Indian trains

19 Ganeshs, 4 Toy trains, a dozen of Buddhas, several chinese cats waving their paws, numerous Indian gods, 1 Jesus on the cross and a portrait of Mother Theresa. The booking agency where we purchased our train tickets doesn't know the meaning of "too much". The agent is as his room, with huge rings at each fingers and an over-comforting speech. He promises us all the tickets to everywhere, as he "will not make a lady cry".

But travels in India can always keep some bad surprises on the way. And when you go by train, prepare for the worst. To reach Varanasi we need to take two trains. From NJP (Siliguri train station, downhill from Darjeeling) to Patna, we drive by night in a sleeper train. For this first train experience we decided to go for 1st class but somehow we got in second class, which was as nice but less private. In the evening we are joined by an old Indian man looking like a wizard with his two colored beard. His "collegue" (but apparently his servant/bodyguard) follows him with his gorilla's shoulders and his unexpressive face. We share dinner and stories, before sleeping.

We reached Patna in the early morning. We are already accustomed with the chaos of Indian train stations and decide to be patient and wait our train to appear on the screen. On the screen, the other trains show delays : some 20 minutes, some 3 hours, some 12 hours. After a while our train is announced with 14 hours delay! In the waiting room loudspeakers shout announcements in hindi and english continuously, while we have to accept that we'll probably spend the night in this place. But soon the voice announce our train is cancelled. The agent might have been right about ladies crying and so was the time for the gent to move some tables and get things right...

I went first to the office of the station manager, who sent me to another office, which sent me back to the first one, where I was sent again to the second. I happen by accident to smash a door while opening, so I decided to keep the following talk at the same level and started shouting at the manager until he followed me to the other office. I continued argueing until the director of the station came to ask what is going on here. In the end I got refunded and we got 100 ruppies tickets with which we could take any train we want from Patna to Varanasi.

We jumped aboard the first train, doors open. Other passengers were helpful, even if some didn't quite understand why we couldn't speak hindi. The real India was in this train. From the banch in front of us, as well as from the shelf for luggages where some men were sleeping, faces were looking at us, with teeth used by the chewing tobacco. A cockroach crawls on the ground where men took of their shoes. Young men comes in at every stations to sell chai and snacks. After few hours in the smell of chickpeas, toilet and tobacco, we reached the holy city...

Greetings

Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus, no Dardžīlingas tirgus!

Joyeux Noël, depuis le marché de Darjeeling!

Häid Jõule, Darjeeling turult!

Merry Christmas, from Darjeeling's market!

Do you like dragons?

Sikkim. In the Himalaya, ancient kingdoms used to exist, hidden and unreachable in the high Mountains. But today only Bhutan remains preserved. Ladakh was conquered by the British, Nepal opened progressivly to the world in the end of 20th century, Tibet is occupied by China since 1951, and the little Kingdom of Sikkim decided to become part of India in 1975, when the last king died. Still Sikkim stays apart. To reach the place we needed to get a permit, a sort of "Sikkimese visa" and got a new stamp on our passports at the Indian-Sikkimese border. And Indeed Sikkim is quite different. Cleaner and more expensive, Sikkim is a bit the Switzerland of India, up in the mountains...
 

We arrived in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, on the first day of the winter festival (a week before Losoong, the Sikkimese new year), and were very surprised. The main road in the center is a pretty paved road, for walkers only, with nice banches where to sit, Christmas decorations, people walking around. Loudspeakers on the street plays Christmas songs or some kind of crooners singing in Nepali. Small stands along the street make a Christmas market. A normal town before Christmas, you may think, but somehow surrealistic here.
 

It got even more surrealistic during the night. Gangtok has a rather western nightlife. Except nightclubs are crowded around 9 pm and close at 11 pm. Oh and Gangtok is also very much into karaoke. For the worst and the less worst. And we somehow got involved into a karaoke party. A very weird guy, overfriendly, started to chat with us while we were having beer, and short after that I was singing in Nepali and dancing with his friends. In the same bar, a guy tried flirting with Tince "Sikkimese style" : "Do you like dragons?"

But we didn't stay in Gangtok for the whole festival, as we wanted to discover the west of the country. With Christmas songs stucked in our heads, we left Gangtok to Pelling. A long jeep drive through beautiful valleys. The road was terribly long. In Sikkim you need some 5-6 hours to make 60 kilometers. The road was almost as bad with asphalt than without. But the view was worth it. Crossing from east to west across the hillland, window on Kangchenjunga (3rd highest peak of the world) and the fluffy green hills : Sikkim is really one special place. Jeeps are also a way to meet locals. One man, travelling with fish in a jar, paid the driver with mandarines.

