How it started…..

It must be about ten years ago when I first heard of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. It was a Saturday, I was at work – in those days I had a shop – when I started chatting with a man who had come in to buy something. I can’t remember exactly how we got on to the subject, but he told me how he had spent quite a bit of time working and living in India and how he had visited this beautiful island, at that time almost unknown in the Western World but known in India. He described how unspoiled it was, how it was not very commercial & how the mixture of rain forest, sandy beaches & crystal clear water made it one of the most beautiful places he had ever visited. The place that he stayed in was run by a couple, the husband was Indian and the wife was Canadian. He had his own cabin on the edge of the rain forest, right by a beach and said that the combination of Indian hospitality and Western standards made the perfect combination.

The more he told me about this place, the more I wanted to go there. Within a short period of time, I knew that when Jackie and I got married, that’s where I wanted to take her for our honeymoon. After we became engaged, I asked Jackie to trust me and let me plan a honeymoon without telling her where we were going. I wanted it to be a complete surprise and not tell her until we were literally at the airport. Amazingly she agreed! I managed to keep the destination a secret for a couple of years until a friend, who I had confided in, unwittingly gave the game away when he bought us a book on the islands, not realising that I still hadn’t told Jackie (thanks Chris!)

Anyway, here we are a while later, Jackie and I are now married, and our honeymoon has become a reality – albeit a year late due to other pressures & commitments.

In addition to visiting the beautiful Island called ‘Havelock Island’, we have decided to travel on to mainland India, take a train through the mountains to Darjeeling, and spend a few days amongst the hustle and bustle of Delhi.

I’ve decided to write this blog to record my thoughts as we visit a country that has a rich and diverse culture unlike other places I have visited. I’ve always taken quite a few pictures, but never bothered to actually record my thoughts, so here we go…….

Introduction

First of all I should show you where the Andaman & Nicobar Islands are. This map should give you a rough idea;

Although they’re part of India, the are actually closer to Myanmar (used to be called Burma) and to Malaysia. Whilst you can visit the Andaman Islands, the Nicobar Islands are pretty much closed, except to government approved research visits. Apparently there are tribes on the islands who have had virtually no contact with the outside World, and the Government want to preserve their way of life for them.

The area was actually near the epicentre of Tsunami that hit on Boxing Day back in 2004, but wasn’t as badly affected as some other areas.

That’s the end of the geography lesson!

So, our itinerary is:

• Fly from Heathrow to Delhi
• Fly straight from Delhi to Chennai
• Get a connecting flight to Port Blair (the only large town on the largest of the Andaman Islands)
• Get a boat for a couple of hours to Havelock Island (arriving about 23 hours after we leave London)
• Spend 7 nights on the Island
• Get a boat back to Port Blair, and spend a night there.
• Next morning, get a flight from Port Blair to Kolkata,
• Get a connecting flight from Kolkata to Bagdogra
• Take a car from Bagdogra Airport to the town of Kurseong
• Spend a night in Kurseong
• Take the narrow gauge ‘Toy Train’ from Kurseong, up into the mountains, ending up in Darjeeling.
• Here we’re going to spend 3 nights, enjoying the views of the Himalayas and hopefully visiting some interesting places.
• After this, it’s a Jeep ride back to Bagdogra airport! where we’ll take a flight to Delhi
• 3 Nights in Delhi should give us the chance to see some sights, experience the hustle and bustle of the Capital, possibly visit the Taj Mahal, before flying back to London.

Sounds like we might need a holiday after all of this!

My plan is to post about things that I notice so that when I look back in a few years time it will jog my memory and remind me about the times we’ve had during this trip. It’s not to give a blow by blow account of every thing that we do and every meal that we eat. I’m not sure if I’ll post every day, or even if once we get there I’ll bother at all. If anyone else other than me ever reads this, I hope you will appreciate that this is merely one person rambling on about a trip taken with his wife to a place he has wanted to take her to for a long time. It couldn’t be further away from any type of travel guide if it tried to.

I guess it’s just about time to go…………

Jonathan

PLEASE READ THE LOWEST NUMBERS FIRST

#22 Coming home.

I’m writing this at about 33,000ft, onboard a British Airways 747 currently over the southern tip of Russia I think, looking out the window at a landscape of jagged snow topped mountains. Jackie has just told me that they look like iced buns with icing dripping off them. We were the last ones on the plane, despite arriving at the airport In plenty of time we underestimated the Indian’s love of paperwork and their high levels of security checks. It took us an hour and a half to drop off our baggage, go through a passport check (which in the UK only happens when you enter, not when you leave) and then go though their security. The queues moved slower than the Toy Train after it has run out of fuel.

Being escorted off the premises at our Delhi hotel

Having gone through the metal detector arch, I went through the obligatory hand held detector and frisking routine. Everything was fine until the security guard found the small bottle of hand sanitiser I had in my pocket. It almost blew his mind. What was it, what did it do, where did I buy it. England? Really?

The view from the plane on the way home

This is my last post whilst travelling, I may do one very last one in a day or so, after I get home and have had a chance to reflect on our trip. I’m aware that since I started this, my attitude has become more negative and perhaps cynical. When we arrived in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands I had had no experience of other parts of India. No exposure to the differences in attitude, to the cultural or religious differences. To the wealth and the poverty. We’ve been away a mere sixteen days but it seems a lot longer. There is no point in trying to compare our first week with our second. Or even the first few days of our second week with the last few days. We wanted to see different faces of India, and we believe we have done so. We’ve definitely not seen all that it has to offer, good or bad.

Writing this on the plane

From the comments I’ve read, I know that other people, friends and family have been reading this. I started this purely for my own reasons, I thought that this was going to be a trip that I would want to remember, but not just remember in a picture postcard way, but in a way where I could remember how it made me feel. In a few years time I’ll know if I’ve achieved this. I’ve written it from a personal perspective, but it’s been based on what Jackie and I have done together, what we have both thought and what we have spoken about.

I’m generally not one for going back to the same place once I’ve been there. I believe that there are so many places to visit on this planet that by going back to the same place, I’m missing out on somewhere else. Will we go back to India? I don’t know. I’ll think about it and if I post in a few days time I’ll put it in writing so that I can remind myself sometime in the future.

For now I’m going to switch off my iPAD, look at the mountains below me as we pass them by and head towards Central Europe, and focus on Christmas at home with our family.

#21 Mixed feelings.

The morning seemed to disappear. We wanted to check in online for our flight home, since on the way out we were lucky to get two seats together, but this could only be done within 24 hours of the flight. Combine this with breakfast, a bit of writing and a walk round the parts of the hotel and before we knew it, it was lunchtime.

We decided to walk to Connaught Place, a few hundred metres from our hotel. This is the business and shopping hub of Delhi, apparently. As we stepped out from the hotel, it began.

We couldn’t walk for more than a few paces without someone hassling us. Tuk tuk drivers and taxi drivers tried to frighten us, telling us it was too dangerous to walk and they would take us safely for only a few rupees. Person after person asked us where we were from, how long we had been in India, and how we should ‘go down that road for the shopping mall’. Everyone assumed that we wanted to go shopping. Everyone tried to send us down some side street to the shops, everyone seemed interested in where we were from and how long we’d been in India. I guess this was the first time that we’d ventured out on our own in the busy streets of Delhi, and after a few minutes I was starting to feel a mixture of paranoia, frustration and anger. I became tired of being polite and I was starting to get wound up for the first time. I became suspicious of everyone who tried to talk to us, kept thinking that we were being followed and became very conscious of all those around me.

