I might still have some when I come back to Germany (I guarantee nothing!!!). David thought it rather a waste of time to do the tea testing (except for my pleasrue), he didn't perceive any differences, he didn't like any of them (no flavors, simple black teas), but he still had a great urge for toilets hours afterwards...
Of course we also explored the tea growing fields and I was surprised at how funny those little round bushes look. Unfortunately, the tea harvest had not started in Darjeeling yet and so the factory was still closed and we couldn't
watch the actual procedure of the tea making... We did, however, visit the area and I have to admit that I find it rather hard to imagine that some of the most expensive Darjeeling teas come from such a desolate factory. On our way back from Darjeeling, we actually saw some factories in a better state (for example the Starbucks Tazo tea factory) but the one right up here was frightening.
To David's great pleasure we also took a ride on the old steam train that used to carry the British aristocracy up here and the tea back down. Some
of the original old trains are still in use (the one that takes 9 hours to go to New Jalpaiguri is a Diesel now) and they do fun tours for the tourists. The train was really cute (David will laugh at me for calling a train cute), the two wagons were quite cosy and it was really interesting to see them shovel the coals, fill up the water, manoeuvre the train... we enjoyed it a lot even though the views were once again terrible due to the clowds and there was no mountain scenery to admire.
Finally, we also went to the zoo to admire the animal kingdom of the Himalaya region and it was a fantastic experience. I know I have already proclaimed the coala the cutes animal ever (always after the sheep of course) but I
have to reconsider because the panda is high in the race! Just look at that cute face and tell me you wouldn't want to cuddle that fluffy thing! Less cute but much more stupid and fun were the two bears they had. The one in the picture tried to eat about anything he could pick up from the floor but apparently eating is rather difficult for them and he continued to miss his mouth, drop everything, search for it for hours afterwards.. he definitely was a living sketch!
Much too soon, our time in Darjeeling was over and a fearful three-day voyage to Delhi and our flight to Hong Kong was awaiting us. When we strolled through the streets one last time with all those smiling faces and friendly people around us, it almost felt like leaving home. When was the last time we been anywhere for ten days in a row and moreover in a place that we liked so much? I think that must have been before we left Germany... Darjeeling definitely helped us renew our energy and motivation and we'll remember it as one of the highlights of our trip - particularly as one of the highlights in India. The end of India, yes, Darjeeling also ment that. Many of you still don't know that but during all our troubles in India, we also had to change our travel plans because the situation in Nepal had become so instable that we decided it was not worthwhile the risk and we finally opted for a flight from Delhi to Hong Kong, in order to enter Tibet from the Chinese side (if possible)... Well, if you have follow the blog, you know that we have had more ups and downs in India than in any other country and, sad as it is, we are glad to leave it now. Even though it has amazed us, it has opened our eyes in many ways, it has enchanted us and seen us gaze in astonishment, India has also taken up too much energy, it has almost succeeded in making us hate a whole people and I guess it will only see us again if ever we have lots of money one day to enable us to travel while avoiding the contact with the general population. How strange, usually, I am the first to try and get in contact with locals and both David and I have so far tried to avoid the tourist hubs and tourist trodden paths, but in India we ended up doing exactly the opposite - in order to survive... Well, there are other ways into Darjeeling than via Delhi, so maybe at least we'll see those hills again one day! Now we are off to Hong Kong and China and to new adventures!
1 comment:
Beautiful...Thanks..!
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