Coloured Impressions of India

"A stint in India will beat the restlessness out of any living creature.”

Street Market and 'Red Fort' in Jodhpur

India assaults all the senses in every imaginable way – through the ears, the nose, the eyes. In his excellent novel “Life of Pi,” Canadian author Yann Martel writes that “a stint in India will beat the restlessness out of any living creature.” 

Sometimes I feel that we travel because of a restlessness that we can’t seem to satisfy at home. In India I certainly don’t feel restless – just beaten – by the ceaseless noise, the brain-piercing scream of the horns, the roar of the tuk-tuks, the tap, tap, tap of a small hungry child’s fingernails on the car window. The pain reaches right inside your head and it never stops, even if you plug your ears.

I look at the girl’s pleading eyes and I feel her pain; I look away and I feel guilty. I ignore her hand-to-mouth gestures, begging for money to eat, and my guilt subsides, but her pain is seared into my brain and it won’t go away so easily. And so it is with the pain of India. It is everywhere, like the beggars on the streets. You force yourself to ignore it, but it doesn’t go away.

On the Streets

And it’s impossible to ignore the smells, the pollution, the garbage, the burning sandalwood of the funeral pyres. The ever-present sacred cows, contentedly eating their plastic-wrapped garbage, leave not-so-tidy reeking piles on the streets. In the older parts of cities, the not-so-holy pigs root through open sewers looking for something to eat.  In some parts of India the stench of rotting garbage, cow dung and sewers is overwhelming. I’m thankful for my cold that blocks out some of the smell and for the surprising discovery that all you can smell at the burning ghats in Varanasi is the scent of burning wood. The rich can afford exotic nice smelling woods, the poor get ordinary firewood. Thankfully wood smoke is all we smell.

Sacred Cows Feeding

The guidebook describes the older parts of Jodhpur, in Rajasthan, as more “authentic” than some of the other cities in India. Translate this to mean open sewers, cows rummaging through garbage piles, packs of dogs, screaming motorbikes and belching tuk-tuks racing through the narrow laneways. Dodge a bike and you might step into the open sewer.

"Blue City" of Jodhpur

But, in spite of the smells and the chaotic streets, India treats the eyes to a marvelous kaleidoscope of brilliant colours. In Jodhpur, the Indigo blue walls of the ancient “Blue City” contrast sharply with the dark red of the massive Mehrangarh Fort on top of the 120-metre red rock plunked in the middle of the brown desert. The fort, built in 1459, is one of the most impressive in India and is very well maintained. Inside its imposing thick walls are several palaces with royal palanquins (litters), shiny jewelry, and delicately carved stone latticework, cleverly angled to allow the women of the palaces to see out without being seen.

"Red Fort" Merhangarth

Intricate Detail of "Red Fort"

On one massive wall of the fort you can see the imprints of cannonballs and on another the handprints of the wives who sacrificed themselves by immolation (sati) after the death of the Rajah.

Handprints of the Wives

Nearby is the Jaswant Thada mausoleum, so stunningly white it almost hurts the eyes in the bright desert sun.

And everywhere in this city in the very traditional state of Rajasthan, women flit about like butterflies in their brilliantly coloured saris. In the market or even working in the rice fields, they wear their best, brightest saris. At weddings, they dress up a bit more by adding gold trim to the saris and gold bracelets around their arms and ankles.

Buying Saris in the Market

We were fortunate enough to witness a traditional wedding ceremony at our hotel. The child bride and groom arrived on a white horse preceded by a marching band with horns and drums. Over a thousand guests in gold-trimmed finery feasted at tables set up around the lawn. This extravagant opulence was quite a contrast to the poverty and hunger we saw elsewhere.

Bride and Groom

Band and Procession

Some Men Wore Turbans in Respect of Groom

Wedding Guest in Gold Trimmed Sari

Earlier I had helped the cooking staff peel corn for the feast and watched as they prepared massive amounts of curries and gravies and rice in huge cauldrons on open fires. Unfortunately, I broke off the long stem of the corn cob, which resulted in much hooting and laughter at my "mistake." I learned that, unlike at home where we use picks to hold the hot cob, they use the stem as a handle to eat the corn.

