Final Days in Darjeeling

Days 4 & 5 went very well here, so I have less to write! The sun finally made an appearance yesterday morning, and it felt great! I started off the day walking to the Japanese Peace Pagoda - a lovely walk along narrow roads and huge cedar trees! The Peace Pagoda is a very nice place, complete w/ Buddhist drumming and a gleaming white monument with various frescoes around it. The Indian tourists there were pretty obnoxious - I was tempted to flip them off at one point, but I refrained. After all, we were at the Peace Pagoda...

Next I asked directions to the Rock Garden, and a young teenage boy was heading that way anyway. Well, not all the way there, but enough to show me the way! I paid him 20 rupees for his efforts, and proceeded down, down, down to the Rock Garden waterfalls. After several switchbacks, a dubious short cut, and one muddy sneaker, I made it to the falls! These are the ones that everyone said was too far to walk to. I don't think it took me more than two hours, but it did take a toll on my knees! So instead of hiking back up the 1500 feet (elevation) and 5 miles or so to Darjeeling, I decided to chat up the momo guy at the waterfall (momo is a popular Tibetan dish that you can find almost anywhere here - kind of like a dumpling). He took pity on me and talked to a couple of the drivers (local guys that have to put up with driving the obnoxious Indian tourists around from place to place), and walllah! It only cost me 100 rupees (about $2) to get a ride back to the top! More proof that it's not WHAT you know, but WHETHER or not you're willing to eat the local food!

Oh I forgot to mention that the main falls were definitely nice, but I got to see two MORE waterfalls by simply jumping the rail where you're not supposed to and taking a scary little trail further up! Beautiful - and no injuries to report!!

Well, back in Darjeeling, I rested my legs and had a wonderful South Indian meal delivered to my room. Well, once I had switched hotels for the third time, that is - four hotels in all this week!). The last two have been wonderful, though, and I can't complain.

Today also started off with some sun - I was down to my t-shirt in no time, just like yesterday! In fact, if I ever come back to Darjeeling, I'm coming in the summer time. I just can't stand the cold! So today I went in search of the Bhutia Temple, but it was locked up when I got there. Nice views from the courtyard, though. But the best part of the day was the unmarked trail I found! After continuing on from the Temple, with only a vague idea of the direction I wanted to go, I stumbled upon a beautiful, mid-ridge, lateral trail with jungle on one side and nice views on the other! It was the "day trek" I'd been looking for!! After a few miles, it came out near the entrance to the zoo. Who knew?? This trail's not listed in the guide books. I asked a local guy about it and he said it's called "Love Rd.". Perhaps because it's kind of isolated? I don't know, but I sure loved it!!

On the way back to Darjeeling, I had some local food from a hole-in-the-wall place (2nd time today!), and briefly walked through Lloyd's Botanical Gardens. The Gardens were OK, but nothing special. Then several switchbacks and staircases back up to my hotel! All in all, a good day!

Tomorrow I leave for Siliguri and the overnight bus to Dhaka. I should arrive there early Monday morning.

Thanks, all, for reading these entries. I've certainly enjoyed writing them!

--Larry

3rd Day Darjeeling

or, "How to Improve Your Life w/ Plastic!"

Well, things have improved! Mostly because I finally did what I threatened all along: I whipped out my Visa card!

Before I even got out of bed this morning at The Heritage, I could tell it was another hugely cloudy day. When the sun himself wakes you up, he commands a certain amount of attention; especially if your curtains don't completely cover windows. But the milky white light entering the room had such little force, I just rolled over. But by 8:00 I couldn't sleep anymore. I had to get up. First to the bathroom - still no water, not hot, not cold, nothing. Couldn't even brush my teeth...