 

When I was child, I imagined adventure looks like a long walk, with heavy bags, crossing mountains with a pretty girl, and stopping to ask villagers for direction or hospitality. Usually it's not like that (more like diarrhea and dirty rooms). But between Kecheopalri lake (pronounced like the Georgian Khatchapuri) and Yuksom, it's exactly how it was. We left the holy lake in the early morning to go up and up until Yuksom. The weather was as great as our bags were heavy. Passing farms, we went down until one river which name I don't remember but it sounded like Rhum Cola. Then, up, up, up. The last kilometers were killing us. More we climbed up (and thought we were reaching the top) and more the hill got higher! But with the help of locals and the tea one offered to us, we made it until the top.
 

Sikkim is one amazing place for the landscape, but also for the pleasures of the mouth. First they know how to use meat and dairy products, which is a positive point. And they make really tasty soups, from nettle, cauliflower and radish leaves. The best soups of south-Asia! They also have less strict laws about alcohol than the rest of India. They make their own drinks. Local Hit beer seemed almost good after 3 months in Asia. We tried also great home fig wine in bamboo mēriņš!
  

Living with monks

This week we lived in a buddhist monastery in the town of Ghoom, 7 km from Darjeeling. Sakya Guru Monastery was destroyed by an earthquake few years ago and now it's being renovated. Every morning we woke up by the sound of bells, drums and mumbling voices of puja, the morning prayer. After a cup of Tibetan butter tea (black tea mixed with melted butter and salt) we worked for some hours painting rooms in orange, beloved color of monks.  We spent the rest of our time with monks sharing the daily rice and stories about Latvia and Tibet.

View from our balcony

 Unusually grey Buddha that still needs to be painted

 Introducing monks to Latvian culture

What the fog !

We left Nepal (after a long journey by local buses) to arrive in Darjeeling, up the hills, on a foggy day. The fog was so thick we only discovered the mountains around after 4 days.

 

 

 

Misty town between the tea plantations. Narrow dark gray streets going up and down (but mostly up). Darjeeling looks like a beautiful British old city ...that was abandonned and let to the care of no one. The place is lively : Streets busy by small markets, people washing outdoor, street dogs, icones of Shiva or Ganesh in the corner... Like any indian town that would have teleported in the middle of a British ghost town, between colonial houses and surrealist clock-tower. And Darjeeling was a British city, founded in the hills after the colonial army took the region around (Gorkhaland) from the Kingdom of Nepal to incorporate it inside the Bengale province. Still people here keep a strong Himalayan identity. Yesterday we had a taste of colonial empire at tea time. Tea and scone in fancy British style house.

 

We really are in love with Darjeeling. The town is tranquil and the people welcoming. The small streets are familiar. The weather is chilly, or even cold when the clouds come down. It feels like home. Here we had opportunity to try not only the best tea, but also the best food! A few good adresses here have put our stomacs in joy after the daal bhat diet of Nepal. In Hasty Tasty, a self-service Indian cantine, we had some of the tastiest Indian meals so far. Everything was good : the thalis, the uttapams, the masala dosas, the malai koftas... And all those great things costed nothing at all! In Darjeeling we also had the best breakfasts at Sonam's and the best beer snacks at Gatty's for something "not Indian".

 

Obviously I can't write about Darjeeling without writting about tea. Here we stand in the Kingdom of Tea. Walking around the tea plantations we enjoyed the rare sunny and warm weather in Darjeeling before to reach the factory. The factory is closed in December but a funny woman welcomed us in her shop to give us a taste of the local tea. Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe Number One is the name of this very special Darjeeling tea, she says with a singing voice. This "golden tea" is not really black, and not green either. Very mild. Its preparation is the most impressive. Only 2 or 3 seconds in boiling water and the tea is ready. The woman threw the boiling water through the tea, and that was done! From Darjeeling's tea leaves are also made green and white teas.

From today we'll be in Ghum, a village near Darjeeling (7km). A recent earthquake demolished a buddhist temple. We proposed our help to the monks and so we'll spend the next week with them working together. And to reach Ghum, a short ride in the Toy Train!