I had mentally told myself that this would happen, therefore it came as no surprise, but when small children approach you either begging, trying to sell you a cheap bic biro, or offering to clean your shoes for a few pence, pleading with you, it’s hard. They only approach tourists since they are ignored by their own. What do you do? Do you ignore them? Do you give them something? Does it truly help if you give them a few pence or does this in fact make the problem worse, since if it’s seen as an effective way of making money, the practice continues, often encouraged by the adults who send them out there in the first place. I have to admit that I walked past, my feelings of anger being redirected at the people that allow this to happen in the first place. Whatever I had done, and however I had justified my actions, I wouldn’t have liked myself for it.

Connaught place consists of a circular park in the middle, with three roads running in concentric rings around it. They are called the inner, middle and outer circles. We walked around the inner circle, the buildings initially looking almost Italian, white buildings with covered walkways outside supported by columns. Almost Roman. The shops were a true mixture of some well known high quality brands, mingled with some cheap tourist and clothes shop. Along the covered paths were street sellers, selling their cheap souvenirs and imitation goods. Occasionally we would find a stall that actually seemed to sell some reasonable items, but if we showed any interest they would pounce on us. They seemed to know just about every word in the English dictionary except ‘no’.

A blurry view of of the Inner circle

The need for a toilet forced us to go into a bar, up on the first floor above some of the shops. Obviously we only needed to use the facilities, but it would have been rude if we had done so without partaking in some of their finest golden fizzy refreshment. This had a positive effect, since as we returned to the hustle and bustle of the road, we were more relaxed and our paranoia had subsided. After another dozen or two strangers had informed us that the Government emporium for shopping was over there (each time pointing in a different direction), we ventured down a slope into an underground bazaar.

At one of our toilet stops 🙂

At this point I’m going to go a little sideways and tell you about the Indian security measures. As we walked down the slope into the bazaar, we had to pass through ‘security’. This consisted of a metal detector arch like you might find at an airport, followed by a man and woman standing there with a hand held metal detector. The man waved the detector around me before waving me through and the woman took Jackie behind some shabby screens, waved a detector around her, gave her a quick grope (I jest not), admired some shopping that she was carrying and then waved her through. The reason I mention this is because it happens everywhere, and it’s complete nonsense. The amount of places that we’ve been where you go through the same thing. Nearly every time the detector will go off and they will ignore it and wave you through. At Bagdogra airport, there was a security check at the top of some stairs. We took the lift since we had a trolley with luggage, this bypassed the check altogether. At a shopping centre in Darjeeling there was a check going in. We went into a shop next to the entrance, and then out the back door straight into the centre bypassing the security. Even if you did go through security, you could have walked through with a sign saying ‘I’m a terrorist’ and carrying a bazooka, and they’d still look at you and wave you through. What’s the point!?!

Anyway, back at the bazaar we adopted the well proven technique of not making eye contact, plus we mastered the dismissive ‘no’ with a wave of the hand. It was relentless, in this underground warren of stalls, all selling cheap counterfeit brands, we were approached every second or two by someone who was calling out ‘excuse me, excuse me, we have very good jackets very cheap, come in and see, it will look very nice on you’. One of the penalties of being European.

Getting a Tuk Tuk back

After another couple of ‘toilet breaks’ we made our way back to the hotel for our last evening in India. We took a final Tuk tuk ride through the Delhi traffic and pulled up outside the hotel a few minutes late. Tomorrow we would be heading home. Tonight we were going to have a nice meal in the nice restaurant, enjoy our nice room and have a nice sleep. We were a little sad that it was time to  leave India, but happy that it was time to go home, to our family and to Christmas.

#20 The rise of Angelina

With only two days left in India, we decided that we wanted to spend one day sightseeing in Delhi, and the other visiting the Taj Mahal. After all, we couldn’t come all this way and not see it could we? Having only arrived the night before we hadn’t been able to arrange the 200+ km journey to Agra, where the Taj Mahal is, so we decided to do the sightseeing instead. The hotel concierge arranged a guide for us and a taxi to drive us around. Our guide ‘Vijay’ met us at the hotel, we jumped into another black and yellow roller skate, but a nicer one than the night before, and headed off.

We started at India Gate. This is a large sandstone arch, built very much like Marble Arch in London or l’Arc de Triumph in Paris. It was designed by the famous English architect Edwin Lutyens who designed a lot of Delhi and was put up by the British to commemorate all who died in the First World War. The Indians now use it for a very similar purpose with thousands of names of Indian servicemen who have died in the various wars. Standing at the arch, you could look all the way down the straight road in theory to the Presidents Palace almost a mile away, a bit like standing at the end of the Mall in London looking at Buckingham Palace. I say in theory because there seemed to be a permanent mist in Delhi, reducing visibility. Vijay was a licensed tour guide and as such he had a good knowledge of not only the city, but the history behind it. In the past, history has not been an area that I’ve been particularly interested in, but learning a bit more about the Country, how it works, and understanding a bit more about the troubles that we hear about in the UK, but that I for one have never really understood was surprisingly interesting. From the way that I understand it, there seems to be some really basic issues with the Indian government system. In theory it’s very similar to the UK system, with elected politicians, their equivalents of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, they even have a figurehead with the President, like we have The Queen. Part of the problem seems to be that the President changes every five years, and is appointed by the Prime Minister. The President has to sign off any new laws, therefore they always agree with the Prime Ministers party and whatever his party wants, gets pushed through. There is a reputation of corruption which makes the UK MP’s expenses scandal look tame beyond belief. All of the MPs are driven around in white cars, live in nice white houses and dress in white suits. White is supposed to symbolise purity. There have been calls for change, and demonstrations, but so far, nothing seems to be changing.

India Gate, Vijay insisted on taking pictures of us all day.

After this we visited the government buildings, drove past the Red Fort which is an absolutely huge 16th century fort with Palaces inside, built by the same Shah who had the Taj Mahal built as a memorial to his wife, and then visited the city’s largest Mosque. I can’t say that we found this a particularly friendly place, but it was quite amusing. First Jackie had to put on a, well I’m not sure exactly what it was, but it was a shapeless flowery wrap around dress to cover herself up. We then had to remove our shoes before walking across the inner courtyard, paved with slabs, decorated by pigeons. Vijay isn’t Muslim! and whilst he was happy showing us the mosque! it became evident that he wasn’t that keen on the Muslim religion. He’s a Hindu, and Hindu’s are very tolerant and peaceful. He gave us the impression that Muslims are quite the opposite. Whilst he was telling us all about the mosque, we noticed another crowd starting to hover near us. Please don’t tell me that our new celebrity status had spread to the mosque as well?

A typical Vijay picture of us at the mosque, check out Jackie’s ‘dress’.

Vijay and Jackie outside the Government buildings

Vijay then finally explained why we were getting so much attention. In fact let me just correct that, he explained why Jackie (or Angelina as I now like to call her), was getting the attention. People were fascinated by her pale skin and blond hair. They wanted to talk to her, have their picture taken with her and ask her name. At one point I’d managed to negotiate what I considered a fair price for her, but no, she didn’t seem that keen. That’s the problem with these diva’s, it’s always about what they want!

Having ‘thanked’ the two deaf and dumb men who had provided Jackies fashion statement and guarded our shoes, we were taken on a little bicycle rickshaw ride around a few of the alleys in Old Delhi. There are two very distinct parts to the city, the ‘Old’ and the ‘New’. The new part was designed by the British originally, and features wide roads, trees and is where the shopping, business and more affluent areas are. The old part was the original 16th century part and you can instantly see the difference. Our rickshaw took us down these small alleyways, one was well known for selling Jewellery, another for selling items for weddings. Each alleyway was about eight feet wide and each shop,was only about six feet wide. There was shop after shop all selling solid gold and precious stones. Many were wholesalers selling out to the trade. The alleyways were teaming with people, rickshaws and even motorbikes, many with three people on, beeping and making their way through the crowd. Why we were on a rickshaw rather than walking I don’t know, it would have been quicker to walk. Our ‘driver’ spoke a bit of English and gave us a few pointers as we crawled along. The wedding alley was a really colourful place, each of the narrow shops full of bright decorations, wedding outfits and all of the paraphernalia needed for an Indian wedding. Most of the shops were completely open fronted, and many had a false floor, a kind of platform that was about a foot or so off the ground. Usually the shops proprietor would be sat, cross legged on this platform with many of the goods spread out around him. Other items were hung from every bit of wall and frontage. It was a place that was crowded, noisy but full of life. For once there were no cars which was a bonus.