Peeling Corn

Preparing the Wedding Feast

The Outdoor Kitchen

The wedding families were from the Krishna, or “peace” sect, and no onions or garlic could be used in the cooking. Sadly for us, they don’t allow alcohol either.

December is wedding month in Rajasthan, so we saw and heard several of these ceremonies every day until we left this state. The noise of the bands, the music and the compulsory fireworks kept us up at night.

The brilliant colours continued into the desert. Driving through the countryside, we passed irrigated fields of bright yellow mustard, dark green winter wheat that had replaced the rice, and white cotton. I spotted a rice factory where they were burning piles of rice hulls. Curious about the process, I asked the manager if I could tour the plant to see how they processed rice.

The tour was conducted in Hindi, but I managed to decipher the following. They burned the hulls to create hot water and steam to clean the rice. It was then funneled through a series of tubes that took it to drying belts and then to a computerized optical scanning machine that sorted the rice into the proper shoots for packaging either for local consumption or export. It was modern, clean and quite impressive given the antiquated methods used for growing and harvesting the rice.

Turbans of Rajahstan

In our rambles through the countryside around Jodhpur, we drove through a small village on market day.  Here the Rajasthani men all wore traditional brightly coloured turbans. They wrap metres and metres of coloured cloth around their heads, the pattern and colour of cloth changing according to their caste or religious sect. The overall effect of saris and turbans in the marketplace is a riot of colour that is so distracting you forget about the cow paddies or the screaming motorbike that grazes your elbow as it races through the narrow, crowded market laneways.

Wrapping the Turban

Market Day in Small Village

Marketplace in Jodhpur

Down a dusty brown dirt road, we came upon a farmer’s hut. The patriarch was an opium drinker and offered to perform the ritual of cleaning, filtering and drinking the opium. He said it was not only legal in India (which is true) but that it was safe, and invited me to join him. His glazed eyes told another story, however, and I politely declined. His daughter showed us the traditional mud and cow dung hut that they lived in and offered us some masala tea, which we also declined. But even here, in the middle of the arid brown desert there was colour.

Glazed Eyes Tell a Story

Preparing the Opium Water

Opium Drinker's Hut

A little further down the track, we came to a weaver’s compound. The head weaver explained the process, gave us a demonstration and told us about the caste system. I never knew there was a weaver caste, but he said he could only marry someone from the same caste and actually worked side by side with his wife to create beautiful traditional dhurries or handmade Indian rugs.

The Dhurrie Weaver

Weaver's Wares

He offered us tea and laid his creations out on the ground for us to see. Having drunk his tea and seen the rugs, Carolann, of course, just had to have one. We bought a lovely blue one as a Christmas present for her brother and sister-in-law Mary and had it shipped home.

On the road we passed a woman in a purple sari carrying two bright silver containers of water on her head. In Udaipur, we saw a traditional dance performance where one adept carried 10 water jars on her head. In the town of Chittorgagh, we saw a young child in a bright red costume with a smaller vase on her head. She was balancing on a tight rope at the side of the road to entertain the crowd and raise money for her family. She swayed back and forth in time to the music as her apprehensive father stood below waiting to catch her. At one point she dropped onto a tin pie plate and slid across the rope on her knees.

Water Bearer

Young Street Performer

We drove from Jodhpur to Bundi and passed through an area populated by followers of the Jain religion. On the way, we stopped at an incredibly delicate Jain temple, again brilliantly white. Every marble column, arch, wall and ceiling was intricately carved with depictions of gods, demons and symbols. Here the absence of all colour was dramatic.

Sheth Anandji Kalyanji Temple

Interior of Jain Temple

In Bundi, we discovered another “Blue City” and another fort, smaller and less well preserved than the one in Jodhpur, but still quite interesting. Bundi had the advantage of being less crowded and noisy, with fewer tuk-tuks and motorbikes, and no cars in the older part, which had narrow laneways lined with bright Indigo blue walls. It was actually quite peaceful compared to Jodhpur, but the Taragarh Fort, which is government run, was in a sad state of disrepair and overrun with vegetation.

Taragarh Fort Elephant Gate

But even here, there were splashes of colour. Beautiful wall paintings with highlights in real gold were hidden in locked rooms. It is best to hire a guide or you won’t be able to see these treasures. Locals are forbidden entry because they have been known to scrape off the gold figures. We climbed through a ssecret trap door on the second level and emerged on the third level onto a patio with large trees, a lawn and pools of blue water. Again, without a guide you would never find it.

