Darjeeling

Oh Darjeeling, I think I love you.  With your ambience of easy going nonchalance, unassuming, unaggressive inhabitants and quiet winding roads that snake steeply up your lush green hills.  With your delicious tea, tasty momo’s and warm, cosy, and ever lively Joey’s pub.  With your enforced gentle pace, as to walk up these steep hills must be done slowly, and cool climate that means visitors have to wrap up snugly to maintain warmth.  All of this is what makes me love you after 5 months in India.  I have been here for 3 days now and not a single child has run up to me demanding 10 rupees, sweets, or photos.  Nor a single tout with patience testing relentlessness tried to get me on a trek or other sight-seeing tour.  Nor a single shop keeper tried to get me into their shop.  Nor have a single pair of eyes, telling of the growing erection in their pants, looked me up and down with disrespectful lust.  Nor a single taxi pulled up and asked where I am going.  Nor any beggars insistently and persistently tugged on my clothes demanding money.  Nor been asked for exorbitant prices on anything I have wanted to buy, even from the street vendors.  Nor a single photo been asked of me.  Nor a single mosquito nibbled upon me.  Nor is there plastic bags and bottles strewn with ignorant abandon.  People seem to care about their environment here.  Ahhhhhh, thank you Darjeeling.

Here the women wear make up, tight clothes, and I have even seen a pair of legs, clad in fish net stockings, displayed proudly under a short denim skirt.  Here the women smoke and drink, in public, with no shame, and no-one spits at them or leers with intimidating disapproval.  Things seem a bit more ‘liberated’ here with regard to the treatment of women.  I wonder if it is the Buddhist influence, from the influx of Nepalese and Tibetans.  They always seem a bit more chilled out and accepting of people.  To me Buddisht countries always appear less judgemental, maybe it is the absence of a God, telling people how to behave that results in this easy going attitude.   

Since arriving in Darjeeling we have sat in a thick, cold cloud, and are very grateful for it.  I can’t tell you about the vistas or the countryside, as I can’t see it.   After much moving around, we are very pleased to have an excuse not to ‘do’ anything in particular.  We are sleeping late, mooching up and down the slow winding hills once awake, stopping frequently in tea shops to drink the delicious golden local tea on offer, seeking out the perfect momo in the little Tibetan run snack bars, and winding the day up in the snuggly warmth of Joey’s pub for a rum and coke, sharing stories and advice with other travellers.  In fact, this is the easiest place I have found to meet other travellers.  Of a similar ilk.  Even easier than the touristy destinations of Goa and Varkala, which were a mine field of pretentious, hair flicking druggy/yoga/ashram darlings ready to bore me to death with their ignorant ramblings about getting battered/spirituality.  There is a wonderful little travelling community here, which seems to have occurred completely by accident.  And is really nice to encounter given that this hasn’t really happened in the 5 months we have been away.  Maybe it is unusual for here too, and there has just been a freak influx of like-minded people to drink the cold away with.

We are staying on the top of one of the hills, which was fun to walk up with our backpacks, being completely put to shame by the unexpected steeliness of the locals that, with no exaggeration, are able to carry four large suitcases up these intense inclines, using a sling wrapped around their foreheads.  But once the clouds clear it will be worth it.  The room we have has a shabby charm to it and ceiling to floor windows along one side, that once the cloud lifts, I am confident will reveal a masterful example of one of nature’s greatest works of art – the Himalaya’s.  We are here for another week, before I fly to Nepal and Alex to Singapore, so hopefully the sky will part at some point.  If not ho-hum, it’s been bloody lovely to sit in what is the most charming hill station I have made my way to so far.  And given the time I am to spend in the shadow of these mighty mountains, it would be amazing if the next few months went by without a glimpse of their majesty.  But we were lucky, and Darjeeling offered us some spectacualr scenary on our last day.  Finally, here is the awesome veiw from our balcony of the 3rd highest peak in the world.