So after that hysterical 24 hours we were more than ready to get settled and enjoy life in the mountains for more than just a few days. Darjeeling is truly a magical little place. It was a whirlwind start to our week there, having to drive around at 1am, hooting loudly as we drove around the streets to try and signal hotels to open their doors for us, eventually settling for the night in the less than satisfactory, filthy Hotel-Tower-View (though I can say it's location was fantastic with wake up views soaring over the mountains and beyond!) As soon as the sun came up though, we were out and sought refuge in the beautiful and as the name suggests peaceful Hotel Tranquility with equally lovely views and very hospitabe staff.
This is the first fun fact about Darjeeling that we quickly figured out: as lovely as Darjeeling is - at 8/9pm the town shuts down and when I say Shuts down, I mean the lights go off, the restaurants, pubs, shops and hotels close their doors and not a peep can be heard from a single soul (except for the stray dogs sorting out turf wars!)
In fact Jessie and I had quite a panicked but hilarious incident on our second night in. We decided to head down to the local Tavern for a beer or three after dinner. All was going well and we were delighted that at 9 o'clock (closing time) the pub owners allowed us to stay in the bar until we were done and just to shut the doors on our way out. We stayed for another 2 hours or so chatting away with a couple more drinks not suspecting that we would be running into some slight hours of operation obstacles later on (not realizing just yet, that Darjeeling transforms into Ghost Town after 9!) Upon finishing our beers and merrily skipping up the hill, in the pitch darkness we started to notice how incredibly quiet the streets were and were welcomed at the foot of our hotel to a giant metal gate that had been locked over the front door. A little dumbfounded, we started to knock on the door, assuming that there must be someone on call to let in the late night arrivals especially since, nowhere in the hotel was there a sign warning us of any kind of curfew. Now, starting to get a little panicky (which was translated by our brew/altitude-induced state, into laughing rather hysterically and searching for pebbles to throw at the room windows), we frantically began searching for the phone number and managed to haul a couple of kids who drove by in a car over to lend us a phone. Eventually, after 5 or 6 phone calls a sleepy voice answered and we were told to run around to the back door. Breathing sighs of relief we dashed around the corner, expecting to find a very easily accessible entranceway. Instead what we found was a 50 degree angled mossy, wet slope with a 4 foot Nepali lady waiting for us at the top. Now if we weren't already in hysterics (which we were!) this made us almost fall over from laughter stomach pains. After multiple attempts at the slope and the imminent sliding back down again (even after we took a run-up!), Gripping the unanchored poles that came out of the ground to no success, the last resort was that the tiny barefoot woman (who came up to about my chest) came out into the cold and whipped us both to safety with seemingly no trouble at all. How she did that, still remains a mystery. We surged into the back door and collapsed onto the kitchen floor, all three of us unable to breathe from laughing so much. I think it may have been the funniest thing to have happened to that lady in the entire time she had worked there, because the next morning, when we greeted her, she could barely look at us without bursting into fits of giggles.It was a seriously brilliant orientation into the Darjeeling style: "Early to sleep, early to rise" to quote a local jewelery store owner that we met.
And so, our week in Darjeeling followed suit. We arose as early as 3am, one morning to what appeared to be a clear night sky, and ran down to the clock tower to catch a share-jeep to Tiger Hill, a famous viewing spot for watching the sun rise over the Kanchenjunga Himalayan Mountain Range. Kanchenjunga is the world's third highest peak. Supposedly it seemed that we had the clearest morning weather for months in the area and it was just absolutely stunning. We found ourselves a nice spot on the balcony overlooking hills that stretched for thousands of miles and drank hot Chai waiting for the sun to make it's grand appearance. As it rose, the sky glistened with the clouds and the hills in about 20 different shades of yellow, orange, grey, purple, green, white and blue. It just seemed to go on and on and on, AND THEN just as we thought we had seen it all, out of the corner of our left eyes, the clouds slowly shifted higher and the pearly white Himalayas came into view. I apologize for my incapability to justifiably describe how beautiful this was: One second we were watching over millions of mountains, thinking to ourselves how breathtaking that view was alone..and then as if it was a theme park ride that just kept getting better and better building to the climax, the majestic peak of Kanchenjunga pierced it's summit through the clouds and the rest of the snow covered range unfolded before our eyes, reflecting the sun over all the land that lay before us. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. I kept looking away and peeking back, just to check that it was actually there and not a fragment of my imagination. We left Tiger Hill and drove down the windy road back to Darjeeling, still mesmerized by what we had just seen. Our driver stopped along the way at a Buddhist Monastery nestled in the hill and so we had a short(ish) walking tour with a couple of monks and also took a walk around the hill to catch some more views of the Himalayas in the perfect weather.