Wall Painting

Third Level Patio

Our guide was an amateur archaeologist known as Kukki (Mr. Om Prakash Sharma), who had become famous by discovering over 80 sites of pre-historic rock paintings that were totally unknown until he found them. The paintings are from the Mesolithic period and are estimated to be 15,000 years old.

He took us on a trek in the desert, an Indian version of an African savannah with scrub trees, termite mounds, cobras and sloth bears. Luckily we didn’t see any snakes or bears, but we did see evidence of the bears, including dug up termite mounds and scat.

We were lucky enough, however, to see two galloping Indian antelopes that dashed away as I was trying to take their picture. They were huge animals that looked like a cross between a large horse and a cow, but with a dog-like face. A Dr. Seuss creature if I ever saw one!

Galloping Indian Antelope

We hiked through the parched brown desert dodging antelope droppings and termite mounds to a deep gorge. A peek over the lip of the gorge revealed a lush green jungle and a large waterfall, the bright green and blue contrasting sharply with the brown sandy desert. At the bottom, Kukki pointed out the top of a 35-foot tower that was barely discernible above the treetops. He explained that in the time of the Rajahs, the Rajah would perch in the tower with a rifle. Beaters on elephants would drive tigers up the gorge so that he could shoot them. Hundreds were killed this way.

The Gorge and Waterfall in the Desert

I eased myself over the lip of the gorge and followed Kukki down 30 metres to a ledge with a rock overhang where the rock paintings were. He went first and beat the ground and rock to see if there were any cobras. He assured me it was quite safe, but all I could think of was my friend Dick’s saying about rattle snakes at our cottage. “The first person wakes the snake up, the second angers it and the third gets bit.” Carolann wisely chose to stay up on top of the gorge while I slide down behind Kukki to the rock paintings.

The bright ox-blood coloured pre-historic stick figures of men hunting antelope and large-horned buffalo were surprisingly well preserved having been protected by the rock overhang. In the corner of the large cleft in the rock, a pile of ashes indicated where shamans still conducted sacred rituals at night.

Pre-historic Rock Painting

Even the cows in India can sometimes be colourful. The white Brahmas often have their horns dyed to show ownership.

In Udaipur, the “White City” where all the buildings are made of white stone, the highlights are the ornate and lavishly decorated City Palace, the James Bond hotel from the movie Octopussy and the Rajah’s summer home, both on islands on a lake in the middle of town. Both are a lovely white during the day, but lit up like torches at night. The best view we found was from the Ambrai Restaurant right on the water. This was the best restaurant in town and the setting was priceless.

View of City Palace at Night from Ambrai paito

Lake Palace on Pichola Lake

Folk Dance in Udaipur

Udaipur was probably our most enjoyable city in Rajahstan. It still had tuk tuks and piercing horns, but it was more peaceful, had a more relaxed atmosphere and it was easier to walk around the narrow streets. This is where we attended the performance of traditional Indian dance and saw the woman balancing 10 water jars on her head while walking barefoot on crushed glass. It was a fitting end to our tour of Rajasthan, not because we felt we had been walking on shards the whole time, but because the brilliant colours of the costumes will always remind me of this part of India. 

Blue City Madness (Carolann's Story)

In the cover song of his 1992 album, The Future, Leonard Cohen sings: "Repent. Repent. I've seen the future, brother, and it's murder."

Maybe it's Cohen's lugubrious, dark voice, or maybe it's the shock of today's experience inside the guts of a medieval city, ravaged by the contemporary world , but his words resonate with me now more than ever.

Here in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, I've seen the Blue City. And it's murder.

It's nothing new for us to walk through crowded markets, narrow streets thickly packed with auto-rickshaws, contending with motorcycles, pedi-cabs, bicycles, fruit carts and cows for pedestrian space. In fact, I'm boring myself with the same old stories of chipped cement blasting horns, and cow dung. How can Jodhpur's Blue City be different from any other pile of 15th century rubble shoehorned into the new millenium?

Let's say it ratchets up the experience.

It's been two hours since emerging. I'm at our hotel. My glass is almost empty. Though my hands are no longer shaking at the keys, I'm still a little light headed... and it's not the rum.

