Grace & Pills 'extended holiday' What we be mostly doin - innum

Hello lovely people, how lazy have we been writing this blog...?! Sorry everyone, we promise to try and have less fun and get on with it!
So from 8pm to 12.30am we waited and waited some more for the party train to NJP station - the jump off point for Darjeeling and our jaunt up into the mountains. Thankfully we met some lovely Ladies who were travelling together after having done a stint volunteering with Orphaned Children at a school in Goa. Jen from the UK and Tanja from Germany, it's amazing how quickly the time can pass when you're swopping tales (both tall and short) and it reminded us how everyone has really odd experiences in India - it's most definitely that sort of country. A crazy Israeli lad also kept popping up - that boy leapt across platforms and spoke about 5 times louder than anyone else - not to be missed!
We'd gone right posh for this train journey - 17 hours long (so they said...!) so we went Air Con 3 and then joy we got bumped up to Aircon 2. OMG! The conductor had taken a nice bribe to put people in our bunks, so therefore had to send us up to the 2nd class carriages, no bribe necessary! Loved it! We got proper bunks with sheets and pillows and got fed every 3 hours and all the chai I could get down my throat. How are we ever to go back to the Sleeper carriages?!
I spent a lot of the journey hanging out the open carriage doors watching the countryside wizz past and watching the people going about their business at the tiny rural stations. I was surprised to see lots of very unconvincing transvestites on the platforms - hairy men in too tight, too short Sari's with troweled on makeup... interesting. An Australian chap told me that these guys make a living as the rural people are scared of them and readily give them money, as they believe they'll be cursed (witch style) if they don't. It's a lonely life though as they are venomously shunned by society and their families, unless there's a wedding and then it's good luck for them to be there. Interesting again. I got a nice wave from most of them, so am assuming there was no hexing me!
Eventually got to NJP station and found Jen & Tanja - it's still a 3 hour journey to Darjeeling, straight up a mountain on the tiniest and tightest twisting roads with shear drops and not many passing places. I couldn't decide if I was happy it was dark or not...! We hired a jeep and a Johnny Depp a-like (lovely!) to get us up there - had heard horror stories of shared jeeps - cheaper but they squeeze at least 10 people in and some people hang off the roof... no thanks! We got up there super fast and travelled through the most beautiful thunder and lightening storm that illuminated the sky red and we had the most beautiful views of forked lightening hitting the mountain tops. Most impressive. On the way up our ears were popping and the temperature was dropping - was so glad of my jeans, hoodie and socks!
Decided to stay in the same hotel as the girls as we got dropped there, we're super lazy, the roads are practically vertical and our bags are heavy - so thought we'd make life a bit easier and stay there. Hotel Aliment is run by some lovely lovely people who are so nice and the place therefore so popular that they were almost full. 1 room left for us, it was cheap and you got what you paid for!! No heating and soooo cold, lights off at 10pm at the latest (Darjeeling has an electricity issue) no hot water (we paid for a bucket of hot water in the morning and that was our 'shower') and best of all a Squat box loo!! But come on, we're hardy... right?!
Darjeeling has such a different feel to everywhere else we'd been, the people have a huge range of influences being so close to Tibet and Nepal and there's still huge amounts of British architecture and influence (lots of EMO teenagers, Converse everywhere and rock music playing) They're trying to get their own country recognised as Gorkaland and not come under Indian rule anymore. Walking around was interesting - up steep steep hills and down all the steps in the world! The views were amazing - you can see all the way across to Everest and K2 and then all the way down into India.