Darjeeling was an incredibly relaxing stop on our trip. We had planned on doing a few more mountain related things like rafting and trekking but aside from our perfect day on Tiger Hill, the weather unfortunately did not allow it. But it didn't ruin anything: we shopped A LOT at the cute market stalls with adorable tiny Tibetan ladies, we drank a lot of tea and read books in the cosy coffee shops, we ate scrumptious home-made meals at Sonam's kitchen - the best spot in town, visited the Himalayan Zoological park and the Everest Museum where walking around we mostly made jokes about how we would die if we ever attempted that mountain, it looks so hazardous, even for the pros. We also had some cakes and muffins made for us by the mysterious 'cake lady' - an Irish woman who rocked up in Darjeeling a few years back and decided to start her own business making cakes for delivery. We met some fantastic locals and played around with some funny kids in the streets and even drank a few bottles of wine in the daily power cut in our room (woooaaaah, rebellious aren't we?)
We were sad to leave the relaxing little hubbub that we had become so familiar with but also excited for the second half of our trip in South India to begin. We took a hilarious, bumpy share-jeep with a carload of precious old-Tibetan grandpas down the mountain to Siliguri and then hitched a horrific beyond description 12 hour sleeper bus Kolkata way. The drive was so bumpy and curvy that in our sleeper beds we were constantly thrown around the place and it was impossible to get even a wink of rest. We were dropped off on the site of the world's biggest rubbish heap and so by the time we reached our fancy hotel in the hideously hot city, all we wanted to do was enjoy the air-conditioning, room service and cable TV (We had also been hoping for a hit shower for the first time in a month but sadly that was asking a bit too much.) We had a glorious farewell dinner, cocktails inclusive for Kate - who would be leaving us for the States the next day, and watched Home Alone in bed together for the last time. We spent the next day in a clean and comfortable shopping mall, eating subway sandwiches and watched a Bollywood movie - which was a bit of a sham because it was set in Australia, had only one dance scene and was a bit of an unoriginal version of 'Step Mom' (even though we still balled our eyes out!) We took Kate to the airport and then ran like wild to catch our train to Chennai on time.
We have been in Mumbai for the last 4 days with Jessie's friend Vinay and his family. (He is a Bombay local but moved to Canada 6 years ago for University.) It has been an extremely special few days and although I will write more in detail when I come to this part of the trip. I would like to thank him and his beautiful family for being the most wonderful, hospitable people we have ever met. I know that our time in Bombay would have been exceedingly different had it not been for them and their incredible open hearts, cooking us their traditional food, showing us the places they love and introducing us to all of their lovely friends, traditions, festivals and culture. Thank you, thank you THANK YOU!!!
Lots of love and you'll be hearing from me again soon with tales of our South Indian adventures (this time however, the feeds will be coming Directly from THAILAND and very possibly Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos..depending on when I get a chance to write..<3
Sending smoooooooooooooooooooooooches xoxoxox
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Bamboozled
Time has flown faster than I can keep any kind of useful track of and unfortunately that means that I am once again behind in my journal keeping and therefore blog updates.
Since I left you in Dharamsala - in the very North of the West part of India - we traveled by train to Varanasi. (after having to hire a car through some of the most bumpy, potholed roads I have ever seen - in order to even catch our train on time after being monsoon-ed in, in Mcleod!) Because of the impossible Indian train reservation system, the only available train to Darjeeling our next destination was a day later and so sadly that left us with only one evening and one full day to play with in Varanasi.
But we made the most of it. The city is supposed to be one of the craziest, busiest, chaotically impossibly indiscreet places on the planet but personally I found it to be much less invasive and big-city-esque than I was expecting. Sure, the place is crowded, loud and at times you have to hold your breath and pause to take it all in (note to self: you are in India!) but it was mostly a very interesting and cultural experience. The First sentence used in the Lonely Planet to describe the city is Brace Yourself, you're about to be Bamboozled'. I'm not really sure what bamboozled is supposed to mean (I have only really used it in the past to describe someone who is very drunk.) but we definitely felt it.