Down one of the alleys

Wedding decorations if one of the shops

Our rickshaw peddler was happier than he looked

We returned to our taxi and started the journey towards the place where Ghandi was cremated. On the way we drove past one of the slum areas of Delhi. Having come from the smarter ‘New Delhi’ to ‘Old Delhi’ this was another difference that we noticed. Right by the side of a main road were buildings that were beyond being condemned for demolition, they looked like the demolition had already started. Buildings that had obviously once been complete homes, many brick built, now stood with bits of walls missing, open fronts, and a real hotchpotch of bits of wood and metal forming basic shelters for the people that stood around watching the world go by. Suddenly we saw the side of Delhi where people had no shoes, tatty and grubby clothes, no sanitation and even just surviving is a challenge. I could only imagine how different their aspirations are to ours. We may want the best things in life, the latest gadget, the nicest food, the trendiest clothes – they just want to eat, have shelter and survive. Thinking back to what Vijay had been telling us about the government, it made me angry that they can allow their own people to have to live like this. The mentality is different. These people seem to be almost invisible. Those in white suits with white cars and white houses seem happy to let things carry on, so long as it doesn’t affect them personally. I’ll be the first one to admit that the UK benefit system is open to abuse, that I get fed up when I hear certain stories about people who contribute nothing to society but suck as much out of it as possible, but if the alternative is no welfare system where people have to live like this, there’s no contest.

We arrived at a site where we were told that important people are cremated. I’m not sure if the tradition is limited to purely Hindu’s or all religions here, but the deceased are cremated out in the open, near to the banks of a river, using wood as the fuel. Ghandi, being considered the ‘Father of the Country’ holds a special and almost holy place in the heart of India. His cremation site, once an open air space, is now contained within a stone compound, with a large marble table where he was actually cremated. Every day hundreds of people come to visit the memorial, to see the eternal flame burning and to know that they are within a few feet of the ashes of the man who did so much for his people. We had to take our shoes off before entering the compound, a theme very common in India, even back on Havelock island we were expected to remove our shoes before going into the bar, restaurant, our villa or any space that could be considered indoors.

Ghandi’s ashes are under this memorial at the spot where he was cremated

Leaving the tranquil compound we made our way back to the taxi. On our way, ‘Angelina’ experienced The ‘Papparazzi’ like never before. First groups of young schoolgirls all came running up to her, wanting to shake her hand and ask her name (one even asked my name! Whoopee!), then groups of older boys, in their mid, late teens all crowded round her, wanting their picture taken with her, just asking for ‘one more picture’. At first I thought it was highly amusing, but then it honestly started to get a bit too much. Vijay was talking to them in Hindi and telling them to back off and we almost had to drag her off to the taxi. I was even considering throwing a jacket over her head to cover it – this was nothing to do with her being bothered, it just seemed like a good thing to do at the time. Anyway, with Jackie now a lovely shade of embarrassed red, we led her to her limousine (Indian style) and left – but not before Vijay had had a go at the security and police for not controlling the crowds properly!

Angelina with some of her fans

They just wouldn’t leave her alone

She’s even a role model to schoolgirls

The last two stops of the day were to a showroom that sold authentic Kashmir products and to the largest Hindu temple in Delhi. At the first a very hard sell salesman tried to sell us rugs, pashmina’s, jewellery and other items. They were excellent quality, with a hand made rug taking over one year to make and the pashminas being the genuine article made from the wool from the beard of a Kashmir goat, but to be honest they were expensive, we didn’t want any, the salesman was too pushy and we suspected that we were only there because Vijay would get a commission if we bought anything. I did buy a woven silk tie which was cheaper than the UK, but that was all.

The Hindu temple was interesting. I’ve never been to one before and didn’t really know what to expect. We had a thirty second overview of the Hindu religion from Vijay, who worships there every day, before being shown around. Having been to the Muslim Mosque earlier, both Jackie and I felt a lot more comfortable in the Hindu temple. Apparently Hindus always have two statues of an elephant in their house. One has the trunk down, and the other the trunk up. the trunk down symbolises ‘welcome’ in the same way that to welcome us they would hold their hands together almost as if they are praying and then bow their head, and the trunk up symbolises ‘prosperity’. We made a mental note to bring home an elephant with its trunk up!

Vijay offered to help arrange our trip to the Taj Mahal, until he suddenly realised that we would be going on a Friday. Friday is a holy day, and as such the Taj Mahal is closed. We couldn’t believe that we had come all of this way and it looked like we weren’t going to be able to see it. Resigned to the fact that there was nothing we could do about it, we  thanked Vijay, dropped him at a metro station, and went back to the hotel in our taxi.

I guess we now had tomorrow to fill with whatever we wanted.

#19 Finally, we see it.

As the plane broke through the clouds, what was a warm but slightly overcast day became the clear, bright, sunny day that you’d expect to see at this height. We were sat on the right hand side of the plane. As I looked out the window, I could see the snow capped mountain peeks that we had been looking at for the last three days pierce through the cloud, looking like ragged icebergs floating in a sea of cotton wool. Flying above the clouds isn’t an unusual experience, but flying above them at about 30,000 ft and seeing a land mass poke through them roughly to the same height is. I recognised the peak of Kangchendzonga and the other slightly smaller peaks around it, but then, as I looked to the left I saw the one peak that we had really wanted to see – Mount Everest. Seeing the highest place on Earth, not from the bottom, but level with the top was certainly not something either of us expected. If we’d chosen seats on the other side of the plane we would have missed it. I took some pictures through the small window of the aircraft but with limited success. The main thing was that we had seen it and could appreciate the scale of it. Even at the highest point that we went to at Ghum we were still only about one quarter of the height of Everest. When you next stand on the ground and you see the trail left across the sky by a high flying aircraft, imagine that the top of Everest is roughly level with that plane and it will give you an idea of how high it is. We watched out the window as we gradually left it behind.

The view from the window

Icebergs in a sea of cotton wool

The equally astonishing thing was the scale of the Himalayas generally. We were flying at hundreds of miles per hour for a couple of hours, and the mountains never left our side. They kept the plane company on the entire flight to Delhi.

This wall at Delhi airport reflects the sound back to you in a weird way as you walk past it.

We landed at Delhi for the second time this trip, and made our way out the arrivals hall to the booth operated by the Police where you can prepay for taxi journeys. We’d been advised that this is the best way, since tourists can often be ripped off by taxi’s. Here we paid the sum of about £4 and took our voucher outside to our designated taxi. In this case, our taxi was a black and yellow roller skate that looked like it should have been scrapped years ago. It was one of those tiny van/mpv’s, that was ancient. One case fitted in the back ok, the other case was jammed in with the gas bottle that fuelled it. Bearing in mind that this was a police approved taxi, I just can’t believe how it was allowed on the road. The shredded seatbelts in the front were tied in knots to stop them flapping around, obviously we didn’t have any in the back, that would just be a ridiculous idea. It rattled and creaked, and as we pulled away we both smelled a whiff of gas that made me wonder if our case had been jammed in a bit too much. What came next was an eye opener.