Another toilet story I'm afraid (I know you all love to hear of our discomfort really!) As well as there being no electricity, no water toilets are also an issue.... most food / drinks places don't seem to have them and there's only 1 public set off the main pedestrian square (the Cowrastra) believe me, you wouldn't use them unless you HAD to..... a trough with a brick over the top to stand on and NO doors, I had a particularly lovely (?!) conversation with an old lady who had brought her Granddaughter in to see the girl with the funny hair, all this mid-pee. Plus ... I had to pay for the privilege, honestly
We spent a lovely afternoon visiting the Happy Garden Tea Plantation - we all know Darjeeling tea, right. Had a guided tour of the processing factory - I shall never take a good cuppa for granted again, these people really graft and there's so many processes to go through for those humble leaves. We saw the Ladies picking the tea leaves, skipping up and down the shear hillsides with huge and heavy baskets strapped to their heads - amazing. We also got to try the tea freshly picked and processed and sold in Harrods no less (only the best for us!) at the home of one of the tea picking Ladies. She was a proper character, chintz, toy animals, pink cushions and lacy table cloths everywhere and we drank the tea out of a bone china cup and saucer and had to pretend we were Victorian Ladies and be poised by her for photos (easier for me then Pill... plus he hates tea!) I never thought I'd be so interested in tea... must be my age! She sneakily sold us packs of tea - from the workers allowance that the factory gives them for personal use. Shhhh, fair play I thought make a few extra pennies. We had to hide it under our jumpers on the way out!
We spent a lovely evening in the company of a couple of mental health nurses from Leeds, in a pub called Joeys bar. We got through the constant power cuts with many many candles and people playing music from their mobile phones - funny what you enjoy and how people get on with it when they have to.
My favourite and my best was the round trip we did on the Darjeeling toy train. Our joyride (no, that's what they called it, really!) As with all travel in India our 2 hour jaunt ended up being more like 4 hours but luckily Jen and Tanja had brought bourbon biscuits, so we survived. The train carriages are pulled by a tiny little steam engine and run along really narrow gauges, at about the same speed as a slug but the scenery was stunning and even though the train runs daily all the locals were running along with the train and waving. At some points the tracks ran so close to peoples home that I could reach out and steal a cup of tea from their porch (had I wanted to) and when we travelled through the town people were cycling alongside. Everyone is so proud of their famous and historical little train, it was very sweet.
Darjeeling is a place to amble (all be it, wheezing because of the climbs) We saw loads of loveliness but things we just came across rather than huge tourist sights. There were ups (tea, train, people we met) downs (pill being consumptive, latrines and being denied access to the planters club by a sour old dragon-lady) I survived Pill's absences due to feeling shocking and ill by A) having a beer and B) being looked after by Jen and Tanja (thanks Ladies!) - Pill survived by buying medicine (lots of it) from the chemists - where incidentally they'll sell you anything you can only get on prescription back at home. Scary!
We took another jeep back down the mountain to the train station for our train to Kolkotta - got up at 4.00am and left at 5.00am... lovely I'm sure! We did manage to see the sunrise though which was stunning - especially seeing the peak of K2 with the sun putting his hat on behind it. We got there in time for the train but for a few reasons didn't get on it... so spent two forced and unproductive days in dreary transport town Siliguri (trains to Kolkotta were full and buses not running). Found a decent hotel and watched a lot of films! Ahoy to Kolkotta on the evening of the second day. Bring it on! Easy train journey there - even easier for the Dad of the family who were on the bunks opposite us. His wife and daughter hand fed him (then ate the scraps for their tea) took off his shoes, made up his bed, brushed his hair... I couldn't believe it, this man was more than able to do all this himself, lazy man... I told Pill not to get any ideas!! Hello to Kolkotta at 6.30am.
So - in summary, I LOVED Darjeeling, Pill not so much but being poorly can play havoc with your perceptions of a place. The hills didn't help him any! It was lovely to have a sort of curfew at 10pm and not laze around all morning. The people and the place are beautiful and next time in India I hope to have more time and travel that bit further to Sikkim (stunning apparently, the Israeli Lad wouldn't shut up about it!) and maybe to Everest base camp.... must get back in the gym!
 
Hope you're all enjoying the unexepected sunny days and the many bank holidays.
G & P xx