The city is built around the Ganges river - which to Hindu Indians is one of the holiest places in all of India as the river itself is actually the Goddess Mother Ganga in liquid form. It is believed that if you are cremated on the banks of the Ganges, your soul will be purified and therefore halt the reincarnation process. All along the river there are Ghats which in non-monsoon season the water runs low enough that you can walk the entire length of the Ganges. However, we arrived where rain was aplenty and so unfortunately some of the activities we wanted to do (like take a sunset boat ride along the Ganges) were brought to a standstill. Fortunately we were in one of the most bustling cities in India so we were still able to see some of the rituals and enjoy the titbit of time we had in Varanasi. We wandered down to the Manikarnika Ghat which is the biggest and busiest of the 3 'burning Ghats' in the city. This as you may have already guessed is where a giant number of cremations are held every evening. We were led up some stairs by an old man to get a better 'view' of the ceremonies. It was of course, at first, rather disconcerting, especially because I don't think I have ever been that close to a dead body before (never mind one that is burning on a stake right in front of my eyes.) But after the initial shock, it was actually very interesting to learn about the ritual: The bodies are burnt on mixtures of certain kinds of sacred wood - which vary in price (sandalwood being the most expensive - they therefore only sprinkle shavings of the wood to represent it.) and the bodies are bathed in the water in cloth before placed on the hefty pile of wood to begin the cremation which burns all night. Female family members of the deceased are usually not allowed to attend the cremation becasue they are 'too emotional' and there have even been some cases of women throwing themselves on the burning flames to their death. There are also certain cases that are exempt from the cremation process - these are those with 'pure souls' - children, animals, pregnant women, sadhus (holy men who walk around and perform Puja (prayer) dusted with Ashes usually completely naked!) and lepers - leprosy is actually considered a godly blessing. In these cases the bodies are taken to the middle of the river,on a palm leaf, by boat and sunk. So it is somewhat understandable why foreigners are mostly TERRIFIED of getting anywhere near to the water because of all the sewage, rubbish, dirt, animals and multiple dead bodies floating around at the bottom, though to Hindus around India this is the most beautiful sacred place of all. Surprisingly the most bizarre thing about the entire process is that the Ghats themselves are actually privately owned making it a very expensive ritual for people to have their relatives cremated there. Surely if this river is a goddess who belongs to the Indian people, they should have the right to perform their ceremonies there without having to report (and pay huge sums of money) to anyone. But every rose has it's thorn, I guess.
We spent the rest of our time in Varanasi walking around the tiny little alleyways and people watching at the river. Jonathan was also in town which was brilliant because we hadn't seen him since Delhi which of course meant parousing through cute little shops, laughing hysterically and snacking on brownies, homemade pizza and coca cola in small, breezy cafes (one which was actually South African owned!) We were planning on taking a sunset boat trip down the river but as our luck would have it, the monsoon swooped in just in time. And wow, it was fierce. We tried to wait it out in the South African Cafe but after they closed we had to make other plans, and being in the middle of the open street with not many other options, we just had to climb in a Tuk-Tuk and hope like hell it wasn't too far from our hostel, especially because there were 4 of us and I was hanging off the side being blasted by the down pour. Suffice to say we arrived more than soaked.
And so, our day in Varanasi came to an end and we hopped on another train en route to Darjeeling. Now this 22 hour journey could probably be written as a book in itself. So after a 2 hour delay at a grimy, smelly train station (though that part is no different to any other train station in India), at 2am we were elated to jump onto the 3AC compartment and find our seats. This was the first debaucle since it was pitch black and we couldn't see a foot in front of us, never mind locate our numberless seats (which were split up and already had lurkers sleeping in them - of course) Now, in these 3AC compartments there are supposed to be just 6 bunks per cabin but they also sneak two bunks on the side corridor. These bunks can be good as there are only 2 instead of 3, so you can actually sit up straight in both of them but it also means that ANYONE taking a stroll down the corridor has Direct access to your bunk (even the curtain drawn across rarely stops anyone!)