I’m aware that I’ve gone on a bit about the drivers and driving over here. Whatever I’ve said in the past, whatever criticism I’ve made about drivers and driving, please ignore it, I take it all back. Nothing compares to the Delhi traffic and driving, particularly in rush hour. It’s on a scale all of its own.

Rules go completely out the window, just like the toxic gas fumes from the taxi. I’m not sure that I can even explain it. If you’ve ever played those games in seaside arcades, the ones where you put a 2p piece in a slot and then it falls down on to a moving table at the bottom, you may understand. In the same way that the coin bounces left and right as it hits the pins on the way down, finding a path through, not always in a straight line, but always in the same basic direction, the cars, buses, trucks, bikes, tuk tuk’s, motorbikes, tractors and even a rotorvator pulling a trailer made it’s slow way along the roads. Forget the notion of lanes, or giving way, if there is a gap, no matter where or how small, if they can get all or part of their vehicle in it, they will. It’s an absolute free-for-all. Our little taxi was squeezed between vehicles, dashed out in front of lorries, cut off motorbikes and generally went anywhere that it could fit, plus a few that it couldn’t really. At one point the traffic stopped again, so all of the motorbikes rode up on the pavement and zoomed along, missing pedestrians by inches. Again, nobody batted an eyelid, not even the pedestrians. I have never experienced driving like it. The whole journey, which probably lasted about half an hour, was spent just sitting back, being a spectator, watching the madness around me. I had already realised that Indian drivers are incredibly impatient, but this was something else.

We pulled up at our hotel. It was different again to other hotels that we have stayed in so far. We were met by the uniformed doorman, dressed in the kind of Indian uniform you may imagine from years gone by. Smart long tunic jacket buttoned up to the neck with a red turban on his head. Without asking our name our bags were whisked away only to magically reappear later on, delivered to our room. The entrance foyer was very large with the ceiling about four stories high, some expensive looking shops around the edge, glass lifts inside and basically looking like an expensive western hotel. We had decided to ensure that our last hotel would be a nice one since when we booked them, we weren’t sure exactly what the ones at Kurseong and Darjeeling would be like. When we checked in the man at reception looked on his screen, tapped away on his keyboard, and told us that he had upgraded our room from a nice one, to one of the best ones that they have. I have to admit, that sitting in that room this very minute writing this, not only am I grateful, but the fact that I don’t have to sit in a freezing reception to upload this makes it all the better. We’re on the 17th floor, which is a bit weird really since the floors jump from 3 to 10, I really don’t know what’s happened to all the numbers in between. In a way it’s a shame we’re not here for longer, just so we can make use of all the facilities here.

Our room in Delhi

After a decent hot shower and a snack in the ground floor bar we turned in for the night, sleeping on a bed that’s so soft that when I first sat on it, it was like sitting on quicksand. I just seemed to sink into. We decided that the next day we’d do a bit of sightseeing.

#18 It’s all downhill from here on.

We were being picked up at 9:00 to be driven the three hour journey from Darjeeling back to Bagdogra airport. Or rather we should have been picked up, except for the fact that the receptionist at the hotel had forgotten to write in their book that we had arranged for a car. I had just enough time to upload another post before a driver turned up for us at about 9:30.

Driving back rather than going on the train was completely different. The driver would point out things that we didn’t know about and suddenly we were one of those vehicles that had passed us on the train, horns blaring. As we drove out of Darjeeling, remembering the long walk that we had taken along this very same road in search of the monastery that we believed we had seen from the train, we passed the monastery! Not only was the person who told us that there wasn’t one wrong, but if we had walked for another few minutes we would have reached it. The driver was surprised that we had gone that far and turned back since he told us that it was over 6km back to the town. A 12km walk and we still didn’t see it!

We passed two points on the drive where flatbed trucks with water tanks on the back were filling their tanks. The water was coming from two streams. The drivers would deliver water to homes, hotels, cafés etc. for 10 rupees per 50 litres (about 11p). This is where most people got their water from. There was also piped water available – municipal water – but not only was this unreliable since it often stopped flowing, but it cost about 6000 rupees per year (about £62). We had seen the spaghetti like network of pipes all over the town providing water, with people filling containers wherever there was a leak. Knowing the attitudes to rubbish, it made us glad that we hadn’t been tempted to drink the water.

A plumbers nightmare – some of the pipes in Darjeeling

We travelled the same journey that we had travelled by train, but this time a little faster. It was no less scary though since the narrow roads and sheer drops did nothing to stop our driver from overtaking whenever he had the chance. The drivers here are incredibly impatient, if anyone pauses, they use their horn, if they drive fractionally slower than it’s physically possible to do, they try to overtake.

We passed two trains on the narrow gauge track as we were driving back. Fortunately they were travelling in the same direction, since that would definitely be a game of chicken that wouldn’t end well (I doubt that it would stop them from trying it though).

We reached Kurseong, where we had spent a night on the way up. At this point, rather than take the small road that we had travelled up on, we took the main road that had previously been congested. This was in fact a new stretch of road, only a few years old. The old one had been damaged by the landslide a few years ago that now prevents the train from running the whole route. Rather than repair the damage to the old road, the government used it as an excuse to use more concrete and build a new one. The bit that I don’t understand is that they built a brand new road, that twists and turns,with hairpin bend after hairpin bend, down very steep slopes – and most of the way they built it wide enough for just one vehicle. No wonder there were always problems.

A final look back at Kurseong, to the less congested side of the hill and the mast that seemed so distant on the way up.

Our driver explained how the locals believed that the Government weren’t interested In the people who live in the hills, and how the people had been campaigning for years to become a separate state within India, rather than part of West Bengal. The people in this area consider themselves as Gorka’s and want their area recognised as Gorkaland. Just a few miles away is Nepal, and most of these people originated from there, and the Gorka’s or Gurkha’s that live there. They do however consider themselves different to the Nepalese Gurkhas that we see so many of around where we live.

This new road wasn’t great for me, how they think that a four inch high concrete curb with a few stones stuck in the top will prevent a car from plummeting down a 1000 foot drop I just don’t know. This still didn’t prevent our driver from overtaking anything in front whenever the road was wide enough.

The roadside crash barriers at one of the milder sections of the new road

We eventually reached flat land and made our way through the dusty mayhem that we had seen on our way up. Past all of the teak carvers and the huts on sticks to finally arrive at Bagdogra Airport. Having gone through the usual performance we went through to departures and with a couple of hours to kill due to a delayed flight we found the restaurant. It was crowded so a waiter showed us through to what appeared to be the airport meeting room, part of the official offices. We were sat at one end of a meeting table big enough to seat about fifteen people and served the best Chinese food and beers that we had tasted for ages.

The airport’s boardroom table. First beers for days, plus good food.

The flight to Delhi was a good one. Jet Airways was definitely the best of the internal airlines that we’d flown with. We took off from an overcast Bagdogra and climbed up towards the clouds. A few minutes after we broke through the clouds, I peered through the window, what I saw will stay with me for a long time.

#17 Anyone for tea?

With a slightly dodgy tummy, I really didn’t fancy Indian food for breakfast, so I was really pleased when we could order toast, omelette and beans for breakfast. We both just wanted something fairly plain and not too seasoned or spicy. Admittedly I think that the Indian chef had real problems understanding that we didn’t want anything spicy that morning, since despite ordering two cheese omelettes, one came out complete with chillies and other seasonings in it. I guess our idea of plain and the Indian idea is different.

The following two days tended to follow a similar pattern, up for breakfast, spend some time in the lobby trying to upload this blog, go for a walk, return to the hotel, do some more of my blog, have dinner, go to bed.

Once it was dark, there was nowhere really for us to go so we tended to stay in the hotel. The down side was definitely the fact that inside the hotel there was really only our room or the lobby to spend time in. The lobby was bitterly cold and our room wasn’t that much better. It did usually warm up by about the time we wanted to go to sleep.