Dan wanted to see the Blue City from the inside. We've seen it from the tower of the Mehrangarh fort and it's truly a blue city. The town growing up over two centuries at the base of this spectacular fort was painted indigo blue, and continues to be maintained in blue.

It's late in the afternoon. We ask our driver to drop us at the clock tower and we'll walk into the Blue City. He agrees, but surprisingly, takes the role of guide now and joins us on our walk. After 15 minutes of the usual struggle along narrow streets, he negotiates a tour for us all in a auto-rickshaw through the maze of inner streets. Cars can't fit; only motorcycles or auto-rickshaws, horses, and bikes.

With a jerk of the engine, which the driver starts by pulling on a cord, we're tearing into the twisting ribbon of streets. Our driver is a maniac for speed, allowing for the circumstances, which includes old women, vegetable carts, and cows among other small motorized vehicles and the odd goat. Our guide, squeezed into the back with Dan and me is energized by the mayhem. Half standing and half sitting, he grips the back of the driver's seat like the reins of a kicking bronco, shouting something at the driver, teeth blazing.

We're going way too fast for the street traffic. We're swerving left and right and the engine sputters and coughs and we shake like a tractor over hardened furrows, every bolt and gear box shaking loose and banging amidst the cacophony of horns and bells and the wail of babies and blasts of motor scooters amplified by the funnelling streets as in an echo chamber.

We shriek to a halt nose to nose with another auto-rickshaw and a Brahma bull all vying for the same piece of pavement. The bull's tail is twitching and slightly raised and he's backing up into the side of our open carriage, yikes, towards the passenger side. Yikes, my side! I brace myself expecting the spray and all at once our cab veers sharply left. So this will not be the day I'm pissed on by a holy cow.

Instead, the whole cab lunges deeply and one of its back wheels is spinning over the open sewer. Quickly correcting, the driver pulls the vehicle ahead with a blast of power I wouldn't believe possible in this bucket. In an instant, we're back on the street but halting once more for a marching band. Red suited trumpeters, drummers, trombone players block our way forward so we wait until the last of the coronets pass and a dozen women who follow wearing yellow and red silk saris trimmed in gold. This is the wedding season. The fear-stiffened groom on a white steed is not far behind. His child bride is somewhere underneath a burden of heavy bands of gold and red cloth.

Rounding the next corner, the driver picks up enough speed to race by a hydro generator, a portion of which suddenly explodes in a burst of fizzling white light and everyone looks up at the web of wires and I suddenly pray that the driver makes speed. We leave the warren and hit the main street and fall into the wake of a large truck and we all briefly disappear inside a billowing cloud of black exhaust.

I now know what it feels like to be inside an oil drum filled with fifty pounds of loose car parts, two bolts of silk, a live chainsaw and a single-stroke lawn mower, two bags of sand, one confused cow, a pot of burning machine oil, random pieces of fruit, and a marching band. The drum is sealed and sent rolling down a hill.

Dan emerges elated and giddy as a teenager. I don't know my husband any more.

I emerge dizzy and coughing and wondering if this indeed is the future - declining empires, madness, grit, decay, noise, and stench, all in the desert of our own making under a burning white sky.

[see www.maturetraveler.blogspot.com for more travel stories by Carolann]

Crossing into India (Carolann's Story)

[From Carolann's Blog at Maturetraveler]

We enjoy hiring a driver and moving about in a private car. As we're older now, we're putting more of our money into door-to-door transport than in previous years. A private car eliminates complex and optimistic train and bus schedules, dirty waiting rooms, the crush of touts and beggars, all of those things you get in stations. And although on the road, we're limited to one snaking, overcrowded pathway, it's still easy to enjoy the passing landscape. I'm engrossed by the swell of the hills, surprise of mountains and drama of recent landslides, and narrow, rutted bridges that shake with bouncing vehicles.

I admit that touring like this gives you only a succession of images. You don't understand much of a culture just because you see rural people at work. As a passing voyeur, you're privy to a storyline that's much the same between under-developed countries: people assembling wares for market, or bent over mats of grain separating out pieces of chaff, or packing cow dung with straw and wrapping the mixture around three-foot sticks that will serve, cleverly, as easy-to-handle cooking fuel. I might as well be watching television without the voice-over. Framed by my window, it's hardly different than a twenty-inch screen.

