Darjeeling Wrap-up

We'll summarize our 11-ish days in Darjeeling, but first things first:

WE GOT OUR RUSSIAN VISAS!!!

It took a total of 5 weeks (3 weeks for processing, plus 2 weeks spent waiting for letters of invitation to be shipped from Siberia to Kolkata), and several trips to the Russian Consulate, but we are finally allowed to go to Russia. This is insanely good news since we already booked and paid for our trip from Beijing to St. Petersburg. Here's Mallory outside the consulate, looking suitably excited.


Now, back to the rest of our time in Darjeeling.

We spent one very early morning catching a jeep to Tiger Hill, the highest point near Darjeeling, to see the sun rise over the Himalayas. We got really lucky with our choice of day and not only did we get to see the closest stretch of mountains, we even got to see Everest (way off in the distance, but still, it was cool). The pictures make it look like a really serene, peaceful sunrise, but that's only because you can't see the 200 Kolkatan tourists standing directly behind us (we got there early to get a good spot). The best part of the whole thing, aside from the view, was when hundreds of other people started cheering wildly when the sun finally broke over the horizon. Yeah, go sun! Sunrise is number one! In your face, night time!!


We used another morning to take a "joy ride" on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway toy train, a steam-powered, super-narrow-gauge train that follows tracks through a bunch of mountain villages between Darjeeling and the plains to the south. The tracks themselves are only about 2 feet wide, and don't look like the kind of thing that a sane person would try to run a train on. The ride was cool, full of equal parts "wow, great scenery" and "we are about to get hit by a truck" moments, since the rail line runs beside, and occasionally in the middle of, the main road through the hills.


Being the dorky engineer (and fan of crazy old-school technology) that I am, I was almost more fascinated by the train itself. It dates from the 1890's, and takes three people to run: one conductor, one guy manning the steam whistle, and one guy shoveling coal. Coal!


We also went to the zoo, visited the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (which has Tenzing Norgay's boots from the first summit of Everest!), took a tour of a tea plantation, and ate lots and lots of momos (Tibetan steamed vegetable dumplings). Fun fact: The Darjeeling Zoo has the most profane parrot in India! I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that someone with a good grasp of English obscenities taught this parrot exactly how to express its displeasure at passing tourists (ok, I can't be sure it's the MOST profane parrot in India, but I'm going to go with that until proven otherwise).

Mallory also got to celebrate her birthday in Darjeeling! Woohoo! We celebrated with a night out on the town (read: at one of Darjeeling's two pubs), followed by two days/nights at a posh resort on top of a hill just outside of Darjeeling (our room had TWO fireplaces!). We also went to see a Bollywood movie called Karzzzzz. The extra z's symbolize reincarnation, I think. It was in Hindi, and there were no subtitles. Still, we managed to follow along pretty well. Also, the poster has a dude playing a flaming guitar. Yes.


Here is Mallory with her birthday cake and ice cream.


Here's a quick round-up of recommendations in case you find yourself in Darjeeling in the near future.

Best restaurants:
-Kunga's: cheap and tasty Tibetan food, including momos and bhagthuk, a garlicky and delicious noodle soup.
-Hasty Tasty: best Indian food in town, for less than $2/meal.
-La Casse Croute (a.k.a. Hot Pizza Place): Surprisingly delicious pizza in an area not usually renowned for its accurate or tasty Italian dishes.

Best entertainment:
-Karzzzzz: it had dancing, reincarnation, revenge, a bald guy with a robot arm, and a sudden kung fu fight scene at the very end, for some reason.
-Joey's Pub: one of two bars in Darjeeling, it's a great place to meet other travellers. Just don't plan on partying too hard, last call is at 9:30pm.

Best hotels:
-Dekeling Hotel: alright, this is the only hotel we tried in town, but it was clean, well-maintained, comfortable, and cheap, at $20/night for a double room with "side mountain view" (note: side mountain view indicates that a mountain can kind-of, sort-of be seen from your window if you hang out of it on a rope or something).

Tomorrow we catch a flight to Rajasthan, in the hopes of seeing some desert palaces, and maybe taking some music lessons.

Darjeeling Mail

We've been lazily making our way around Darjeeling for the last week, and it's been great, for the most part. We're still really enjoying the fact that you can walk down the street without acquiring an orbiting cloud of touts and salesmen. For the most part, it's a great low-stress place to spend a few days.

And then there's the post office.

We picked up a bunch of souveniers on our second day here, and decided to mail them home before we had to lug them around between cities, so we headed down to ship them off. We'd heard it's important to leave lots of time to ship things, but "How hard could it really be?" we thought to ourselves. Little did we know... Here is a visualization of the process of mailing a parcel through the Indian mail system:


The first sign that it might be an ordeal was when we walked in the door and saw that the sign marking the "Speed Post" queue was covered in cobwebs. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. Not a good sign. Then we had to line up to have our parcels, uh... tailored. The Indian post office requires that all international parcels be sewn in linen.

