Tiger Hill - Birth of a new day

Today is my 3rd day in Darjeeling and I still love it. I think I got some altitude sickness though it might have been just the effects of the freezing nights and the boiling days that freak your system.
This morning I woke at 4am, yes 4 o'clock in the morning and made my way down the hill to the shared jeep stand to pick up my ride to Tiger Hill. We made it 30mins before the sunrise. From the top of Tiger Hill you can see 360 degree panoramic view as the sun rises through the clouds and slowly turns the snow capped mountains from a white to a yellow then a red.
It is a very popular hill and unfortunately I was not alone. 1000s of locals and Indian tourist were there. There was much praying and crying and general rejoicing as the sun broke through and illuminated the holy mountains.
It was an experience well worth the early rise.
On the way back we stopped at a Buddhist monastery just in time to catch their morning prayers. My jeep driver wanted to show me his new converted apartment ready for tourist, and said he could fix me up with a tribal family deep in Sikkim for next week. So I could experience "real" tribal life in the mountains. I took his mobile but passed on the offer to find me a Nepalese bride who would worship me like a god. We also made a stop at some memorial, though I did not manage to find out what it was for, though I suspect it was something to do with fighting Pakistanis (checkout the mountains in the background).
After breakfast and a couple of hrs snoozing I walked for 3KM around the snaking hills down to the Zoo where I saw Red Panda and some snow Leopards.

I also accidentally stumbled on a memorial and the actually resting place of the mighty Tensing (1st man to climb Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary).

Then after meeting Maria and Martin we finally booked our Trek into Sikkim. I forgot to mention I met a guy in Calcutta that fixed me up with a friend of a friend who is organising the tour. Lets hope it works out, but we got to tailor what we wanted, especially since there is only 3 of us. We start tomorrow at 07:30 with the 5/6 hr drive to Yoksum across the state border of Sikkim. We will spend the night in Yoksum (which is an ancient town and founder town of Sikkim by 3 Lamas).
Then after rising up to 5000m to the mountains and back I will try and check in 9 days from now though I may head further north before my permit runs out.
See you in a few days, hopefully with some great pictures.

The Road To Darjeeling

I spent my last day and night in Kolkatta, three days is really enough. My train up north was scheduled to leave at 23:55 from just north of the river.
I had booked a 1st class AC sleeper and found myself on a "secret" train. It was a special so it was almost empty which was good. It was an extra on from the normal Darjeeling Mail train, and the last to run for this year. I shared the journey with an Austrian Professor of Physics (material science), called Gero I think or something like that. He was about 70 and very entertaining. I managed to sleep and all in all the journey was perfect. It took about 12hrs and we arrived in the junction town of Silguri at noon, where we negotiated with a German couple for a jeep to Darjeeling. As we climbed the hills into the mountain the view was amazing. Like an Alpine climb but with greener and more exotic vegetation.
The roads were random in their maintenance and often we got stuck behind an old fashioned steam-roller making repairs.
The people here are not what we would call Indian, they are more like Tibetan (close to the border).
We went for the jeep which took 3.5hrs as apposed to the British build "toy-train" that can take 7hrs as it winds though the mountains mainly along side the road. As we finally got the top the view of Darjeeling was incredible, how they can build a large town of 109,000 people on such steep slopes was amazing, it looks like it will be all washed away one day.
Gone were the beggars, gone where the open sewers and thankfully gone where the mozzies.
We walked up the winding roads inter-joined with many "secret" stairways till we found our hotel right on the very top of the hill.
It looks to the range of the Himalayas, and Everest can be seen on a clear day, though today the hills and mountains were filled with to much mist. The ranges could just be seen, but did not look like any other mountains I had seen, they are so high they look like they have been painted into the sky. With my new German friends (a couple from Munich) we checked in and I made my way to my room. No comparison to the windowless coffin of Calcutta. From my window I can step out and look at the whole range. It was AMAZING.
On the roof top is a 360 view. I plan on rising tomorrow at 5am to get the sunrise.

