Darjeeling Mar 11, 12

Mar 11 - Travel Guwahati to Darjeeling

- Train left the station dead on time. The area beside tracks is very squalid with trash, squatters, pigs tied up, small fires, open sewers, cardboard shacks built in space next to tracks when the space is available.

- It is dull day with a thick LA goo in the air. We have been moving 15 minutes at 30mph and are still in the built up area around Guwahati. They are playing music in the coaches.

- Cross the Brahmaputra. It is a big-assed river!

- Meals are included in the train fare but we are expected to tip the servers as I’m told they are paid little if anything and make their money on tips.

- We pass through agricultural land with many people out working their land. I see many oxen pulling ploughs. Cows and goats forage in the fallow fields. Occasional fields of squash or pumpkin. The land is very flat as we head north and west. Bamboo groves are often used to separate adjacent fields. The only indication I see of mechanization is an occasional pump spewing water into their irrigation ditches.

- A father and young son are curious about the foreigner in the next compartment and come over to chat. He is a marketing manager for a company selling soap and other comodities and he works in Guwahati. He is originally from Calcutta and would like to be posted back to Calcutta because his friends and family are there. However, there is a cost to moving back. He says people in Guwahati and other smaller cities outside of the big hubs like Calcutta, stop working between 6PM and 7PM in the evening while in Calcutta, you are expected to work until 10PM or later. He says that employees who are posted away from Calcutta for any length of time have difficulty returning to the competitive working conditions. I ask him what is really important important in life but he is called back by his wife before we finish that discussion.

- Arrive in New Jalpaguri (NJP) a little after 1PM. I am not more than ten feet outside the station before someone comes up to me asking whether I am headed to Darjeeling. When I affirm, I am steered to a “jeep” which is filling up. It takes thirty minutes for the last three spots to fill. During the wait, a woman and her four year old child beg for money. I give 5Rs and refuse to give any more.

- The track is worse than the Tezpur to Gawahati road, full of potholes that would break a suspension if taken at speed. The road improves as we gain altitude. We pass through Kurseong and Ghoom, names that are buried deep in my memory, perhaps from a Rudyard Kipling story? We pass the “toy train”, which pulls passenger cars along a narrow track from Siliguri to Darjeeling.

Darjeeling

- One of the hotels recommended in Lonely Planet is the Dekeling. It's not the cheapest place but is very central, has comfortable rooms and has a wonderful ambiance, with two sitting rooms, breakfast served in the morning, and is run by a delightful couple, Mr & Mrs. Norbu.

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Mar 12 - Sikkim Permit Day

- Checked weather at 4AM and it is still overcast so no point in going to the Tiger Hill viewpoint. Those who do will be disappointed.

- Get my Sikkim permit. It requires that I walk to the magistrate office, fill out an application and have it stamped, then walk 15 minutes uphill to the Foreigners Registration Office, get another stamp, oh and by the way, every where I go, they enter my particulars into a large musty ledger. I can also see many, many, many such ledgers scattered around their offices. The last step is to return to the magistrate office and have my passport stamped and receive a signed permit. The whole process takes about an hour and a half. I find the Oxford Bookstore, on Chowrasta. It has a great selection of maps, hiking guides etc for northern India. In addition, it has a great selection of modern books. I buy a bunch of maps of Sikkim and elsewhere in northern India. If I did not already have a heavy bag, I would have purchased more.

- I wander the markets and get a lot of exercise going up and down hills today.

- Meet with Dhan, a trekking guide recommended by the hotel desk clerk. We discuss treks over beers and at the end, he says that he can arrange everything for me, cook, yaks, guide, equipment, for 105 Euros per day. This feels very high to me and I tell him so. We agree to meet the next morning to have another discussion.

- Dinner at the Dekeling restaurant. Mrs. Norbu is running the show and she suggests I try a Tibetan soup and it’s delicious. I Have a delightful conversation with her about politics (she hopes Obama wins), Darjeeling (she apologizes for the lousy weather), her husband’s work promoting Tibetan causes, and finally I make some suggestions as to how they can improve their hotel by adding a few location signs and adding wireless internet capability. It is clear that she is very smart, quick and humble. I like her.