So we hoped that once we eventually found our seats and got settled that we would be able to get some sleep for as much as was possible of the long journey we had ahead - HA, this train definitely had other plans for us. 3 hours after eventually drifting off to sleep on the bottom side bunk - I felt a rustle against my curtain an suddenly a scratching on my face. The next thing, my curtain was whipped aside to reveal a man who had a leg deformity and was pulling himself along the length of the corridor on a piece of cardboard gesturing at my shocked, confused and 95% asleep face for money. In a frenzy of fright and bewilderment I managed to find a half pack of crackers that I had put in my drink holder for breakfast and shoved them into his hands while simultaneously pulling my curtain shut. But the scratching to my face continued and the curtain found itself once again whipped open. The man returned my crackers to me, wanting only money. This is also all unveiling under the eyes of a staring Indian family taking up the 6 bunks across from me. All I could do was pull my curtain back across and curl up as close against the window as I could squeeze myself. But sleeping proved an impossible optimism thanks to the array of hawkers that had now taken to parading up and down the passageway yelling, trying to sell their products. Even with my Ipod bellowing at full volume I could not avoid the loud whining of the men yelling "Chaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" or "coffeeeeeee" or "cadburrrry" every 2 minutes. Shamelessly, he even opened my curtain screeching in my ear, when I yelled NO! back, he turned around to serve the man opposite me, leaning his backside deep into my bunk which I had to viciously elbow out of my face. Thinking that these disturbances were just my stroke of luck for being on the bottom side bunk, I hoped that the other girls had not experienced such joyous wake up calls from beggars and hawkers and actuallymanaged to get some sleep. I soon found out as Jessie crawled into my bunk that she too had been sleeping and was violently shaken awake by the ear-hairy man in the bunk below her. Angrily asking him, WHAT? WHAT's THE PROBLEM? He just pointed to the little water puddleon the floor and proceeded to ignore her and then of course she was another victim of the annoying Chaiiii whiner. The man in the bunk below her, who we begun referring to as "her nemesis," then took to following her every time she went to the bathroom. Not too long after that, Kate arrived to my bunk after she woke up to the man accross from her snapping pictures of her on his camera phone - for what reason we are still entirely ignorant. The next thing we know the train has magically transformed into a chinese market. Guys selling everything from fold up chairs to battery chargers to knife sets to life size keyboards all carrying their goods in bags so gigantic that they could barely fit through the aisle and hence knocking us in the head with them, every time they charged past. By now, the three of us huddled into one bunk could do nothing but laugh at all this ridiculousness hoping that nothing else could possibly happen but OH NO, too soon for that, we were poked for more money by another beggar and a garbage collector - who was sweeping up all the nuts, papers, food and other crap that the people in the cabin had shamelessly discarded all over the place. And then 6pm Chimed and a man in the bunk over from us whipped out a tamborine to signal the start of 'prayer' which everyone around joined in and sang for the next 2 hours. Just when it started getting quiet and I thought maybe it was a good time to check our bags that we had stored in Jessie's bunk, I stood up to find two Chinese Marketeers coming at me and soon became part of a tshirt, keyboard, knife set and fold up chair sandwich. Joyful, just joyful. Though by this time, frustration had definitely gotten the best of us and it came down to a choice between going completely mad, or adopting the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude. And so we joined in the 'worship', laughed with the marketeers and tried to buy some food - which sadly tasted like newspaper. Luckily we arrived in NJP and leapt off the train liberating ourselves and the little that remained of our sanity. From then it only took, a load of haggling, a 3 hour bumpy jeep ride in the pitch black mountains, helping tow a van that had almost flown off the mountain back onto the road and eventually finding a really revolting guesthouse(because everything else was closed) to arrive in the tiny but lovely Himalayan town of Darjeeling nestled in the North East of India.
We have been so busy in the last month that unfortunately our internet meetings have been very sparse but the next update will come soon, I assure you.
From Darjeeling, we traveled by bus to Kolkata, where we said goodbye to Kate :( and then took a long 33 hour train coast side to Chennai. We went from there by bus to Pondicherry and from Pondicherry across the subcontinent by bus to Mahe, Kochi and Alleppey in Kerala. From there we traveled by train to Madgaon in GOA and then onto Palolem beach by van where we spent the next 7 days, partying and beaching like never before. But those adventures will be reserved for the next post. We are now in Hyderabad and will be going from here to Mumbai where we fly out to Thailand.
Lots of love and see you soooooooooooony xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Since I left you in Dharamsala - in the very North of the West part of India - we traveled by train to Varanasi. (after having to hire a car through some of the most bumpy, potholed roads I have ever seen - in order to even catch our train on time after being monsoon-ed in, in Mcleod!) Because of the impossible Indian train reservation system, the only available train to Darjeeling our next destination was a day later and so sadly that left us with only one evening and one full day to play with in Varanasi.