During our daily trips out, we did see some interesting places. One day we walked for miles in search of a centre where Tibetan refugees make all sorts of traditional goods. The roads around there are hard to follow, so we never did find it, but instead ended up in a park called ‘Nightingale Park’. This public space had a fantastic view, and compared with the roads and the town was remarkably peaceful. There weren’t cars trying to mow us down and car horns continually blowing. There were groups of school children singing and playing drums, bells and other instruments.

Children in Nightingale Park

The park offered a bit of tranquility away from the cars.

The centrepiece of the Park

We also climbed the long and steep path to the top of the hill behind the square. Here we found Hindu shrines and a small temple. Colourful flags everywhere, lots of people and at one point without really realising what was happening we were both blessed and a red dot put on out forehead in the traditional Hindu way to signify that you had received a blessing. Admittedly the holy man did want some money afterwards. We had seen a few beggars whilst walking around, but the path down from the hill was the first place where there were rows of them all asking for money as you walk by. It’s difficult to know what to do. On one hand you of course want to help, on another, the cynical me is suspicious and says no, if I had a third hand it would probably realise that there are so many beggars that by giving to one, not only are you not making any difference, but also opening a can of worms since you will get even more hassle from the others once they see you giving. The decision was made easier since as we passed a couple of women, they pointed to us and started laughing. It made us think they were laughing at us and encouraged us to keep on walking.

Had Jackie been blessed, or was there a sniper with a laser sight about?

On another walk, Jackie was keen to go to a monastery. We believed that we had passed one on the train as we entered Darjeeling so we started walking out of the town, following the rail tracks. After quite a long time, we asked someone who told us that there wasn’t one. We turned around and headed back to town. So far we weren’t having a lot of luck finding places.

One trip that was definitely worth it was a trip to a tea garden. We took a taxi to the Happy Valley Tea Estate. As the taxi driver drove us there, we seriously started wondering if he was taking us to the right place. The roads were incredibly narrow, very steep, unmade and passed through little settlements. We reached a dead end and sure enough, there was the tea factory. There was a sign saying that we couldn’t take any pictures. The building looked like a large wooden shed, painted in a washed out blue colour, about four stories high. We walked across a bridge and entered the building on the first floor. We heard a voice calling us to come upstairs further, whereby an elderly man welcomed us and asked if we wanted a tour. He was really helpful and interesting as we waited in a room for our guide to arrive.

An American couple arrived, and a German man, so all five of us waited together. When the guide arrived – a man probably in his thirties- he started by taking us to the part of the factory where the leaves are first brought in. Over the following 40 minutes or so he told us all about how the leaves are grown, picked and processed into the tea that we know. In this part of India, they don’t produce the black tea that we might drink at home, you know, the ‘milk and two sugars’ type. Darjeeling is famous for the very delicate teas that you drink without milk. It was fascinating to hear about how all teas are made from the same two types of bushes. Either the Indian bushes that are found in other parts of India, they have larger leaves and produce the tea that is more common in the UK, or the Chinese bushes which are found in Darjeeling, these have smaller leaves and produce the more delicate teas. All of the teas that we hear of, green teas, white teas, dark teas, all come from the same leaves, it’s the way that the leaves are treated that makes the different teas.

The season is currently over, so the workers carry out maintenance work, either on the factory, or on the gardens themselves, such as pruning etc. Some of the bushes are over 100 years old and still producing fine tea. Nearly all of the people who actually pick the leaves are women. Apparently men are too heavy handed and damage the leaves. They really do treat the leaves incredibly gently throughout the process.

Happy Valley exports all of its tea, since there is no market for it in India. It’s produced organically to a very high standard and is too expensive for the Indian market. They export over 70% of their tea to Harrods in London, the rest they send to Japan, Germany and America. They have just started to allow visitors to the factory to buy small quantities when they visit, but this is the only place in India that it’s available.

It was too cold to go white water rafting, as we had hoped to do before we arrived here, so the rest of our time in Darjeeling was pretty uneventful. The ‘celebrity status’ that we had first experienced with the women in Port Blair continued in small doses, as we were stared at quite a bit and a couple of lads from South India wanted us to pose with them for photos. As I said before, it’s a bit strange since we weren’t the only white faces around.

All of the time that we had been in the town, we had been looking out at themountains, uncertain if we were in fact looking at Everest or not. Whilst walking back to the hotel one day we called in to a photographic shop and bought a long panoramic photo of the mountains that had their names on it. It turned out that the mountain we were looking at was in fact called Kanchenjunga, which after Everest and K2 is the third highest mountain in the world. Everest is about 260 metres taller, which when you consider the scale of things is pretty insignificant. To see Everest we needed to be on a particular hill on a clear day. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be.

Kanchenjunga, the Worlds 3rd tallest mountain after Everest and K2

All in all, we were glad that we came to Darjeeling, the scenery was magnificent and the train journey was memorable, but the three days that we had here were certainly enough. We were a little disappointed that we hadn’t found a monastery and the cold inside the hotel when the sun went down certainly tainted our enjoyment. In addition the amount of cars, the way it was built up and the continuing attitude to rubbish was nothing like we were expecting. On a positive note, I now hoped that my few hours with an upset stomach would be the only ones that I would have, and that when visiting the capital of the country on our next stop, Delhi Belly would be no more than a vacant threat.

#16 Breathtaking……. literally

Our attic room looked lovely, wooden walls, cosy lighting, open fire with towels on the bed folded to look like two swans kissing and making a heart shape with their necks. From our windows we could see the mountains and the sun was shining.

Our first impression was lovely

We decided to go for a walk and headed to ‘The Mall’ which we understood to be the area full of little shops and interesting places. Dodging the cars we walked for a few minutes until we were walking in this busy area that certainly had a few shops there, but again wasn’t quite as we were expecting. Quite a few shops sold Indian crafts & souvenirs, some sold cheap clothes, and there were a few places to eat and drink, but none really looked appealing. We carried on walking until we came to an open area a bit like a square. Around the square were some more shops, selling Darjeeling Tea and more Indian crafts, plus there were a few ponies that looked like they’d had a hard life, that were obviously there for tourists to ride.

The square

Behind the square was a hill, literally a round mound with steep sides and trees. We started to walk along a path that led from one corner of the square and went along one side of the hill. There was a steep and long drop on the other side of the path that led down to the valley below. We could hear bells ringing from the top of the hill and realised that there was some kind of temple on the top of it. The path itself had a number of traders with their wares laid out on the floor, mainly selling jumpers, hats, gloves and a few souvenirs. There was also someone with a cart selling food. We’d seen these before in Port Blair, it looked like there was a large clear sack of potatoes on the cart, but in fact they were actually more like round hollow Yorkshire puddings. People would buy one of these, the seller would fill it with various things, mainly vegetables and some sort of pulses, before dipping it in what looked like a large dirty plastic jar like you see loose sweets in, full of what can only be described as dirty washing up water complete with bits. People were happy to buy this ‘fast food’, and hygiene was obviously not a concern at all. Unfortunately seeing this didn’t help me because for the first time since we’ve been here my stomach was making a few noises and after a few minutes it became obvious I was going to have to dash back to the hotel. There aren’t many public toilets around, and the only one that we’d seen was nasty. As I was rapidly heading back, Jackie stopped to look at some small monkeys that had appeared on the path. One in particular had a baby which was laying on it’s back, with the parent tickling it’s tummy and playing with it The baby was then scooped up and simply clung to the parent whilst the parent leaped up onto thin metal railing that was there to prevent people walking over the edge of the path.

