Darjeeling

15.04.2008 to 22.04.2008

Darjeeling, the "Queen of Hills" and the land of the muscatel flavoured Darjeeling tea. Quoting Mark Twain, "the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once-by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of the rest of the world combined".

Darjeeling was a beautiful experience for us and we spent seven great days. We left Siliguri very early in the morning, at around 06:00 as Yakof managed to find a shared taxi at a very good price. The ride there took us about two and a half hours, of serene mountain sceneries and bumpy curvy hills.

Once there, we tried to orientate ourselves and after some missed hits we ended up at the hotel we were looking for….Bellevieu Hotel. For once we had chosen a hotel beforehand because we were going to spend our anniversary here and we did not mind spending a bit extra to treat ourselves for the occasion.

The hotel is Tibetan owned and the rooms extremely nice and cosy. We opted for one of cheaper ones….Rs700 which is equivalent to 11.9 Euros. The room was a great luxury for us and we were feeling a little bit guilty of spending this amount of money, but we wanted to celebrate. The room had two great features…..the first one was an old beaten metal fire stove, which we use in two occasions when the weather got a little bit chilly. The other one was a hot shower!!! We had forgotten the last time we had a hot shower, and the feeling underneath the tub was exhilarating….we could not get ourselves out of the bathroom.

The first and last day of our stay were rainy, but during the rest of our stay the weather was pretty nice. We did not push ourselves too much to do a lot of sightseeing but concentrated on what we really wanted to do, ie, enjoy the beauty of the place and indulge ourselves in books and food!!

As sightseeing goes we visited the Tibetan Refugee Centre, the Zoological Park, The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, the Ropeway, the Batasia Loop and the magnificent Tiger Hill.

The Tibetan Refugee Self Help Center was quite of a walk from our guesthouse, a "small" detail which we had previously overlooked, was our first go.

The Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Centre was started on October 1, 1959. At that time, following the dramatic escape of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, thousands of Tibetans leaving hearth and home, fled into the neighboring countries to live as "free" human beings. When the Centre first started over 34 years ago, there were just four workers. Today the centre is the home of more than 750 refugees.

Given the long walk Janet could not possibly leave without purchasing something. So after browsing the store she came across a particularly nice Tibetan bag which was extremely fairly priced. And that was the purchase of the day. We also toured round their small museum where pictures and stories of the atrocities suffered by Tibetan from Chinese were narrated and exposed.

On the day of our anniversary we visited the Zoological Park and the Himalayan Mountaneering Institute. It always gets to our nerves when we have to pay five times as much the price for Indian nationals to visit attractions….twice would be reasonable, but five times as much is quite a steal.

The time spent in both of these places was great. In the zoo we got to see animals which we had never seen before. Amongst them Janet’s favourites were the snow leopard, the leopard cats and the gorgeous red panda. Yakof’s favourite was, undoubtedly, the Tibetan wolf. One attraction which was catching the eye of most Indians was the rare Maltese, plaited-hair female... in other words Janet. At some points she was getting much more attention than the animals themselves!!! She even got to pose for a photo with a kid. Next in line she will be giving out autographs!

Having spared enough time to the zoo, we made our way to the Himalayan Mountaneering Institute, which at first we thought would be a pretty boring expereince. We were totally wrong, so much so that Yakof considered attending a course himself (which he will not do due to both money and time restraints).

Tenzing Norgay’s ascent of Mount Everest (8848/29,028ft.) along with Edmund Hillary, 1953 provided the desired impetus to mountaineering as an organized sports in India. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, then Prime Minister and a visionary wanted to canalize the abundant energy of the youth of nation into a constructive field of mountaineering and hence planned to open a mountaineering institute(HMI) was founded in Darjeeling on4th November by none else pandit Nehru himself. Within no time HMI became the renowned mountaineering institute in the world. Being the home town of Tenzing Norgay and one of the most beautiful place in Himalayas, Darjeeling was selected as the most appropriate place for this institute.

It's history is fascinating and we spent a good hour going round the museum before deciding to get back to our guest house. On our way back we stopped at a small coffee shop : Hot Stimulating Cafe. Janet had the best Masala tea ever from there and the owner was a really nice lady. She had previously broken her arm which couldn't seem to heal... and yakof spens a sound hour giving her advice. In the end, she told us to leave a note in their journal and we noticed that, a few days before, two maltese had visited the place as well...shoot we were second :)

We ended that day by dining at a very good place, The Park Restaurant, where we ate delcious chicken with cashewnut sauce.

