Darjeeling & Nepal

The trip from Varanassi to Darjeeling has to be the worst of my life so far!  It started by us not being able to get a rickshaw ordered, and having to walk quite a way with all our luggage, as Varanassi has streets too narrow for vehicles to travel down, to get to the main road and flag one down.   We did, this and we must have got the craziest driver yet!  He just loved his horn and was pushing through everyone and even pushing cycle rickshaws along by driving into them, he thought it was hilarious when we saw a motorbike crash into a car!  He had no fear whatsoever, and we were holding on for dear life so we did not fall out as he tore round the bends, but he did get us to the station an hour later in plenty of time!  We arrived to hear our train was delayed by 1 hour, no 2 hours!!!  It eventually turned up over 3 hours late on the wrong platform!!  Luckily we met some german guys who had an indian guide with them, who were on the same train and we asked them what was happening, otherwise we would have got on the wrong train, again!!!

We boarded the train in search of our beds as we were now exhausted, to find they had been occupied by other people.  We politely asked them to move, and after going back and forth for a while with what seat number was ours we eventually managed to move them.  They did not go far and sat right next to me in the footway between the seats, so I got absolutely no sleep whatsoever as they kept putting the light on and talking and still trying to put their feet on my bed!!!  The fans did not work and we had to leave the windows open because there was no air and it was so hot!  Morning came and we were tired and hungry, by now we were about 4 hours behind schedule!  Eventually we arrived at NJP station at about 2pm instead of the 10.30am scheduled time!  We then had to wait for another 2 hours to get a shared jeep as they would not leave until they had 10 passengers on board.  We ended up with 12 passengers in a jeep that was built to seat 8 passengers!  The heat was intense here and we were hungry, thirsty and tired and so keen to get to Darjeeling now to rest and eat!  Another couple of english people ended up in our jeep, from Sheffield, Emma and Rob, and we were chatting to them all the way to darjeeling as we were squashed in so cosily.  The trip took 3 and a half hours but the scenery was breathtaking!!!  We circled up into the foothills of the Himalayas and watched the sunset, as everything got farther away the higher we climbed!  The views were amazing and if we were not so squashed and could actually move it would have been great to get some pictures!  At 7.30pm we finally arrived and had to find a hotel in the dark of night.  By now I was starting to feel so sick and had a migraine mixed with possibly altitude sickness.  I got out of the jeep and could hardly move, I was dizzy and shaking from the cold and every muscle ached.  We had been travelling now for nearly 28 hours non stop with no food really or much to drink.  I sat down in the street and could not stop being sick!!  People were very kind here and were stopping and asking if we were ok.  Nicola and Rob went in search of a room while Emma and I waited with the luggage.  Rob was an absolute star and carried my backpack as well as his own, I felt so bad but I do not know what I would have done if they were not with us, because I could not have done it myself, as I could barely walk up the steep hills by now without the backpack, and felt I was going to be sick again and pass out any minute!  We found a hotel and I went straight to the room to lie down.  The man at reception had to bring the register to our room so I could sign in while he stood by the bed waiting because I could not get up, bless him.  I was sick again in a bucket Nicola found for me and then just fell asleep in my clothes, we were too tired to eat now.  Lying there feeling sorry for myself made me think about all the sick and hungry people in the world, and how hard it must be for them travelling around in search of food or working in such dirty, hot conditions, or freezing cold, under nourished and dehydrated and utterly exhausted with no hope, and how these people manage to survive at all, as we have seen people living like this along our travels.  I could hardly walk let alone work, and had been through nowhere near the journeys they had to endure, how a human being can put others through this and let it happen is beyond me, but we are all guilty of that I guess as it is still happening all over the world!  it certainly made me appreciate how lucky we are in life and all the things we take for granted!  It is so funny all the thoughts that go through your head when you don't feel 100%!  It certainly puts things in perspective!!!

The following day we just took it easy and wandered around the town finding our bearings.  It is not very big so it did not take long.  I was still not feeling 100% so we took it easy and met up with Rob and Emma and in the evening we had dinner together and a few drinks in a place called Joey's Pub!  Everything closes in Darjeeling at about 10pm and we arrived back at the hotel just before, to find we were locked out and it was all closed up!  We shouted until someone finally came and found us and relieved we made sure we were back by 9.30pm in future!

We awoke the next morning to a blanket of white cloud, we could not see hardly anything and it was bone chillingly cold!!  My sickness was now replaced by a sore throat and cold :(  Emma had been quite sick with a stomach bug for a few days now, so I was just counting my blessings I did not have that!  We were tired still and spent most of the day in the internet cafe and visited the Bengal Natural History museum, which was very peculiar, mainly consisting of stuffed animals from the region on display along with beetles, butterflies, jars full of dead baby animals in solution and snakes, spiders and leeches.  When we were walking back we stopped at a Nawang's Restaurant and asked about some trekking tours.  We decided to do a 2 day 1 night trek to Tonglu with Nawang Trek, where we would hope to catch a glimpse of Everest if the skies were clear, and have some good views of the mountains, as well as stay in a local village and meet the people and get a feel for life in the foothills.  We should cross the border here into Nepal and hopefully they won't stamp our passport so we can get back!  We had an early night as we were up at 3.30am the next morning to do another tour to Tiger Hill!