The path around the hill

A bit of monkey business

I made it back, and decided to walk up the stairs to our room on the sixth floor, or as we would call it in the UK, the roof. I may not be the fittest person at the moment, but by the time I reached the top, I was completely out of breath. Jackie was the same. We saw some other Europeans in the hotel walking up the stairs and they too were out of breath. We then realised, Darjeeling is 7000ft above sea level, and at that altitude the air is thinner. With less oxygen to breath, and not being used to it, we were finding physical exertion made us breathless really easily.

After six flights of stairs, the final walk to our attic room

We didn’t really do much else that day, we were a bit tired. There’s a wifi connection in the hotel, but it’s not very good and only available in the reception area. This was the first chance I’d had to upload any of the posts that I’d written so I spent quite a while there trying to do it. There were a few issues that meant it took me ages, but the main issue was the cold. As soon as the sun goes down, the temperature drops. There’s no central heating in the hotel, and I don’t think the locals feel the cold like we do, but it was freezing in the reception. They had the doors wide open, no heating and I sat there with a fleece and my coat on and still almost froze. I could barely use my fingers to type.

The hotel itself could be really nice, but they just seem to get it wrong somehow. They’ve obviously spent a lot of money on the hotel inside, but then the whole place is like a fridge. Stone, marble and granite all over the place doesn’t exactly help it warm up, and the only heating you find anywhere are small fan heaters. This is one of the more expensive hotels that we are staying in, albeit still reasonable by UK standards. They provided us with,slippers and bathrobes, but one of the bathrobes looked worn and grubby. They came and lit a fire for us in our room, but the room had become so cold that the fire didn’t really do too much, and there was only enough fuel for the fire for about an hour. It was almost laughable, that a day or so ago we had been in tropical temperatures, and here we were, huddled up in bed wearing whatever we could to keep warm.

For the first time since we arrived in India, I did something that I rarely do on holiday, I put the TV on and sat in bed watching the film ‘Django Unchained’ while Jackie read and dozed off.

#15 Feeling on top of the World

I drew the short straw and made the dash for the heater. It was too cold to think about a morning shower, even though the authentic antique plumbing tried to tempt me. A taxi was picking us up at 6:30 to take us to the station so we made our way down the ramp – did I mention that from our floor to the ground floor was a big ramp instead of stairs? As we walked out the door and glanced across the yard to the rusting VW Beetle that was perched on the roof of the porch of the door opposite, we saw in the far distance, a small snow topped peak just above the nearby hills. This was our first siting of the Himalayas, but it was only the merest hint. We climbed into the mini van, it was one of those tiny vans but with seats and windows, pretending to be an MPV. Having picked up a friend of the drivers on the way to the station, we arrived with about fifteen minutes to go before the train left. We had our tickets to buy, which was a bit of a challenge since the tiny porthole that was pretending to be a ticket office was closed and locked. As we stood there thinking about what to do, people started lining up behind us. Before we knew it, we were at the front of a queue and felt pleased with ourselves that we had shown so much initiative. Of course, if the office didn’t open and the train left without us we were going to feel like idiots, but this is India, something would happen – eventually.

Starting a queue

Our carriage awaits

There were two carriages lined up at the platform, one was first class, the other second (or possibly cattle) class. The first class carriage had about fifteen seats in it. Each seat had definitely seen better days. The other carriage had about five rows of bench seats in it. We bought our first class tickets for the sum of 190 rupees each (about £2.00). We found out that the second class cost 30 rupees each. This was for a journey lasting two and a half hours. The train itself is officially called the Darjeeling Hill Railway, but it is known as the Toy Train. Not only are the tracks very narrow, but the engines look like they have been through one of my Mothers ‘annual boil a jumper wash’ or in Jackies case, ‘let’s put the dry clean only trousers from your best suit in the wash’. You know the ones, things go in one size, and come out another. Usually in my case they come out suitable for a munchkin to wear. The trains look just like full size trains – but smaller. The steam trains are only used for a small section of the route now, for tourist runs. These were left here by the British in the 1800’s when the railway was built to exploit the difference in price for potatoes between Darjeeling and Siliguri. Cheap potatoes were moved by train from one place and sold for more money in the other. The train was built almost like a tram, in that the tracks were laid along the main route, in fact along what is now more or less the only road through the hills. The tracks follow the main Cart Hill Road, running along it’s edge, crossing over it from time to time and running right through the towns and villages that it passes, just like a tram does. It’s not exactly fast, so people have plenty of time to get out of the way as it approaches, particularly as it sounds it’s horn or whistle almost constantly. Due to a landslide a few years ago, the train now only covers about half of the distance that it used to, this is why we had to drive to Kurseong to catch it rather than get on it near the airport that we landed at.

The ticket office finally opened, and despite being first in the queue, we still had to fight to be served due to the impatience of the people around us, wanting to push in at the front. It was almost painful watching our tickets being hand written into a ticket book, in duplicate, whilst the impatient queue behind us crowded round to ensure that as soon as there was the slightest hint of a gap, they could push their way in there. With ticket in hand, we made our way, complete with suitcases towards the first class carriage and got on board.

The train that was pulling us this day wasn’t one of the steam trains, since this was not officially a tourist trip, it was a munchkin like diesel locomotive. Having coupled itself to our carriages, it reversed us out of the siding where the station is, across the road, and then moved forwards again, this time following the tracks that ran along the manic road through the town. The night before this road had been all hustle and bustle, now it was relatively quiet, except for the diesel locomotives horn blasting away every few seconds to warn people that if they were within fifty feet, they only had about half an hour to get out the way. I did say that it wasn’t very fast didn’t I?

Following the road through every village

Over the next couple of hours, the train trundled along at a fairly steady pace, constantly climbing. The scenery that we saw was fantastic. Huge valleys, planted with tea bushes stretched for miles. The hillsides were either covered with trees, or yet more tea bushes. Ahead of us we could see villages on the tops and sides of the hills with houses built where I just wouldn’t have thought that it was possible to build. How did they stay there? At times the train was so close to the edge that I just couldn’t look out the window, the tracks may have only been narrow, but the carriages were wider and at times it felt like had I decided to open the door and step out, my feet wouldn’t have touched the ground for about thirty seconds. Each time the train trundled up to a village on the top of a hill we thought that we couldn’t possibly go any higher, then we would go round another bend, see another hill several hundred feet higher a couple of miles ahead with a village on top, and know that we would soon be there. The peace and tranquility of the surroundings was constantly shattered by either the sound of the trains horn, or the sound of cars going past us all using their horns. I understand why the train follows the road, but it’s a shame.

As we went round one bend, still going uphill, we were faced with an amazing site. It was our first proper siting of the Himalayas. It was a clear day and the snow capped peaks, still a long way in the distance, shone in the morning sun as they rose and towered above everything else. There was a wisp of cloud around the highest peak. We could only see a relatively small stretch of mountains considering how vast the range itself is, but nevertheless the sight just made us stare at it, realising where we were and what we were looking at. Apparently it’s possible to see Everest from Darjeeling and one of the mountains was definitely very tall. Was this Everest that we were looking at? We continued to stare as they went out of sight, hidden behind a hill as we went around yet another bend.

We arrived at a small town called Ghum where we were told that the train would stop for about five minutes. As we got off to stretch our legs, a small, frail looking Indian man,a bit scruffy around the edges, who had been in the carriage with us started chatting and telling us about where we could get some Chai if we wanted it (this is the sweet white tea sold all over the place by street sellers) and also about the railway. I think he was working for the railway, but to be honest it was hard to tell. Ghum is the highest point on the railway and in fact the station is the second highest in the world, at a height of 7407ft. Whilst Jackie nipped off to use the toilet, the man almost dragged me off and took me into the little rail museum next to the station. Having learnt that we are from England, he wanted to tell me all about the steam trains that were left here by the British, and insisted that he take my photo with me on one of the engines that was built in that well know English City of Glasgow. When the horn sounded, we had to run back to the train, only to find out that Jackie wasn’t back. The train was just about to leave but she was nowhere to be seen. My Indian friend called something to the driver, waved his hands a lot, said to me that he would find her, and ran off in the direction of the toilet. All of the time the guard was looking anxious and muttering in Hindi. Jackie came running up the platform, followed by my Indian friend and jumped on the train. Within seconds the train raced away from the platform……….well, not exactly raced, more like pulled away at speed, in fact, it really pulled away at a speed that even if Jackie had missed it, she probably could have drunk some Chai, visited the museum, had a nap and still caught up without breaking a sweat.