But we made the most of it. The city is supposed to be one of the craziest, busiest, chaotically impossibly indiscreet places on the planet but personally I found it to be much less invasive and big-city-esque than I was expecting. Sure, the place is crowded, loud and at times you have to hold your breath and pause to take it all in (note to self: you are in India!) but it was mostly a very interesting and cultural experience. The First sentence used in the Lonely Planet to describe the city is Brace Yourself, you're about to be Bamboozled'. I'm not really sure what bamboozled is supposed to mean (I have only really used it in the past to describe someone who is very drunk.) but we definitely felt it.
The city is built around the Ganges river - which to Hindu Indians is one of the holiest places in all of India as the river itself is actually the Goddess Mother Ganga in liquid form. It is believed that if you are cremated on the banks of the Ganges, your soul will be purified and therefore halt the reincarnation process. All along the river there are Ghats which in non-monsoon season the water runs low enough that you can walk the entire length of the Ganges. However, we arrived where rain was aplenty and so unfortunately some of the activities we wanted to do (like take a sunset boat ride along the Ganges) were brought to a standstill. Fortunately we were in one of the most bustling cities in India so we were still able to see some of the rituals and enjoy the titbit of time we had in Varanasi. We wandered down to the Manikarnika Ghat which is the biggest and busiest of the 3 'burning Ghats' in the city. This as you may have already guessed is where a giant number of cremations are held every evening. We were led up some stairs by an old man to get a better 'view' of the ceremonies. It was of course, at first, rather disconcerting, especially because I don't think I have ever been that close to a dead body before (never mind one that is burning on a stake right in front of my eyes.) But after the initial shock, it was actually very interesting to learn about the ritual: The bodies are burnt on mixtures of certain kinds of sacred wood - which vary in price (sandalwood being the most expensive - they therefore only sprinkle shavings of the wood to represent it.) and the bodies are bathed in the water in cloth before placed on the hefty pile of wood to begin the cremation which burns all night. Female family members of the deceased are usually not allowed to attend the cremation becasue they are 'too emotional' and there have even been some cases of women throwing themselves on the burning flames to their death. There are also certain cases that are exempt from the cremation process - these are those with 'pure souls' - children, animals, pregnant women, sadhus (holy men who walk around and perform Puja (prayer) dusted with Ashes usually completely naked!) and lepers - leprosy is actually considered a godly blessing. In these cases the bodies are taken to the middle of the river,on a palm leaf, by boat and sunk. So it is somewhat understandable why foreigners are mostly TERRIFIED of getting anywhere near to the water because of all the sewage, rubbish, dirt, animals and multiple dead bodies floating around at the bottom, though to Hindus around India this is the most beautiful sacred place of all. Surprisingly the most bizarre thing about the entire process is that the Ghats themselves are actually privately owned making it a very expensive ritual for people to have their relatives cremated there. Surely if this river is a goddess who belongs to the Indian people, they should have the right to perform their ceremonies there without having to report (and pay huge sums of money) to anyone. But every rose has it's thorn, I guess.
We spent the rest of our time in Varanasi walking around the tiny little alleyways and people watching at the river. Jonathan was also in town which was brilliant because we hadn't seen him since Delhi which of course meant parousing through cute little shops, laughing hysterically and snacking on brownies, homemade pizza and coca cola in small, breezy cafes (one which was actually South African owned!) We were planning on taking a sunset boat trip down the river but as our luck would have it, the monsoon swooped in just in time. And wow, it was fierce. We tried to wait it out in the South African Cafe but after they closed we had to make other plans, and being in the middle of the open street with not many other options, we just had to climb in a Tuk-Tuk and hope like hell it wasn't too far from our hostel, especially because there were 4 of us and I was hanging off the side being blasted by the down pour. Suffice to say we arrived more than soaked.
And so, our day in Varanasi came to an end and we hopped on another train en route to Darjeeling. Now this 22 hour journey could probably be written as a book in itself. So after a 2 hour delay at a grimy, smelly train station (though that part is no different to any other train station in India), at 2am we were elated to jump onto the 3AC compartment and find our seats. This was the first debaucle since it was pitch black and we couldn't see a foot in front of us, never mind locate our numberless seats (which were split up and already had lurkers sleeping in them - of course) Now, in these 3AC compartments there are supposed to be just 6 bunks per cabin but they also sneak two bunks on the side corridor. These bunks can be good as there are only 2 instead of 3, so you can actually sit up straight in both of them but it also means that ANYONE taking a stroll down the corridor has Direct access to your bunk (even the curtain drawn across rarely stops anyone!)
