The Nightmare Loop : Way to Samthar

27.04.2008 to 29.04.2008

Imagine yourself having a very bad dream... a nightmare, and you desperately want to wake up, but alas you do not manage; or when you find yourself in a situation where you feel helpless and lost… thats one way to look at our trek. We set out, back packs and all, to Namco Ropeway, and even for starters, our adventure was illustrating itself to be a tough bone to break. The way down to the actual ropeway was quite steep and although Yakof had no problems whatsoever, Janet was finding difficulties to go down down and balance herself at the same time. After around thirty minutes we finally reached the ropeway. The carriage consisted of a small steel box connected to a steel rope via two pulleys, which passed over the river at a height of around 50m all operated by a skinny but impressively strong guy. The short trip was a mixture between being very really cool (for Yakof) and terrifying (for Janet)…but we made it to the other side in no time. And so our trek started. We asked directions to Samthar Plateau and started walking no map just directions from the locals. So we walked, and walked, and walked, should have been a simple 5 km walk for our first day, but we were soon past that, and were starting to get worried. Nevertheless, when we were asking for directions, everyone was telling us : ‘Samthar, Samthar…yes yes…and pointing straight.’ After around six hours of walking…we stopped to ask a lady where Samthar was, and she pointed out that Samthar was behind the hills, which turned out to be as unbelieveable to us, as it was true. Janet was getting tired and started to get hysterical, especially when it eventually started raining (irony :) ), but we had to keep going. In the meantime, we have to say, that the nature around us was incredible, the most beautiful we had seen till now. But that was not much of a consolation. So we kept walking. On the way we came across three boys who were cutting wood, and at that point we realized that Samthar was indeed still a long way over the hills. We started climbing the hill, until at a point Janet could not take it any more and refused to walk any further. Yakof saw a farm in the relative wilderness and went to try talk to the family which happened to be the same family of the three boys who we had previously met cutting wood. At first our tries at communication were going no where, until eventually somehow our mobile picked up connection, we called Raju (of Sherpa Lodge) and he spoke to the mother who in turn offered one of her sons to walk us to Samthar but Janet preferred to stop for the night, and with Raju’s help, the family was more than willing to accomodate us. The one night stay here turned out to be one of the nicest things we experienced since we have been traveling. Let us start by explaining the Farm in which this family lived. First they had a small shed which seemed to serve as a wardwrobe and a store at the same time. Next to the shed there were two wooden beds. Then there was the main ‘house’. This was basically a brick house with three rooms, two of which were empty, apart a wooden snake lying on the door of one of them, (which the kids jokingly used to scare Yakof). The third room had one table, two chairs, some shelves, a wall clock and a goat, which eventually peed in the room. This last room was the place where we spent the night. This same room led upstairs to, what we assumed, was the family's dormitory. Then there was the kitchen… a nice shed full of pots and pans and vegetables where all the meals were cooked. It was so nice seeing the pot warming on the new lit fire and smelling the nice smell coming out from it! Yakof decided to try to communicate with one of the sons with our phrasebook….no success at all…at first we found it to be quite uncomfortable being unable to communicate properly. We were saved by the bell when the mum called us for coffee. Eventually another son came who understood and spoke some English and we managed to understand that the province we were in was quite poor, Samthar was not that bad and Sikkim was a rich place. He was also telling us that he attended some kind of school, that he liked playing football and that our phrasebook was practically useless. After this short conversation we were served a snack which was the best puri (fried bread) and alu gobi(potato and cabbage stew) we have ever tasted. Seems to be a universal truth… home cooked meals are the best! Eventually the english speaking guy told us he was off to sleep in the forest and that we would be sleeping in the house. At that point we were not really sure what he meant by that. After our snack we went for a tour of the place and found out that this family was really organized : they had chicken, cows, pigs and goats (and also a sweet, roach killer, kitten). They had corn and also a beehive for honey!! At one point Yakof noticed that the mother was peeling corn and so we decided to help her our which turned out to be quite a learning experience. We sat on the porch until sunset and made our way into our room. They set up a bed for us in the "furnished" room, and we put on the mosquito net, which is serving much more to stop bugs strolling on our bodies than actually stopping mosquitos. From the kitchen we could smell nice things happening on the pot…their dinner smelled great…little did we know that was our dinner as well. At around seven we were served dinner…plane rice, with a "boiled/fried egg", and alu gobi…nice, nice and again nice. We did not dare to touch the water though. This family treated us like royalty… we never really expected that kind of hospitality. What was troubling Janet, was this…we were going to sleep in the forest…surrounded by animals…with a kind of roof on our head, from which unidentified flying insects were crawling into our "room." She was therefore "prepared" for any kind of insect assault. In the dim light of the kerosene lamp, we were preparing to go into bed when Janet noticed a big roach strolling on the wall. A few moments later we got scared to death by the kitten who was following another roach….Janet loved the kitten!! Exhaustion fell in and we slept till around 5am. Coffee was already boiling, and we started making our preparations to leave. Unluckily we were given no guide to take us to Samthar but they told us it was two hours away. We left the place at 7.30 and arrived in Samthar…..seven hours later!!!! This second day was much worse than the first. All the road was uphill and getting worse as we went along. Strangely enough, whoever we asked along the way stated that Samthar was just one kilometer away… Indians here have a strange way of measuring distances. The more we walked, the longer our perception of a kilometer stretched itself. Yakof was doing pretty well but Janet was getting more and more tired and her hurt foot was getting worse. It was too much of a strain climbing the hill with weight!! So she had another hysterical outburst, crying, saying how much she hated India and Yakof especially for getting her here. In the end we managed to arrived in Samthar. Looking down we could not believe we had literally climbed a hill at seventy degree climb. The worst thing about all this was that we did not manage to find accommodation and the only place available was ridiculously expensive… so, after all this hard work to get to Samthar, we decided to make our way towards Lava to find a cheaper accommodation here. So this is the end our nightmare trek. It was a unique experience to say the least. The nature around us was one of the most stunning we have ever seen. It has thought us many things…one of them is to never go trekking alone without a proper map cause directions in India are similar to the ones in Italy "sempre in dritto"…

That evening we slept at a place next to Lava and the day after we made our way there. We don't really have to say much about Lava as we did not like the place, mostly because the people there tried to cheat us all the time. We just spent one day there, watching TV and went back to Kalimpong the following day.

The drive back to Kalimpong was the worst we ever had since we have been traveling. The jeep started off and after a couple of minutes the guy sitting next to the driver took over the staring. All the pedals and gear box were still in the former driver control. Never, and again we make emphasis on the word NEVER, in our lives have we seen such a bad driver….and he was just taking care of the steering wheel!!! What made it so much scarier is that the 20 km drive was full of bends and curves down a hill so one wrong miss and….well we arrived safe and sound and changed jeeps to get to Kalimpong. Back in Kalimpong we checked in Sherpa Lodge were we narrated all our adventures and mis-adventure to Raju. We were just spending a couple of days there just to get our laundry sorted, given all of our clothes were filthy, and to get transport to Sikkim. We both needed to get to a place which is nicer than Kalimpong and, from what we have heard all along, Sikkim was the place.