We clambered out of bed about 3am to leave for our tour to Tiger Hill, where we would see the sunrise over a 250km stretch of the Himalayan horizon, to include Everest on a clear day and Khangchendzonga, the 3rd largest mountain in the world.  Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy to see Everest today, but we had a great view of the other mountains.  We then decided to get dropped back in Ghoom and walk back from there which is about 6km.  We passed a few monasteries and the Gorkha war memorial with a lovely view behind of the mountains, which was interesting and got some more good pictures along the way before heading for breakfast and back for a nap.

Finally after spending a few days in Darjeeling already, we decided it was high time we visited a tea plantation, however we arrived only to discover it is closed for the week for the holidays as there is a festival here at the moment!  Disappointed we headed to Observatory Hill to see the monastery and go for a walk.  We bought some tea to take away with us and discussed with the man in the shop about the different teas and plantations, this made up a bit for not being able to go to the plantation, and we enjoyed a very nice tasting too!!

The time had come to do our trek!  I was still feeling really poorly with a cold and exhausted still from being ill, and wondered how I would cope with it, but did not want to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to see Everest, or let Nicola down by being a quitter!  So we arrived by jeep at 10.30am to our starting point which was a small village below the hills, and we were off!

The first day we would do 12km to Tonglu/Tumling our final destination, which is just over 3000 metres high, and where we would hope to get some amazing views.  We were 2100 metres up at this village so we had a bit of a climb ahead of us!  We had no idea how much so!!!  The first 2km was up 500 metres with really steep gradients!  Oh my God!!!  We were struggling so much in the first hour that at one point I really had second thoughts as to whether I could do this today, my cold was in full force and I could hardly breathe, Nicola was also puffed out too and feeling pretty much the same, but we struggled on to the first rest stop where we had some tea and noodles as I was so hungry already.  We had already done half the climb up in the first hour and where assured the worst was over, so we persevered.  We followed the border to Nepal and at one point we were standing half in Nepal and half in India.

Surprisingly we finished in record time of four and a half hours as the expectation was 5-6 hours!!!  So exhausted and relieved to get there we sat in the cosy kitchen with the staff of the lodge drinking tea and eating biscuits and swapping stories with fellow trekkers, and trying to keep warm as it was much colder up here in Nepal.

Sunset was nearly upon us so we walked up the hill a bit to get some pictues.  The views were spectacular and we were way up above the clouds, which was the most bizarre feeling.  Only time I have ever seen this was from a plane.  It was truly beautiful and so peaceful up here the pictures can't really do it justice.  We headed back to the lodge to get ready for dinner.  We were so cold, tired and hungry now and were really looking forward to a feast of soup, Dal fry, cheese and fried potato with banana custard to finish.  We shared our meal with 3 American girls who are teachers in Thailand, a british guy who was teaching out here for a while, and a french couple, so the conversation was interesting and we were relieved we were not the only ones who had struggled with the trek, we were much fitter then the american girls for sure!  Our guide thoroughly looked after us and we were spoilt as we were the only ones with a european toilet in our room, and we were given hot water bottles to take to bed, which no one else had and were really needed.  We definitely picked the best tour and would highly recommend Nawang trek for anyone wishing to do a trek around Darjeeling, Nepal and Sikkim.

A knock on the door woke us at 4.50am to see the sunrise.  We were excited to hear that it was clear skies and everest was visible!!!  We threw our clothes on and walked back up to the peak of the hill to get the best view.  Wow, as the sun came up higher it lit up the mountain range and lo and behold there was Everest (2nd white mountain from the right in picture directly below), the highest peak in the world, along with Khangchendzonga the 3rd highest peak (on the picture second below, this range is known also as sleeping buddha, as if you look closely it looks like a man lying down, from left, head, then stomach and legs with knees bent).

It was an awesome sight!!!  We were extremely lucky to see this and it made the pain of the day before worth it!  We finally dragged ourselves away and had a hot breakfast of porridge and tibetan bread with more hot tea.  At 8.30am we headed back, glad that this was now all downhill more or less.  That was until we got to the last 2km, which was a really steep gradient downhill and seemed to go on forever down the winding roads.  It put a huge amount of pressure on our knees and toes, and we realised looking down now, why it had been such a struggle coming up this yesterday in the heat!!!  Unbelievable!!!  All in all I was glad with our final achievement of 25km in 8.5 hours with rest breaks of about 1 hour, over some pretty rough terrain, and a climb of nearly 1000 metres in all!!!  We are already discussing the next trek in Borneo, and have Macchu Piccu in May, so maybe we will try and get some training in first next time and remember to put suntan lotion on!!!  Ouch!

The following morning we boarded the toy train to Kurseong, which is a 4 hour trip, but most enjoyable even though it was pretty cloudy today which spoilt most of the views.  As usual no one at the station seemed to be able to tell us our seat numbers as these were supposed to be allocated on the day, so it was a bit of a free for all.  Considering the size of Indian Railways (it is the largest employer in India with over 1.6 million people on the payroll at the last count), not a lot of people working there seem to know a great deal about what is going on.  However I am sure if we spoke Hindi we would get a lot further!  Arriving in Kurseong we had some lunch and grabbed a share jeep to take us to Siliguri and then a rickshaw onto NJP station where we waited 3 hours for our train to arrive and spent the time planning our trip to the south of India!