The highest station in India, and second highest in the World

The photo taken by my Indian friend

As we started the gradual decent towards Darjeeling, I became grateful for the fact that the train was so slow. We went through places where the turns were tight, the drops were extreme, the bridges looked less than robust and had we been going any faster I don’t think my, er I mean Jackies nerves could have taken it.

My first impression of Darjeeling as we entered it, to be honest wasn’t great. I had this picture in my mind of a fairly tranquil, rural place surrounded by tea gardens, overlooked by the Himalayas. A gentle place. This couldn’t have been further from the truth. The town was very built up, with houses and buildings on every part of the hillside. There were cars and 4×4’s everywhere and it looked pretty tatty. We said our farewells to my Indian friend and caught a taxi to the hotel. It’s hard to tell if you’re getting in a taxi or just the car of someone trying to make a little money, but we climbed into this very small car and told him where we were staying.

We checked into our hotel, which having seen others as we drove past was quite a nice one. We had booked a room right at the top of the hotel, almost like an attic room. It looked great when we booked it, much better than the rooms in the rest of the hotel.

We were shown up to our room, we had to walk out of the main part of the building onto a walkway which was basically on the roof and led to the two attic rooms. Right by this walkway was a raised platform with a few chairs on it. This was the sun deck. We walked up onto the deck and looked at the view. From here we could see right across the valley below, past the hills opposite, and there, in their full glory were the snow topped Himalyas, still shining in the morning sun. I know it sounds corny, but it almost did feel like we were on top of the world. We felt so high up, the chill in the air, the drop below us, the hours of travelling uphill and the view of the mountains. So long as we didn’t look over our shoulder at the mass of tatty buildings on the side of the hill behind us, it was magnificent.  It was still only 10:00am.

On the sun deck

The mountains

Is this Everest?

#14 You take the low road and I’ll take the high road….

Having decided not to take the main road, the road started to get narrower and a little bumpy. At the same time it became obvious that we were going uphill. I was amazed by the number of cars and vehicles that came the opposite way as we started to climb at a steeper angle. The road itself was initially surrounded by tall trees on both sides but after we had driven for about ten minutes, the road became even narrower and more twisty and I noticed that the trees on one side were getting shorter and shorter. They appeared to be shrinking before my very eyes. I realised that in fact what was happening was that the land was dropping away to the side of us and we were now driving up a very narrow, bumpy, steep road right on the edge of a hill. Initially this seemed ok, but now the road became very steep and rough and every time that a vehicle came towards us we would have to both slow and squeeze past each other. Sabin knew the width of his vehicle to the nearest millimetre, which unfortunately meant that at times he would drive incredibly close to the edge, in fact sometimes so close that it felt as though half the tyre must have been hanging off the edge.

We followed this winding twisting half made road for almost two hours. Sometimes the drop would be on Jackies side, sometimes it would be on mine. When it was on my side I found myself sliding over towards Jackie, obviously it has nothing to do with my fear of heights, I simply wanted to be close to Jackie. Strange how it always seemed to be when the view from my side window looked like it had been taken by Google Earth. It’s really hard to describe the drop as we drove higher, all I can say is that base jumpers jump from less, looking at the land below it looked like it does when you look out of an aircraft window about five minutes before landing. All of this time I was trying to take in the absolutely magnificent view. The sun was shining, and across the valleys between the various hills we could see all of the tea gardens, neatly planted.

Whilst navigating our way in a little two wheel drive mpv, Sabin was telling us all about the area, about how some of the tea gardens started and the history behind them. Most of them were originally started by the British back in the 1800’s. They discovered that the area had the perfect climate for growing tea and so they brough tea plants from China and started the first ever tea gardens in the Darjeeling area. It’s the only place in India that uses Chinese tea plants which are different to Indian tea plants. The British also believed that the area was great for recuperation and recovery due to the air and the climate and so it became popular with the British in India. Sabin told us stories for pretty much the entire two and a half hour journey, all of the time casually driving, sometimes almost too casually, as we made our way up to places that I found hard to believe a car could go. Jackie wasn’t keen on me asking questions because every time I did, he seemed to be looking at me in the rear view mirror with one hand on the wheel rather than concentrating on the road. Sabin had been driving this road for fifteen years, so I was hoping he knew it pretty well.

As we made our way higher, we could smell the tea bushes when the breeze was blowing in the right direction. We stopped at one point so that Sabin could show us the lemongrass growing at the side of the road and so we could take a couple of pics. The pictures just don’t do it justice, or show the scale of the scenery.

Halfway up the hill, the picture just doesn’t show the scale well.

Going still higher we noticed the temperature starting to drop. We had been in tropical temperatures for the last week and so the difference became really noticeable. The air seemed to change as well. It seemed to become more refreshing to breath, it wasn’t just the fact that it was colder, it was crisper and fresher as well. The easiest way to describe the difference is to imagine the air on a stuffy day just before a thunder storm, and then the air just after the thunder storm has finished. We put on fleeces and left the window open to enjoy the smell of fresh air. It’s so rare to breath truly fresh air that when you do, it does almost seem to have a smell.

We eventually pulled up at our hotel. The view was amazing! It was a little misty so we couldn’t see as far as we would have liked, but on one side of the hotel we could see the valley that we had just driven up, and on the other side the valleys and the hills between us, Darjeeling and then the Himalayas. We were told that on a clear day you could see the tops of the mountains. Unfortunately the clouds were rolling in forming a mist around us so that we were denied our first glimpse of the mountains.

The view from the front, looking over the valley that we had just driven up

We had picked this area since it was from the town of Kurseong that the ‘Toy Train’ left, made it’s way through the hills and ended up in Darjeeling. It’s called the Toy Train because the tracks are only 2’0″ wide (about 60cm). The trains themselves are either very small steam trains or on the longer routes now, small diesel trains. Our intention was to get the train for the last part of our journey to Darjeeling. We picked this hotel since it seemed reasonably nice for the area, but also a little quirky. It used to belong to an English man named ‘Cochrane’, and was called ‘Cochrane Place’. Inside was a strange mixture of antiques – based around tea and trains – and each room was unique, either being as it was originally in the 1800’s, or themed due to something famous or memorable that had happened in the history of the area. It also had a restaurant. We received a warm welcome, but unfortunately that was about all that was warm. We were really starting to notice the temperature difference and the electric heater placed in our room did little to help. Our first cup of Darjeeling tea that was offered to us helped warm us though.

Part of the hotel, taken standing on the roof of the floor below.

We decided to take a stroll into the town since we were just outside it. Neither Jackie nor I fully appreciated what this entailed. We started to walk up the hill in the direction that we were told and were almost immediately mowed down by a speeding 4 x 4 coming the other way beeping it’s horn. This was to become a regular occurrence. If anyone had told me how many vehicles there were, right up here in the hills I wouldn’t have believed them. We were over 5000ft above sea level now, in a remote place built on the side of what would be called a mountain if it was in another part of the world, and we come across a traffic jam. I really do mean a traffic jam! Had we not have come along the road that Sabin had suggested, but had taken the main Cart Hill Road instead, we would have been stuck for a couple of hours. Apparently the area is known for its boarding schools, children are sent to them from all over India. It was the last day of term and all of the children were being sent home. There were continuous streams of vehicles coming and going, with horns beeping and drivers squeezing past each other. Having only two roads, the Cart Hill Road and the one that we were walking along meant that all of the traffic was concentrated and fighting for road space. As we walked further and got closer to the town, we suddenly saw the scale of the place. We were expecting a small collection of houses and a few small shops or stalls. What we weren’t expecting was to see literally hundreds of houses built onto the steep sides of the hill.