I'm deep in such thoughts as we near the Nepal-India border. I've got a second wind now after a drug-induced sleep in the jeep. Earlier that morning, I'd thrown out my back yet again, this time worse than before. This is the earthquake which a few days ago had hit me like mere tremors. It happened in the hotel room, just before leaving. When I reached back for the toilet paper -which is all too often badly situated in these budget hotels - I felt that familiar and unwelcome pain. In order to avoid a full out seizure of the muscle, I hit the floor immediately to perform some breathing and stretching exercises.

We planned to leave at dawn in order to get to the border before the worst of the truck traffic. With no place to get breakfast so early (an acceptable breakfast that is), I took two extra-strength muscle relaxants on an empty stomach. By the time we were into the countryside, I was seeing pink piglets in the fields, wearing pink saris, marching into a pink spaceship.

Then it started to rain. Hard sheets of rain. The spaceship disappeared into mist, as I did myself.

The Border

Border crossings are always challenging, confusing, humiliating, or all of the above. It's never easy and Dan and I needed to have our wits about us to figure out how to manage this one into India. My back was sufficiently numb now after the pills, and provided I didn't sneeze or laugh, and stood or sat absolutely erect, I was ready for the crossing.

Our driver, Berinda and his companion Suriyanna (his fiancée had joined him for the trip with our permission) were very helpful. In fact, we had the power of a high-priced tour agency in our jeep. Berinda knew, for example, exactly where we would find all the jeeps waiting for people wanting to go to Kalimpong versus jeeps for other destinations. You could either pay 150 rupees per person (about $7 for Dan and I) for a shared jeep - meaning three or four people corkscrewed into the back seat and three in front - or you could pay 2200 rupees (about $48) for a private jeep. It would take about three hours from the border to Kalimpong. Curiously, all of these India-destination jeeps were lined up on the Nepal side of the border, counter-intuitive for me as I had expected to have to source our jeep once in India.

Dan chose the vehicle (his criteria is functioning seat-belts) and then Suriyanna used her cell phone to call our hotel in Kalimpong to get the owner to give direction to our driver in Hindi. As another precaution, Berinda took the license number of our Indian jeep and gave it to the hotel with notice that he would telephone again in about three hours to check that we had arrived safely.

We parted from our friends promising to keep in touch and wishing them happiness in their forthcoming marriage and emigration plan. Suriyanna would be leaving Nepal soon for Australia. As a recent nursing graduate from a university there, she was being sponsored by a hospital in Brisbane. Once there, she would in turn sponsor her new husband and, like tens of thousands of Nepalese, would make a new life in a foreign country and send money home. Within a year, Nepal will lose one of its very best mountain drivers.

We're off to India. But not yet. After about 100 meters, we stop. Our driver, who doesn't speak English, motions with a wave of his hand for us to go into an office at the side of the road.

It's raining hard. The dreary cement building is cold and appointed like a quarter master's office. This is the Nepal immigration and our visa is checked to ensure we've not overstayed the time limit and our passport is stamped. We also agree to dump our Nepalese currency with this official in exchange for Indian rupees. He offers an acceptable rate and gives us our new currency out of his pocket. Everyone has a sideline.

Then again, we're off for India. But not yet. Another 100 meters we stop again. The driver points to India customs and pulls over to park on the curb.

At the end of a gloomy, muddy path, we enter a one-room wooden shack. An official in army fatigues offers us two grimy seats opposite his desk, and pushes over two forms each (they seek identical information) and waits for us to complete our paperwork. He's rolling back on the legs of his chair, his eyes follow the strokes of our pen.

The room is dark. A single light bulb dangles on a thread from the wooden ceiling, either it's burned out or turned off. A pig waddles in crab grass outside the window. He's not smiling but he's not snarling either, the official that is, not the pig.

Twenty minutes later, our visa is in order, our destination is acceptable. We're dismissed.

Dan can't leave without trying to lighten things up. "Welcome to India. Oh, sorry. You're already here."

Something like a smile, or perhaps it's just a muscle twitch, crosses his face.