So we hoped that once we eventually found our seats and got settled that we would be able to get some sleep for as much as was possible of the long journey we had ahead - HA, this train definitely had other plans for us. 3 hours after eventually drifting off to sleep on the bottom side bunk - I felt a rustle against my curtain an suddenly a scratching on my face. The next thing, my curtain was whipped aside to reveal a man who had a leg deformity and was pulling himself along the length of the corridor on a piece of cardboard gesturing at my shocked, confused and 95% asleep face for money. In a frenzy of fright and bewilderment I managed to find a half pack of crackers that I had put in my drink holder for breakfast and shoved them into his hands while simultaneously pulling my curtain shut. But the scratching to my face continued and the curtain found itself once again whipped open. The man returned my crackers to me, wanting only money. This is also all unveiling under the eyes of a staring Indian family taking up the 6 bunks across from me. All I could do was pull my curtain back across and curl up as close against the window as I could squeeze myself. But sleeping proved an impossible optimism thanks to the array of hawkers that had now taken to parading up and down the passageway yelling, trying to sell their products. Even with my Ipod bellowing at full volume I could not avoid the loud whining of the men yelling "Chaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" or "coffeeeeeee" or "cadburrrry" every 2 minutes. Shamelessly, he even opened my curtain screeching in my ear, when I yelled NO! back, he turned around to serve the man opposite me, leaning his backside deep into my bunk which I had to viciously elbow out of my face. Thinking that these disturbances were just my stroke of luck for being on the bottom side bunk, I hoped that the other girls had not experienced such joyous wake up calls from beggars and hawkers and actuallymanaged to get some sleep. I soon found out as Jessie crawled into my bunk that she too had been sleeping and was violently shaken awake by the ear-hairy man in the bunk below her. Angrily asking him, WHAT? WHAT's THE PROBLEM? He just pointed to the little water puddleon the floor and proceeded to ignore her and then of course she was another victim of the annoying Chaiiii whiner. The man in the bunk below her, who we begun referring to as "her nemesis," then took to following her every time she went to the bathroom. Not too long after that, Kate arrived to my bunk after she woke up to the man accross from her snapping pictures of her on his camera phone - for what reason we are still entirely ignorant. The next thing we know the train has magically transformed into a chinese market. Guys selling everything from fold up chairs to battery chargers to knife sets to life size keyboards all carrying their goods in bags so gigantic that they could barely fit through the aisle and hence knocking us in the head with them, every time they charged past. By now, the three of us huddled into one bunk could do nothing but laugh at all this ridiculousness hoping that nothing else could possibly happen but OH NO, too soon for that, we were poked for more money by another beggar and a garbage collector - who was sweeping up all the nuts, papers, food and other crap that the people in the cabin had shamelessly discarded all over the place. And then 6pm Chimed and a man in the bunk over from us whipped out a tamborine to signal the start of 'prayer' which everyone around joined in and sang for the next 2 hours. Just when it started getting quiet and I thought maybe it was a good time to check our bags that we had stored in Jessie's bunk, I stood up to find two Chinese Marketeers coming at me and soon became part of a tshirt, keyboard, knife set and fold up chair sandwich. Joyful, just joyful. Though by this time, frustration had definitely gotten the best of us and it came down to a choice between going completely mad, or adopting the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude. And so we joined in the 'worship', laughed with the marketeers and tried to buy some food - which sadly tasted like newspaper. Luckily we arrived in NJP and leapt off the train liberating ourselves and the little that remained of our sanity. From then it only took, a load of haggling, a 3 hour bumpy jeep ride in the pitch black mountains, helping tow a van that had almost flown off the mountain back onto the road and eventually finding a really revolting guesthouse(because everything else was closed) to arrive in the tiny but lovely Himalayan town of Darjeeling nestled in the North East of India.
We have been so busy in the last month that unfortunately our internet meetings have been very sparse but the next update will come soon, I assure you.
From Darjeeling, we traveled by bus to Kolkata, where we said goodbye to Kate :( and then took a long 33 hour train coast side to Chennai. We went from there by bus to Pondicherry and from Pondicherry across the subcontinent by bus to Mahe, Kochi and Alleppey in Kerala. From there we traveled by train to Madgaon in GOA and then onto Palolem beach by van where we spent the next 7 days, partying and beaching like never before. But those adventures will be reserved for the next post. We are now in Hyderabad and will be going from here to Mumbai where we fly out to Thailand.
Lots of love and see you soooooooooooony xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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