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.