After a chat with the owner and some "real" Darjeeling tea with lemon, we walked down the street and I had my dinner at a traditional Tibetan cookery.
Here is is pic of the chef and his wife. The food was yummy in my tummy.
Over the next days I will plan and arrange a 8 day trek into the mountains with my new German friends into a region north called Sikkim. We need special permits for the trek and visas which will be sorted in the next few day (a bit of trouble where they don't want to be Indian) .
I will try and check in before I go off the radar for a week or so.
This is an India so different from where I have been already. The people friendly, the food great, the views and the clean air.

Lets hope I don't get struck my lightening on the way back to hotel paradise, which is incidental about 2squid 50 a night, they even through in a bucket of hot water.

Signing off.....truly happy, off to hunt a cold beer now after my 18hr journey.

Sir Tony Beckham

On rereading my entry from yesterday I realised I was a little mean on the Indian Museum. I did fail to mention that they have a collection of very fine fossils some of mammoths and dinosaurs. Also they have lots of BC statues of Indian artifacts like religious figures of Buddha and elephant gods. The main attraction for me though was as the famed "hall of minerals" where they displayed thousands of rocks like sand stone and slate. My personal favourite was a Lime Phosphate called Apatite which to my surprise contained a whopping 18% phosphorous and even more surprising was that it also had a smidgen of Fluoride in it too.
Ca5(PO4)3(OH,F,Cl)
An irony of the name apatite is that apatite is the mineral that makes up the teeth in all vertebrate animals as well as their bones. Get it? Apatite - teeth! There is a picture of Apatite at the top.

Anyway I would recommend a visit to Calcutta, the roads are very wide and it has a good feel to it. I imagine it is because the city was founded during the Imperial times, so more planning was involved. There is a shocking lack of cows wondering around, but these seem to have been replaced by hundreds of stray dogs. Now it is my second day and I have started to notice the tie-dye brigade are in town. Quite a few fat, spotty ugly English girls in Saris with dirty dreadlocks and tie-dye hair bands. WHY?
I got into my routine of rising, washing my clothes hanging them and moving on to breakfast while catching up on the days events with a copy of the Indian Times.
I decided to walk to the Fort, but the path was closed, so moved on to Eden Garden. It was very well laid out but appeared to be very unpopular for there was no one around. I went in anyway and had a snooze on a bench only to be woken by a security officer telling me the garden has been closed for two years. Bad rough guide bad, so out of date.
I visited the Calcutta football and cricket grounds on the way to the river dodging the trains across the track. I hung out with some caste-less fellas for a bit as they "washed" their clothes and "bathed". There I saw the busiest bridge in the world (that's official), about the same size as the one in Sydney I am told, but I'll let you know in a few months. The conversation with the super-poor was mainly around "Tony Blair", "Bobby Charlton" and "David Beckham" but I felt we connected. Amazingly they did not ask me for any money and when I gave a legless man Rs10 he proclaimed that I was his personal Mother Teressa. It was emotional.
I walked along the river bank, looking at the floating straw effigies of numerous gods and watch the people bathing in the holy river, was very ritualistic.
I made my way back and had lunch with two Spanish girls that were working for the real Mother Teressa foundation.
Last night I almost went into the most kicking club in Calcutta, but judging from the the bearded lady statue outside I'm glad I did not. Looks a bit like Scott in drag.

CalCutting Edge

Sick people can be such good fun.......it's almost a shame when they get well again.

After just under 6 weeks working in and around Bangalore my itchy feet finally got the better of me. I packed up and made my way to Kulkata (Calcutta).
I know I should have kept my carbon foot-print to a minimal and taken the 37hr sleeper train, but as Jennys Grandad once said "Any fool can be uncomfortable" I bottled it and opted for an Internal flight.
I said goodbye to Mahesh but felt bad for I did not get a chance to say goodbye to Semma and Sona, but I plan on going back there sometime. I had such a great time and learnt a great deal and experienced true Indian hospitality.

Two and a half hours later and I arrived in the capital city of West Bengal.