The other two places we visited during the rest of our stay were the Observatory Hill, where we went round a monastery full of cheeky monkeys, and the famous Tiger Hill...

We woke up at 04:00 and went to look out for a jeep to take us to the hill. We ended up in a small van, with all jeeps surpassing us, which was getting quite frustrating as we thought we were going to miss sunrise.

The trip to the summit of the hill is through Ghoom, the highest railway station on the D.H. Ry. The elevation of Ghoom is 7,407 feet from sea level, while the altitude of the top of this hill exceeds that of Ghoom by 1,100 feet. In the fast receding glimmer of the night, we found ourselves standing in front of a magnificent scene, in hush and silence and steeped in frigid cold. It is said that a traveller whose vision has not been entertained with the two sights, the Taj Mahal by moonlight and sunrise from Tiger Hill, has missed a pleasure that does not lend itself to be substituted.

The first rays of the sun shot ahead and shed light upon the twin peaks of Kanchenjunga and gradually painted the whole of its snow body with a beautiful orange colour. From Tiger Hill, just the top of Mount Everest (29,002') is visible, peeping out through two other peaks standing by its side. If you are lucky you get to see it as the weather is most of the time not ideal....and we had that luck!!! The peak that looks highest is that of Makalu (27,799'). These three peaks are seen to the north-west a little left of Phalut. Everest looks smaller than any of its two sisters, although Everest is not only higher than either of them, but the highest peak in the world, the distance in straight line of Everest from Tiger Hill being 107 miles. This phenomenon arises from the fact that Everest is several miles beyond them.

So this trip was a complete success and Janet was even glad that she did not attract any attention (due to the fact that she had, ingeniously, covered her hair with a hood). Nonetheless she was still asked to pose for a photograph by a sweet boy, whose father was friends with a guy who had asked to have her picture taken with his daughter when we had visited ropeway (which was not operational).

After having absorbed a heart-stopping experience, we decided to make our way back to Darjeeling on foot, a nice long walk of 11km. The first few kilometres were simply great! Only the two of us walking in the silence. The bad part came when we started reached the main road and were welcomed by the inevitable hooting of the jeeps. On the way we stopped at Ava Art Gallery. This gallery displays fine art and embroidery work of Mrs. Ava Devi. Her art was amazing. Janet was already considering which one she was going to buy when we discovered that the painting were no longer for sale as the artist had deceased. This was such a let down! We consoled ourserlves by buying two sets of reproduction postcards.

After five hours of walking we managed to reach Darjeeling and we stopped to have some food at Glenary's. We spent the rest of the day gladly doing nothing.

In Darjeeling, we experienced both cultural and culinary pleasures.

We discoved a great bookshop and ended up buying a lot of interesting books, ranging from Sufism, to Zen Teachings to Chakra. We also discovered various culinary pleasures... we were never dissatisfied with the food we ate here, it being western, chinese and indian and its here that Janet discovered for the first time the momos.

A momo is a type of Tibetan dumpling. Momos are made of a simple flour-and-water dough--white flour is generally preferred--and sometimes a little yeast or baking soda is added to give a more 'doughy' texture to the finished product. There are various fillings : beef, chicken, vegetables, cheese and apparently in nepal even chocolate (one thing Janet will make sure to discover once we are in Nepal) These fillings are then enclosed in a round of the above dough, which is sealed in a circular fashion, resembling a pinwheel, though it's also not uncommon for them to be folded in half and sealed. The resulting dumplings are then cooked by steaming over a soup (either a stock based on bones or tomato-based), which is served with the dumplings, as well as chili sauce. They may also be pan-fried or deep-fried after being steamed.

The best momos she tasted were at a Tibetan restaurant (Kunga), where she also savoured tibetan tea (tea with salt and butter)...a little bit heavy and distasteful but she had to give it a try, after all, it was tea!

Yakof, on the other hand, returned to his carnivourous state... and he loved it :)

Our days in Darjeeling passed on quickly, maybe too quickly. After seven wonderful days we decided to make our way to Kalimpong.

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