It's taken ten years of cajoling and scheming and throwing literature at Dan to convince him to come to India. Not that I'd been to India myself, but it's always seemed to me that I have too narrow a perspective on Asia. And since both Dan and I have proven we're able to get sick in a wide variety of countries, developing and under developed, we can't exclude India any longer for health reasons. So we're finally in. It's still raining. We're choking in the exhaust of idling trucks. I take another pill for the road and hope for the best.

The Toy Train of Darjeeling (Carolann's Story)

(This and other stories by Carolann can be found at Maturetraveler)

I've had two goals in coming to Darjeeling. The first was to visit Lloyd's Botanical Garden, and the other was to take a toy train ride. And during our three days here, we also hoped to have a good cup of tea, something that's eluded us to date in India.

Regarding Lloyd's Botanical Garden, I can skip over that chapter quickly. We had been warned that the garden has seen better days, as it had been raided many times, and an unhealthy smell of sewage clung to one of the lower terraces. As I stroll, I reflect on what the garden once was, and what it could still be with proper investment.

The placement of the garden is perhaps the most interesting thing as it spills down the steep hillside. There are very large trees between which tall shafts of light, like milky spears fall to earth. It's peaceful, save the distant whistle of the toy train. Dan makes note of the varied orchid species and is pleased to find the botanical name of an autumn flowering cherry tree he's been tracking for weeks. I ponder a cactus garden that is enclosed by barb wire.

Darjeeling. The very name conjures comfort and goodness. There's romance in most any former British hill station, pictures of cool summer retreats, the architectural look and feel of Europe for India-weary career diplomats or officers. But Darjeeling overlays that picture with the Himalaya. On one side of the ridge, the town and its hotels cling to the hillside and then the plantations carpet the rest in an undulating descent. On the other side of the ridge, the mountains line the horizon and reach upwards into the sky. Mt. Khangchendzonga is surprisingly close, the third largest mountain on earth after Everest and K2.

But this is 2011, not 1911. The modern world has not been kind to Darjeeling (nor to Kathmandu for that matter). Photos of Darjeeling from a distance are misleading. The place looks lovely, strings of low, wooden buildings draped in layers down the side of green hills like strands of a necklace.

That's the view from a few kilometres away. It's different up close.

Like other crumbling urban spaces in Asia, Darjeeling aches under the crush of honking cars, jeeps, trucks and motorcycles bleeding through wounded, pocked streets more suited to donkeys and rickshaws than to motor vehicles. The town is cut into the mountain so that a home's foundation rests on one terrace and its street level entrance is off a higher terrace. To move between levels of roadways, the switchbacks are so steep and severe that the average small car must stop, shift, and execute a three-point turn to round the corner.

We have confirmed seats on the train for the next day.

Or do we?

The next morning, we enter the train station which smells of burnt coal and garbage and every kind of solvent imaginable. I'm recognizing that the congestion in my lungs and the bubbly, underwater feeling in my head is to be a new norm. It began in Nepal, and I expect it to get worse in India before it gets better. Dan suggests that I steam up the bathroom and breathe it in. but I know what I really need -  a week in Singapore. Only fleeing to my favourite high-humidity city in southeast Asia will correct my sinuses and restore my hearing. But that will have to wait for a while.

I'm curious because our tickets do not have assigned seats. I'm told that we need to check in at the wicket.

The attendant looks at our tickets. "You are on the waiting list."

I'm instantly furious.

"We booked our tickets forty-eight hours in advance as we were instructed. An agent through our hotel arranged it."

"What's the name of your agent, madam?" The attendant's head is wobbling in that characteristic Indian manner. It's a bad sign. It's a gesture of apology and agreeability at the same time, but ironically, given the side to side motion, also prepares me for some inflexibility. He won't be budged.

"I have no idea the name of the agent! The hotel arranged it and it was confirmed and we have this ticket and it's paid for and we've paid a fifty percent commission for the ticket so we didn't have to come to the station ourselves and stand in line."

"Madam, I always tell people to come to the station and do these things themselves. Hotels should know that."

I'm beside myself. Dan moves in.

"This is unacceptable. Look at this ticket. It says CONFIRMED."

The attendants looks at his list, puts on his glasses and looks again at our ticket. The head wobble abruptly changes direction. It's now up and down and his face explodes into a big fat toothy smile.

"Very sorry sir. Cooper is confirmed. Leuper is on the waiting list. I did not have my glasses on."