I plan on staying here for a few days before I head north to the Mountain and some altitude sickness on a trek and perhaps some rafting.
I was a little apprehensive for Calcutta has a bad reputation for being a nasty shit hole. The black hole of Calcutta and all that (where 40 of the imprisoned British staff had suffocated overnight when locked in a room in the fort).
Well I was surprised. Calcutta has more of the feel of a capital city. There is less traffic, less pollution, more green spaces, more tourists and some really fantastic places to see.

On my first night I went to a bar called "some place else" where I tasted again the delights of Kingfisher.

In the morning I did my washing (though I think the dirty bucket ended up cleaner) and made my way to a cafe, where I tasted eggs. WOW cheese, onion and mushroom omelet, it was Divine.
Then off to the Indian Museum (similar to the British Museum, but without all the important stuff in it) where I was owe struck by the display of a stuffed family of moon faced Orangutans.

Then a short ride on the Metro...Yes they have an underground, very slick.
I Walked to the Victoria Memorial. Apart from the 10x the price for a foreigner and the best example of Empire architecture, it is a hang out for canoodling couple without the fear of being arrested.

Once I pay my Rs20 for the one hr in this cafe I will go hunt a few more beers, then do more of the tourist thing tomorrow.

Fire Crackers

On the way back into Bangalore from a village clinic I understood for the 1st time why Bangalore is the most polluted city in Asia. It had not bothered me before, but coming into Majestic (bus depo area) a gazillion people were trying to get out of the city for the 5 day public holiday ( 2 days Daiwalii followed by the weekend , followed by the fast breaking of Ramadam on Tuesday). Every auto, car, truck, scooter, bike and bus was on the road, the polution was overwhelming.
Each junctions was just chaos with vehicles trying to push their way through. The pleantiful traffic cops in their handsome white uniforms were too busy flagging down affulent looking vehicles to get their bribes to do any taffic direction.
I could say a huge piece on corruption and bribary but I don't feel as a vistor it is really my place to rant on, so I will leave it for now.




Verity, perhaps you can help me out, you're the only Dragonfly expert I know.
The sky was full of these the other day 1000s upon 1000s of them above my flat.

The festival of lights/dreams began yesterday. This is the number one festival in India across the whole country. There are several different meaning to the festival. From celebarting the return of an exilled king to the visit of a friendly deamon.
Basically there is a 2 day holiday where everyone sets of firecrackers.
What I did not know is the neighbours to where I was staying liked to set them off at sunrise right outside my window for a hour.





I managed to restrain myself from going outside and giving them a live demonstration on how to make and use a chelsea brick with the Bangalore Times.

While trying to choose the fireworks I was going to celebrate with I commented to the seller that there was just too much choice. He simply replied



"Do not try and choose the firecrackers
let firecrackers choose you".


I paused and smiled thinking he was a bit odd and turned and immedietly knew what he meant.

Rajkumar lives on

Today I booked my one way ticket to Delhi. Though I don't travel for 5 weeks. The journey is 35hrs, that's two nights on the sleeper train. Should be fun.
I found a really big member of the cumcumber family.
I don't really like cumcumber but I just had to buy it.
I have it in the corner of my room. It cost about 8pence.
I went out for some more drinks, met a nice fella from Madras, and an Ozzie fella called Spencer or Carter or something like that. He was funny, just 19. He was really disappointed that there were so few girls in the pub. He expected to come away and get laid.
"India is sexless I explained. You have to wait till you are married".
It's quite hard to explain unless you see it for real to understand what I mean. I think generally they have fewer problems with not being as promiscuous as we are in the west....simpler and purer.
I read in the local paper that the Police had arrested 46 couples in a Bangalore park for lewd and inappropriate behavior. The main complaint was holding hands, one man was stroking his girlfriends hair...SHOCKING