So after breakfast, with rain coming down and a misplaced rain jacket, I set off in search of a new hotel. I kind of like looking around at the hotels, but it gets tedious after awhile, especially in the rain. I managed to buy an umbrella, though, and kept hoofing it up the many stairs of Darjeeling. (For those of you who haven't been here or heard about it, the whole town sits on the western slope of a steep ridge. We're not talking about 5-6 stories from the bottom to the top; we're talking about street after street of 5-6 story buildings, each sitting on top of the next!) Anyway, I finally settled on a US$ 40 a night place. That may sound inexpensive to Americans, but it's pretty fancy by local standards. I now have consistent hot water, a room heater, a view (of about 20 ft. to where the cloud still hangs low over Darjeeling), and, unbelievably, in-room Internet! Plus they have a nice restaurant downstairs that's not too expensive, and I can eat there OR have it delivered to the room.

So I'm good - thanks to all who have been thinking or praying about me! The only downside is that my new room at the "Hotel Shangri-La" is only available for 2 nights, and he doesn't have any more! My little piece of paradise may be short-lived!!

Oh, I booked a ticket on the "Toy Train" (it's real) for tomorrow at 1:30pm, so I'll let you know how that goes. All for now,

Larry

More fun in Darjeeling...

(Second in a series of blogs on traveling to Darjeeling...the first entry appears below this one. Thanks.)

"These are the voyages of Larry Jones, Captain of the Starship Rent-a-Surprise! His five day mission to explore strange new hotels, catch a glimpse of Mt. Everest, and possibly have a hot shower!" (start the music...)

Well, what can I say, the fun continues. Last night I had a nice meal out across town, but everything's pretty close here. Then, on the way back, I decided to stop in a local dive for a couple rounds of coca-cola. The place was shutting down at 10pm, which I thought was kind of weird. I mean, this is a big tourist destination, right? So I finished my conversation with a young Nepali guy with perfect English whose dream in life is to get a soccer scholarship to a Christian, American university.

I walked back to the hotel and was surprised at how few people were on the street. Darjeeling was really deserted! But that was nothing compared my surprise at finding my hotel totally locked up for the evening! And I don't mean the door knob was locked - I mean they had a pull down steel garage door thingie attached to the sidewalk! Unbelievable (and it kinda makes me re-think my definition of a "hotel"). But anyway, what could i do? I banged on the steel door, making an awful racket. No answer. I flashed my cell phone light up at the windows closest to the office - no response. I banged on the door a couple more times. Still nothing.

So I'm thinking...sheesh, I'm going to have to find another hotel room even though all my stuff is in this one and I've already paid for it! So I start down the street but then remember that my bladder is yelling pretty loud (cokes will do that to you), so I stop behind a dump truck to relieve myself. The street was deserted and it was pretty dark, so who cares, right?

Then I continue down the street and on the other side is a young guy outside of another hotel. I ask him if he has any vacancies. He says no. No surprise there - it is, after all, after 10 pm by this point. So he looks at me like "what's wrong"? So I proceed to explain the situation. He said "hold on" and after about 5 minutes, re-appeared w/ a cell phone. Shortly after that, another young guy comes out on the street from the other side. The first guy tells me I should follow this new guy, and I'm thinking "ok...here's where Larry gets mugged and left in an alley til morning", but it was actually one of the workers from my hotel (whew!!). He led me through a back door, up 3 flights of stairs, and I was finally home sweet home!

This morning I asked the front desk guy what time they close the front door. He said "oh, 9:30" as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world! So now I know. In fact, as I'm writing this, I realize I need be back "home" pretty soon!

Oh, the electricity came on today! I was at the zoo when it happened (nice zoo, by the way), so I was really pumped to finally get my hot shower when I got back. So I get back to my room, turn on the hot water device, wait a half hour or so to let the water heat up, and then...there's no water. I figured I was doing it wrong, so I went down to the front desk, where they informed me that Yes, we have electricity but that now there's no water! Sometimes, you can't catch a break, you know? But the guy was nice and offered to heat up some water for me (luckily, I already had half a bucket of cold water in the bathroom from when I arrived). I don't know where he got the water from, and I don't care! Even a hot bucket bath felt pretty good after 2 days without.

They assure me there will be hot water from the tap (and shower) tomorrow. It's like Mt. Everest at this point, though: I'll believe it when I see it!

--Larry