Day 2: Darjeeling

Day 2: 16/10/2011

Day 2 of our trip was to be spent in Darjeeling. The main agenda of the day is to fix up a guide for the trek. A guide is mandatory for entering the Singalila Forest. Otherwise the day was to acclimatise ourselves with the area, have a look around & prepare ourselves for the trek. The altitude in the trek would reach a maximum of 3600 M & altitude sickness was not a worry.

Woke up around 6:00. There is a great clock tower right outside the hotel. I have seen several clock-towers in every city in India & this is the only one which has the chimes working: a musical melody followed by the chimes for the hour.

We went for a morning pre-breakfast chukker to the Chowrasta. I picked up the Statesman & the Telegraph on the way. Didi, Ms. Mamta Banerjee, was the top story. She dared the Maoists to kill her. That was the last newspaper I read for 8 days. The Chowrasta is the mall of Darjeeling. This is where the locals & the tourists hangout. It was early. The ponies were just getting ready & the pigeons were ruling the roost.

We had our first Darjeeling cuppa. The first of many over the next few days. The tea shop had a menu with tea from different estates. Rs. 40 per cup. Darjeeling tea has a light flavour & best had black with no Sugar.

There is a Hill next to the Chowrasta with a kind of promenade around it which comes back to the Chowrastha. We took the walk. The pride the Gorkhas have in their culture was obvious. There were several Busts & Statues of Nepali writers. It is rare to see writers honoured unless it is done under a major exercise such as the one along the Marina in Chennai or the Tank Bund in Hyderabad. There was an impressive white building, tastefully done, which was to be the Gorkhaland Cultural Centre. At its summit was a Globe with a Gorkha Soldier.

The hillside vegetation was already thick & Himalayan. The trees were the tall Himalayan Oaks & Cypress covered in moss & lichen. We also saw a Hibiscus-like flower which we were to see much more of in the coming days.

We went past the Raj Bhavan, an imposing Colonial Era building. I guess it is the Summer Residence of the Governor. As we turned the corner of the hill, we came to the view of the mountains. We had to ask a local immersed in his headphone music to identify Kanchenjunga for us. Of course, it had to be the biggest peak. It wasn't a clear view this cloudy morning. We introduced ourselves to the mountain as we were to visit its neighbourhood soon.

This Sunday was an active day along the walk. There was a Taekwondo class in progress on the road. Another bunch of kids took to the gym equipment on the lookout. The boys shinnied up the poles effortlessly & posed for pictures. There were plenty of joggers. We saw a Hang-glider take off. It did a few turns along the cliff & went down to the valley below. There was a Basketball game in progress in the Tibetan Refugee Central School below.

During our drive up yesterday from Bagdogra, here in Darjeeling & later on in the course of the trek I was surprised by the fashionable look of the people here. The houses may be small, maybe just a room along the road, but the women in even the small villages were dressed with a lot of care. Jeans are de-riguer. Many in Darjeeling wouldn't look out of place in the Metros. Young men had fast, big bikes. With their sleek helmets, they could be from a Hong-Kong movie. The school kids were most impressive. Girls in fashionable skirts, not the dowdy skirts of the schools in Hyderabad. Even the smallest schools had children with ties & sweaters. Their socks were all pulled up high. I could never get my daughter to keep her socks pulled up.

Most of the folk here are Nepali, Sikkimese or Tibetans. Down-country folk are few. I rarely saw the signs of poverty or ill-health one sees in Indian cities. People are lithe & athletic. They are invariably cheerful & eager to help. Of course they are also beasts of burden. They carry huge loads on their backs up steep hills. I saw a man take a steel almirah up steep stairs. A sling hung back from the head is used to carry the loads. Labourers carry around the slings as part of their equipment.

We had taken a liking to Ramesh, the soft spoken taxi driver who had driven us from Bagdogra. When he suggested his friend as a guide for our trek, we were glad to interview him. His name is Pratap. We negotiated the program with him for a 6 day/ 5 night trek with accommodation in Trekkers' Huts included in the rate. He seemed a cheerful person with a desire to please. He adopted me as his Dad & called me Dads throughout the trip. Cheeky, considering he was 37 years old. We start at 6.00 a.m. tomorrow.

The rest of the day was for sight seeing. High on the agenda was the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. We set out after breakfast. It was a 30 min. walk from the hotel. The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute & the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoo share the same campus & the same ticket. Padmaja Naidu was the daughter of Sarojini Naidu & one of the earliest Governors of West Bengal.

The HMI conducts residential courses on Mountaineering. Those passing the basic 28-day course can go on to Mountaineering Certificate Courses. We were there on a Sunday, in between courses. The dorms & the offices were empty & I met a forlorn looking student from Vizag who had ventured to come a day earlier but wasn't given accommodation until commencement day.

Tenzing Norgay is remembered here with a Statue unveiled by Edmund Hilary. The HMI itself was inaugurated by Nehru in 1954 & has quite a history. The HMI museum consists of 2 levels. The lower level has displays on Mountaineering Techniques and Gear. Just looking at the display of the man in a sleeping bag in icy surroundings gave me tremors. Who are these people who venture into these extreme conditions? There was a Plaster-of-Paris display of the entire Himalaya with the rivers. A panel of switches with names of the peaks & the rivers. You turn on a switch next to Indus & the path of the river lights up. I learnt that the Himalaya refers to the entire range & the plural Himalayas should not be used. The second level was devoted to the expeditions of Everest & Makalu.

The Himalayan Zoo specialises in Himalayan Animals. The Clouded Leopard is a very rare animal & it was having its Sunday Siesta. So was a tiger which the visitors were trying their best to disturb. The Red Panda is a nocturnal animal. There were several here & all were walking around very restlessly.

We went back to the Chowrasta in a shared Jeep. The shared Jeep is the life-line of the Darjeeling area. There is no public transport. Could be that the roads are too steep & narrow for buses. There are two ways of walking here. You could walk on the road which follows the ridges with its switch-backs. Or you could climb the steep & narrow steps from one ridge to the next. There are houses & establishments along the stairs. Water pipes run along the stairs & drainage runs below the stairs.

Lunch was a the Hasty Tasty. It is run by the owner who looked straight of Karol Bagh in Delhi. His crew was all local. The place was always crowded. The food was tasty but not hasty. The tables were greasy & so was the food, but it was Veg.

Post lunch, we thought of taking the toy train to Ghoom. Unfortunately there wasn't one till

much later. But we enjoyed the the view from the station of Darjeeling along the curve of the hill. There was a eye-catching Siva Temple near the station. The temple architecture here is quite different from that in North & South India. A brother & sister were the only occupants of the temple & they were doing their homework. The sister did the Aarati for me.

The shops with trekking gear was a surprise. Bacpacks, Sleeping-Bags, Shell Wear, Water Bottles. All were available & did not seem expensive. A trekker could spend a day getting kitted up before setting out.

Vasu did not want dinner & by the time I set out towards the Chowrasta it was striking 9. Darjeeling closes promptly at 9:00. The Road to Chowrasta which was choc-a-bloc just an hour ago suddenly started getting deserted. I was shunted from one cafe to the next as they closed their doors. I ended up at a small Tibetan joint run by a burly, greasy but cheerful couple for a huge bowl of Noodle Soup. I hurried back to the hotel to finish my packing under Vasu's supervision. Tomorrow is a big day.