Funny really for it is quite common to see men holding hands here. It is a sign of a very strong friendship, not a sign that they are fishing down the cod-less bum-well.
Anyway before I get censored I'll show you picture of Gonzo.
I went to the movies 2 nights ago. I have no idea what the film was called or what they were talking about. But it was quite funny.
They are movie crazy here. In Karnataka (the state), they speak Kannada (I can say a few words).
The 12th of April 2006 is an important date for the people of Karnataka. It was the "state" funeral of Karnatakas' most popular actor ever. Rajkumar was his name and he is still considered the most handsome man EVER to appear on the screen. He was still voted this when he was over 70. My personal favorite is the picture at the bottom 2nd from the right (I think he looks a bit like Scott but obviously not as handsom). It is guaranteed that on one channel you will find one of his movies every night, he made over 200. At his funeral there was so much chaos and mayhem that 8 of the 100s of thousands of fans died.
Anyway 12th April 2006 is also an important day for another reason.

On this day a Cosmonaught hit a golf ball in orbit.

Adios for now.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai

I know it has been a while since I “checked-in”, but to be honest I’ve been sort of busy and not a great deal has been happening.
I suppose it is because I am settling in to where I am living.
I did manage to have a night out. I did not however manage to meet another European though I was not that bothered. I ended up in an Indian rock bar listening to Pink Floyd and the Brothers in Arms album on a loop. It was strange seeing the distinctive Indian “head-wobble” being adapted to western rock.

....they use a wobble instead of a nod for yes….well actually it is not really yes, more of an agreement, a positive ok, an acknowledgment and the bigger the wobble the higher the expression of agreement or respect...

Anyway, I ended up chatting to a 3 Indian fellas, one of which was from New York and a trader coming back home to Bangalore to set up a hedge fund. He was at the London JPM office 2 weeks ago, small world.
He was actually a bit of an arrogant nob to be honest, but still interesting and stimulating.
He was from the Bremen caste, the highest caste, they have a bit of a reputation for thinking they are above everyone else and their history suggests they are more than mean. Saying this I have met others (Drs teachers, priests) that are more modern and not so insecure and actually very nice.
Anyway back to the night out. All in all it was a welcome break and I’m pretty sure the waiters never saw anyone setting fire to a table cloth before.

The day after was the main day of a 15 day festival. Originally they used to worship special weapons by wrapping them I leaves and tying nice coloured flowers around them. Now adays in the modern world, they do it to anything they want to worship, I mean inanimate objects. Favorites are cars, motorbikes, light switches, computers, and the new big one "mobile phones". I really should have taken some pictures sorry, the roads looked pretty freaky and good.
Basically it amounts to a collective appreciation of the things people own and their thanks for how they help them in their daily life.

This is a pic of Sona, Maheshs 3 yr old son. I am Craig-Uncle and he can now speak quite a bit of English. All good words of course , like
Uncle Busy, Uncle working, Ouuh hoooo, Yes, Correct, Laptop, fan, clock, shut-it, later, not now, how are you, this is bananna.

Also I forget to wish everyone “Happy Gandhi Day”. It was the great mans birthday on 2nd October. There has been a bit of a revival of his ideas mainly captured by a new Movie called “Lage Raho Munna Bhai”. We tried to get in but it was far too popular and the touts wanted double face value. ( 1pound 40 instead of 70p), so we of course refused on the grounds of “one people one nation” as the great man would have wanted. I also found out that Gandhi was not in fact wearing an adult sized nappy, but it was a traditional skirt-thing that men wear, turned up and tucked in so they can walk properly, called a Dhothi.


In a little over a week it will be the BIGGY of festivals “Deepavali”, the festival of dreams. Should be fun and I’ll be sure to take some snaps.

I have started playing badminton in the mornings to get a bit of exercise. BUT I banged my toe and had to stop for a few days. Not quite sky diving or snowboarding or jumping of roofs into swimming pools, but when in Rome.

I almost forgot, we got trapped in a huge traffic jam yesterday. It turned out a large crowd was blocking the road to look at a dead body in a ditch. I wanted to stop and take pictures but probably for the best that I didn’t.

As I am writing this we have just seen a young woman who is wondering why it is difficult for her to conceive. Turns out her husband is also her 1st cousin. A common problem in some communities. Don’t worry Nathalie I’m not taking on all customs.