To make this possible, there's a guy who sits in the corner of the post office at a tiny wood table, with a needle, some thread, and a big pile of linen cloth. For a fee of about a dollar per package, he will unpack all your things, rearrange them and wrap them in twine, and then provide a fine bespoke suit for your souveniers.



After it's been all sewn up, and you think you're ready to finally start actually mailing your package, he busts out the sealing wax.

Wax?


Yep, wax. Your package is then subjected to no fewer than two dozen wax seals along the sewn edges of its fine linen suit. At this point, I was pretty sure our parcels would make their way to Canada on the back of a camel, or in the hold of a galleon, or something.

Here's Mallory clutching her package after about an hour and a half of sewing and sealing.



Finally, once your package is completely sealed to the satisfaction of the Post Master, you get to actually line up and send it. Unfortunately, there's only one guy in the post office who does this, and he takes frequent half-hour breaks, without notice. When he does return, he moves with all the blazing speed of a glacier, even pausing to laboriously roll up his sleeves before getting down to the rough and dirty business of affixing labels and taking money. Mal sat in line for the better part of an hour before finally sending hers off.

Total time spent to ship two packages and 3 books: 3.5 hours.

This goes some distance towards explaining why we're spending so much time in India. You can't do anything spontaneously here. Shipping parcels is basically an entire day's worth of activities. Ditto buying train tickets. The whole country operates on its own logic and unhurried rhythm which, for the most part, is cool. Just not when it comes to mailing a package.

Darjeeling

We made the 15 hour trip from Kolkata to Darjeeling without any major problems, except for the last 3 hours which we spent squished in the back of a jeep with a very carsick lady from Kolkata who had some pretty severe stomach control issues.

Darjeeling is in the same state as Kolkata, but it's almost like being in a different country. Most of the residents here are of Tibetan or Nepalese origin, it's about 15 degrees cooler, it doesn't have anywhere near the same level of poverty as Kolkata, and the salespeople are perfectly content to let people browse without bombarding you with constant hyper-agressive sales pitches. Also, the city's surrounded by Himalayan mountains, so that's cool.

Here are some pictures from our last few days in Kolkata.

The street in front of our hotel.


A guy carrying a ton of plastic bottles. In general, people here seem to be really good at carrying very awkward loads.


One of the hundreds of statues of Durga, created to celebrate the 5-day long Durga Puja holiday. This was taken on Thursday.


On Friday afternoon, all of the statues were taken down to the river in big trucks filled with people and drums and dancing.


Then, they were paraded around at sunset.


Then, they were thrown in the river.



Our plans for the next few days involve steam-powered mountain trains, hiking up a few hills to check out the Himalayan views, and maybe a zoo (they have tigers!). We'll keep you posted.

So long, Kolkata

We're hopping on an overnight train to Darjeeling today, leaving Kolkata after an unexpectedly long two-week stay (as opposed to our initial plan of 3 or 4 days). First, it was Russian bureaucracy keeping us here while we waited for documents. Then we found out that a few million Kolkatans go on vacation at exactly the same time that we were planning to leave, and they all planned on taking the same train. We eventually found a ticket though, so we're off to the hills.

In retrospect, it was kind of neat to spend so much time in a place we really hadn't planned on seeing in any depth. I think we eventually got a feel for Kolkata city life beyond the touristy sights and restaurants. That being said, we also made friends with the owner of the tourist cafe around the corner from our hotel, where Mal ate about forty or so omelettes over the course of our stay.

The food here has been pretty great (omelettes included). Here are the highlights, in case you happen to find yourself in Kolkata looking for some tasty eats.

- Teej: an "upscale" ($8 meals) Rajasthani restaurant, serves intensely delicious vegetarian food.
-Blue Sky Cafe: the tourist cafe mentioned above. Good, cheap Indian and non-Indian food, super friendly service, air conditioning.
-Jalebis: deep-fried crispy dough swirl things, soaked in sugary syrup. Even more delicious than they sound.
-Kati rolls: the signature Kolkatan greasy street food. It's basically a roti (thin flatbread) coated on one side with an egg, grilled on a super-hot skillet, then filled with onions, spices and lime juice, rolled up and served. We don't have the camera with us right now, but here's a suitably delicious looking picture courtesy of Google image search.

Happy Durga Puja!

Hello all! Today we realized we have spent almost two weeks in India and have only 24 pictures to show for it. And most of them are repeats of each other while we play with camera settings. In any case, here are a couple pictures and stories to keep you up to date!

This week is Durga Puja! It's pretty much the Christmas of West Bengal, meaning everything is closed and people are all on holidays visiting their family. It also means lots of cool sculptures which will soon get thrown in the river! Durga Puja!