There wasn’t a single part of the hill that didn’t have a building on it. How they build these houses, and how they stay there defies logic. Seeing some of the part built buildings though we realised that good old concrete played a major part. It was quite a long walk to get into the town itself, along the way we saw what was to become another theme for the trip – rubbish. It was everywhere. There were no bins anywhere and people literally just dumped their rubbish wherever they could. A particular favourite was to find somewhere with water running down the hill, and tip your rubbish into it. We watched as people just threw waste on the floor as they walked without even thinking. Here we were in a naturally beautiful part of the world, and man is ruining it firstly with concrete, but secondly with rubbish. It was offensive.

We came into the part that was built up and noticed a small alleyway between buildings that was lit up by stalls and small shops, so we climbed the stairs and wandered along it. Here we saw stalls selling vegetables, spices, clothing – and even mobile phones. We continued through the alley and came out on the main through road, the Cart Hill Road again. The place was buzzing! There were people everywhere, the cars were still fighting their way along beeping their horns, people were shopping, talking, eating, avoiding being run over. We walked across the road, over the train tracks (I’ll tell you about these later) and up another alley that we could see led to a market. When we got there it was more like we would imagine a market to be. Not only were there food stalls, but people selling spices, clothes, ornaments, rugs and many other things. There was one small ‘shop’, I use this term loosely, where people were sat making jewellery and hand engraving gold bangles. It was fascinating to watch, but Jackie and I didn’t fancy the look of any of the eating places so decided to head back to the hotel. It was now dark and finding our way back the couple of miles that we had walked, in the pitch dark, along a pot holed road with sheer drops at the side at times was…….. interesting. Ironically it was actually made easier by the headlights from the many vehicles that were still coming and going.

The thin alley with shops and stalls

After dinner we went to our room. It was almost funny because it was so cold that we wore whatever we could to bed to keep warm. We didn’t want to risk leaving the electric heater on overnight, it looked as though it would fall over any time and set fire to the rug. It was going to be an early start again since we wanted to get the 7:00am train rather than the afternoon one, the question was, which one of us would brave the cold in the morning to get up and put the heater on to heat the room up?

#13 Look at the legs on that………… building!

We checked out of the hotel at 6:15 am. The receptionist seemed keen that we didn’t miss out on our complimentary breakfast, so as our driver arrived to pick us up, Jackie was given a bag with what looked like two cardboard cake boxes inside. We later discovered they contained a packed breakfast for us.

The fifteen minute ride to the airport was the craziest one yet! We were getting used to the style of driving, the fact that the rear seatbelts never worked and that unless the horn is used at least once every five seconds you’re obviously not moving, but this driver was exceptional. At one point a car coming towards us actually went between us and the car we were overtaking! Nobody batted an eyelid, and to be honest it didn’t concern us too much either by this point.

Port Blair airport is a very small airport. Basically one small terminal building with arrivals and departures separated by a waist high crowd barrier. After the obligatory passport checks and having made sure that we had read the notice about not taking sabers or lacrosse sticks onboard and that we had checked any guns that we might be carrying in as hold baggage, we went through security to the departure lounge. It wasn’t long before it was announced that we should proceed to gate one for boarding. A few moments before, another flight also boarded from gate one. In fact, it appeared that all flights were boarding from gate one. Obviously a very popular gate I thought as I looked around and discovered that there is in fact only one gate. Perhaps the airport has delusions of grandeur calling the only gate ‘gate one’ in the hope that one day, a second gate will appear and they won’t have to waste any money getting a new sign for their existing gate? Whatever the reason for this, we passed through gate one and got on the antique bus for the 30 metre journey to the plane.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful. We touched down a couple of hours or so later at Kolkata airport. This is a pretty modern and nice airport, but it doesn’t have a lot in it. I’m glad that we weren’t there too long. It was a bit frustrating though because I wanted to start uploading this blog since this was the first place where I could get internet. After attempting three times to buy some wifi access – which by the way I think I’ve been charged for – and not being able to connect, I huffed and moaned and boarded the next flight to Bagdogra.

This was a short flight, only a little over an hour. As we were taxiing to take off, we turned and as we turned I saw another plane coming in the opposite direction towards us. “Bloody hell”, I said as I pointed this out to Jackie, “even the aircraft over here play chicken”. Fortunately we both turned in opposite directions, we took off and headed for Bagdogra.

Landing the other end, I noticed that the airport looked like an old military airfield. As we came to a stop it was announced that taking photographs was not allowed and could result in a prison sentence. A bit harsh for a few snaps of some old buildings if you ask me. We had arranged for a driver to pick us up from our next hotel, about 35km away, and as we were walking to the car he told us that this is still an active Air Force base with jets, and that there is a lot of Army presence in the area. The war between India and Pakistan in the 1970’s ensured that this area is considered an important military area for India.

The drivers name was ‘Sabin’, and as he drove us through the urban area from the airport, it became obvious that he wasn’t the same kind of driver that we had become used to. He drove more carefully, not as fast and a little more considerately than we had become used to. Over the next couple of hours we would be very grateful for this change in style. There is one main road, the Cart Hill Road, that runs north to south for hundreds of miles. In theory we could stay on this road all the way to our resting place for the night, called Kurseong, and then on all the way to Darjeeling. Sabin however suggested that we should take a different road to Kurseong. He said that it was a few miles longer, but it was a nicer route and would have a lot less traffic on it, possibly saving a lot of time too. As we drove along, we went past small buildings at the side of the road, literally built on thin wooden legs. There’s a drop to the side of the road so people had stuck wooden poles into the ground and built their shops and shacks on them so that they are level with the road. We then went past quite a few open fronted workshops where men were hand carving incredibly intricate and ornate beds out of solid teak. They would cost thousands over in the UK, but here just a few hundred.

One of many. All the beds are hand carved from Teak

A bit blurry, but you get the idea.

Right now, if I wanted to own a business in India, I’d like it to be a business supplying concrete. They love it. Can’t get enough of it. There’s building work everywhere, in fact the whole place as we drove along looked like a building site. It probably accounts for why a lot of the advertising is for one of the different cement companies. As we are starting to move away from using so much concrete in favour of more ecologically sound materials, it’s as though in India they’ve just discovered it.

We eventually left the dust and concrete behind and headed into greener areas. We went past forests of teak trees and the first tea plantations, known as tea gardens, that we had seen. Sabin told us that teak trees can only be cut down with permission to stop them being wiped out, and that if someone is seen ‘poaching’ a tree illegally they can be shot! This also seems a bit harsh if you ask me, but I guess that coming from the UK where we let murderers and rapists out as soon as they say sorry and promise not to do it again, I would think that. A couple of the small towns we went through were basically army towns. Some of the army buildings looked empty, but there was definitely a large army presence there. As we drove past one large field of tea bushes a large range of hills came into sight. I say hills, but they were large enough that in the UK they would most likely be classed as mountains. They looked impressive. Sabin pointed to the top of the tallest one. He asked if we could see the large transmitter tower on top of it in the distance. The tower was obviously pretty tall, but we could just make out it’s red and white shape above the green of the vegetation so high up in the distant hills. When we replied that we could, he told us that that’s Kurseong, that’s where we’re going….