Sickness in Darjeeling

Please excuse any typing or grammatical errors in this post as I haven’t been able to check it over

After getting totally screwed on the shared jeep from New Jalpaiguri (NJP) train station we endured an incredibly exciting hair pin bend cliff edge journey up to Darjeeling with our train buddies Mark and Mindy. The driver had no fear. Every turn was a face off with either the natural elements or another vehicle, animal or human. By the time we reached Darjeeling I was sneezing like crazy which I think was do to the gradual climate change from the heat at the bottom of the mountain to this high elevation of shifting clouds and damp air. We made a big mistake in taking a really damp room in a hotel called The Alpine (suggested by a local tout/drug dealer, who eventually became quite a friend). After a horrible night we moved onto another hotel, a bit off the beaten track, called The Mall Guest House. Our room had fantastic views of small village’s nestling in the tea plantations in the valleys below. If the clouds would ever clear we’d be able to see an extensive mountain range including Everest. Darjeeling, though touristy turned out to be a cool place and a really happening town. A stream of hikers and back packers was always on the loose, drawn in by its friendly relaxed atmosphere. We hoped down the hill to walk around the tea plantations which were dotted everywhere over the mountain. A lovely Sherpa boy who lived in one of the plantation villages beckoned us in to his minute shack/home where he lived with his sister and brother. It was so extremely modest that I felt kind of shamed. We probably we had more on us and with us then he had in his whole house. Despite our humble dispositions we declined the tea and left after a while of sweet “chit chat.” These small plantation villages decorated the beautiful landscape of Darjeeling. It is a breath taking sight from afar but if you get up close it becomes another picture, as the water falls, literally, of sewage and garbage poured down the hill alongside these impoverished peoples homes. Open troughs of sewage lined the quaint pathways and the stench can take your breath away. Despite this downside we spent a fantastic couple of days walking the hills with Mark and Mindy and would be constantly be finding ourselves in some ones back yard amidst the honking of wild stock and happy children who seemed to welcome our presences. My streaming cold was ultimately replaced by the most incredible bout of diarrhea I’ve ever had the privilege to experience. Mindy suffered equally as we deduced it was most likely the ice cream we devoured the night before at Glenary’s as Dave was still on his antibiotics from his previous bout in Kalkota, he got away scott-free. The night was a long one which was made worse by having no water, so you can imagine the scene in the bathroom with the inability to flush.

Oh, I forget to mention that this hotel, though better than The Alpine was still damp so we were driven to purchase some sleeping bags (Northface which must be knockoffs) which we foolishly left behind in NY thinking it would never get that cold.

The next thing to do was to get our permits for Sikkim and we started to look forward to the exodus from our damp quarters. I was feeling a bit better after the antibiotics and the next day we caught a shared jeep down by the meat market to Jorethang from where we got another jeep to Geyzing and from there to Pelling.

Pelling turned out to be a dark dead strip of town bordered on each side by roes of virtually empty hotels. A French girl had told us of a really great hotel in lower Pelling called the Hill Top Retreat which we ended up staying at. Pelling didn’t seem to offer us much though we spent a day hiking to the two monasteries, Pemayangtse and Sangachoeling, the later being totally worth the 3km climb.

After trying and failing to get a jeep for the next day in order to see additional sites that we couldn’t achieve by walking we decided instead to head to Gangtok the next day.

After experiencing this lovely clean hotel in Pelling we were determined to get a good hotel in Gangtok. By chance we happened upon Stewart, a Welsh guy we bumped into in Kolkata. He told us of a good place that he was staying at, Pomra which he was staying at. We haggled the room down and succeeded in actually lowering Stewart’s rate in the process. We had a beautiful view of Gangtok and the surrounding hill side. We could still not yet see the infamous mountain ranges beyond due to cloud cover, which was a bit of a bummer.

So far Gangtok seems like a bit more of a working and industrious town than Darjeeling. It is pretty large and full of carpenters, mechanics, weavers, bakers and candle stick makers. Where as Darjeeling though more picturesque relies more on the tourist trade.

I am sitting here in the dinning room of our new hotel drinking my weak coffee awaiting Dave who is trying to get a hot shower going. I seem to have used it up doing a hair wash. I am excited by the day ahead as we only had yesterday evening here and that alone was quite an onslaught on the scences.