The area we're staying in in Kolkata is quite central and the main place for tourists (young tourists especially) to stay while in the city. Sidewalks are lined with street vendors selling all sorts of foods, many of which I have not had the guts to try. The street vendors also sell random things, like the guy who sells flutes and follows us around playing the same riff over and over. Or the guy who sells collapseable laundry bags. Or the guy who sells old-fashioned lamp-posts.

We've also come across many many beggars with all different tactics, including one guy who held up a snake and said 'SNAKE! MONEY!'.

For a visual of our street, here is a picture Bryce took after we finished lunch one day near our hotel:

This guy is herding goats right on the main street. Mayhem!

We have been taking it pretty easy so far since the heat/humidity can be pretty daunting, but we have put the effort in to try to find interesting places to eat and drink. Prices range from cheap (1$ for a vegetarian thali) to "expensive" (10$ for fancy dinner and beer). The other day we went to a Rajasthani restaurant and Bryce got their thali for dinner. We were expecting maybe 3-4 dishes and some bread, but instead he ended up getting:

(and some bread). The best part was the bowl with the sweetened bread crumbs. I could eat TEN THOUSAND bowls of those bread crumbs.

We also took a bengali cooking lesson at a woman's house (done through a tour company) and it was by far the best food we've had yet. She taught us how to cook many dishes, including these awesome deep-fried bread things which we are definitely making when we get back to Canada. Here's the dinner we helped make:


We'll leave you with one last picture before heading off to buy some cookies for me (Bryce doesn't know this is the plan, but he'll find out when he looks here). This picture was taken at one of the few "sights" we have seen while here. If you look past the super cute tourists, you will see the Victoria Memorial in the background. It is a MASSIVE museum/gallery built in honour of Queen Victoria. I could have chosen a picture of JUST the memorial, but you can find those on the internet.


On Oct 10 we head to Darjeeling to beat the heat and drink fancy teas in the mountains. We'll try to take more pictures!

Bhutan Pictures!

As promised, here are some pictures of our trip through Bhutan!

Arriving at the lovely Paro airport was a pleasant break after overnighting in Kolkata's hectic international terminal. We went directly to the hotel for a day of sleeping. The next day we took in some of Paro's monasteries and the city fortress.

This is the Paro fortress, protecting the city from Tibetan attacks.

We also got to eat dinner at a farmhouse with a Bhutanese family. They were super nice and accommodating. A typical dinner includes: chillies with cheese (their national dish), dried meat curry, buttered veggies (in the summer), maybe an egg dish, mushroom soup or curry and rice wine! They make the rice wine in their houses. Here is the family we ate with:


We also hiked up to see the Tiger's Nest Monastery, which was pretty amazing. It's about 3000m high and perched on a cliff!

The Tiger's Nest Monastery.

Our trek was awesome (as we discussed below), here are just a few of the pictures:

Wet boots after a day of torrential rain storms. Not ideal for preventing blisters.

Our donkey team! The one with the red hat is the leader!

AND as discussed earlier: pictures of the famous Thimphu traffic director! He is what the Bhutanese people preferred to a traffic light and for good reason! He's awesome and makes dramatic swooping motions with his hands to guide us through the country's capital safely. Thank you traffic man!


A couple pictures of Kolkata coming soon!

Kolkata: Week 1

Mal's taking care of our picture uploading responsibilities today, so I thought I'd post a few of my impressions of India after a week here in Kolkata.

1. Arriving in India for the first time is not something the Canadian brain is equipped to handle well. Lots of people call India chaotic, but that's not a great characterization. It's more like three or four separate chaotic systems, stacked on top of each other and then shaken up. There is so much going on everywhere - streets, stores, gutters, alleys, sidewalks - that it's hard to process it all at once. The whole place is just wall-to-wall people doing stuff.

2. The traffic system here doesn't appear to have rules. There are no lanes, crossing the street is a lot like playing Frogger, and most car horns seem to have been purchased with the "always on" option engaged. You really need to re-calibrate your sense of personal space to walk down the street. In Canada, if a car passed you with 6 inches to spare, you'd say you almost got hit by a car. Here, if one passed you with 6 inches to spare, you'd wonder why the guy left you so much room. We are basically in a constant state of almost getting hit by a car.

3. Indian food is amazing. We got a cooking lesson from a Bengali woman who runs classes out of her apartment kitchen, and it was hands-down the most delicious meal we've had on the trip so far. That being said, there's also a street vendor around the corner from our hotel selling deep fried chicken, uh, parts, with a pile of beaks sitting next to the pot. So caveat emptor, I guess. Side note: you can eat very well in India for like $4 a day, beak-free.

That's it for now. We put some pictures up on the Facebook group, and a few should be posted here shortly.