Q: What's the shortest distance between a pleasant day and a horrible headache?
A: Trying to use the internet in 3rd world countries.
Thus our travel stories have become a bit few and far between. I believe the last time we left off we were on our way to Pokhara, Nepal to begin a four day trek to some hot springs.
Trekking is really just a fancy word for walking, and walk we did. We walked up rocky slopes, down even rockier slopes, through lush jungles, and past beautiful waterfalls and rivers. We walked all day for four days, only breaking to let literally hundreds, perhaps near thousands, of sheep, donkeys, and cows pass us on the narrow trail. (See the photo of Cherisse dodging the herds.)
The landscape was a mixture of green and yellow rice terraces being worked by colorfully clothed men and women, and small villages built on jagged rocks. It was in these villages where we would spend our nights. On average paying about 60 cents for a room with a beautiful view of the Himalayan landscape. At the end of our journey, when we were sure we could take no more we soaked our bones in some nice hot springs before returning to Pokhara.
From Pokhara we bussed to Raxaul in India, getting out of Nepal just before our visa expired. Curtis stayed in Raxaul and left the next morning for South India. Cherisse and I took an over night bus to Patna. Our bus arrived at 4 in the morning in the pitch black. We got a rickshaw to a hotel where our driver had to wake up the security guard who was sleeping on the outside steps of the hotel only to tell us there were no rooms available. We repeated this process about 5 times before we really started to panic. It was just starting to look like we were going to be sleeping on the streets, true Indian style. But we found a crappy little room that we overpaid for and managed to get a bit of sleep. That night we took an overnight train to Siliguri where we then jeeped to Darjeeling.
I suppose the most noteworthy thing to site here is the absolute uncomfortablity of any transportation here. Your knees are stuck up against your face, not to mention the face of the person crammed in next to you, and it's a miracle we aren't both sporting black eyes from the bumpy roads tossing us around.
But Darjeeling was finally the place where we were just going to relax for a week or so. It's a hill station high up in the Himalayas with one main street running through town and the houses and hotels built teetering on the steep slopes. Upon arrival we went walking through the dark looking for a place to sleep and it was then that we saw what I think is maybe the most spectacular thing I have ever witnessed. Standing on the edge of a hill we looked out into the dark unable to decipher any difference between the hills and sky. The houses dotted the horizon with only the light coming from them to show their existence, and these lights faded right into the night sky. Staring out at it it seemed as though you were floating in the void of space with stars surrounding you on all sides. It was quite an experience.
Now we have spent the last few days wandering around the area. Relaxing and reading, visiting a couple of monestaries, and eating fine meals and drinking fine Darjeeling tea. This morning we woke up at 4 am and jeeped to the top of Tiger Hill where we watched the sunrise come up over the valley. From the hill we could also see Mt. Everest! Wow! What a letdown! We aren't exactly too close to it here in Darjeeling and it was probably the smallest peak out in the distance. Perhaps we're just a bit jaded from a summer living in the mountains of Alaska. But none the less we have spotted the tallest mountain in the world. Bragging rights are ours!
Well, we have another few days here to hang out and prepare ourselves to get back to the crazy parts of India. On Saturday we head South to Pondicherry. What next? Stay tuned...