We board the Joy Train, which is a two-hour sight-seeing train that runs between Darjeeling and Ghum,. During the half hour stop at Ghum, this pint-sized 19th century refurbished coal-fired, steam locomotive is detached from one end of the two-car train and reattached to the other end so it can return us back to Darjeeling.

We're actually taking this tour as a compromise. We originally planned to take our departure from Darjeeling on the famous Toy Train which over ten hours takes you further down West Bengal to a real train station and the airport. But this route had been cancelled since the earthquake in late September. A landslide continues to block the tracks. 

Dan and I have seats 9 and 10. The seat numbering is interesting. I'm on one side half-way up the car and Dan's across the aisle towards the rear. The upholstery is worn thin, the windows unyielding.

The car bounces and sways on the uneven, narrow gauge rails, the whistle screams and the locomotive's chimney belches black smoke. Our little museum piece slowly groans and shakes along the ridge. Being on the mountain side, my view is all about the backsides of tenements, colour-faded laundry draped over grey cement railings. Dan has the best picture taking opportunities from his side and a morning departure throws strong light on the Himalaya.

However, Dan's pictures will not likely be good. There are few places along the route where the view is clear of a dense spider web of legal and illegal electrical wires.

On the way back, the ceiling draws my attention when a fast jerk wakes me up (this is not the most exciting tour I've ever taken). The car's ceiling is elaborately decorated with slices of flattened bamboo arranged in an artful design. It looks like gold if you don't look too closely.

Then again, that's how I feel about Darjeeling itself.

Slowly easing into India from Nepal

Darjeeling, West Bengal, India

I’ve never wanted to go to India. But somehow Carolann has convinced me to overcome my fears and find out if it’s love or hate. Her strategy is to ease me into it by dipping our toes into the northeast part of India called West Bengal. Her hope is that this gradual immersion will prepare me for the full shocking plunge into the real India our friends have warned us about.

We left Kathmandu on a grey, drizzly day and drove through the mountains towards the southeastern part of Nepal. This was the shortest route to West Bengal – by distance only – as the mountain road was twisty, in very bad condition, full of switchbacks, and would take several hours longer. But we chose it anyway because it was said to be more scenic, if more dangerous.

As it turned out, we didn’t see anything scenic because of the fog and rain. After a couple of hours, our driver Birinda stopped at the highest point of the mountain range to have his breakfast and show us where Mt. Everest would be if it weren’t completely hidden by fog and clouds. It was cold and the chilling mist that cloaked the mountains was swirling around us as well. In spite of the fog, I took a photo anyway because it reminded me of an entirely black postcard I had seen in France depicting Mt. Blanc at night.

Birinda and his fiancée Suriyana, who had come along for the ride because she had never been to the far eastern part of Nepal, ordered their late breakfast from a small shack that looked like it was ready to fall down into the ravine. It was so cold we could see our breath and we hesitatingly went into the tiny shack just to keep warm. I had to stoop under the doorframe to enter the darkened, dirt-floor room the size of a small “shed” where several Nepalese men were sipping tea.

Birinda ordered a bowl of greenish lentil soup and a cup of Nepalese Chai-like tea from boiling, dirty pots on an open fire at the entrance, the only place that had any light. He finished breakfast with a hard-boiled egg that was sitting on the counter. Thank God we had eaten breakfast at our hotel before leaving that morning.

Our trek to the India border was going to take us four days and nights with a stop at a wildlife sanctuary to break up the journey. It was three days of boring, mind-numbing sameness every day, with only two exceptions, some birdwatching in the Kosi Tappu Park and the sighting of a pod of fresh water dolphins feeding at a huge dam. It was quite strange to see these large, black dolphins so far from the ocean and close to the Himalaya Mountains.

After we left the mountains we drove for three more days through dull flat plains broken regularly by rockslides, washouts, and wide dry riverbeds that the locals were mining for gravel. These frequent dry beds were the only signs of the rivers that come down from the Himalayas and feed into India and eventually the Bay of Bengal. During the Monsoon season they would turn into raging torrents that tear up the roads, but now tractors and trucks were parked right out in the middle being filled with gravel and river rocks for sale in other parts of Nepal.

Our route was not on the tourist circuit; few people drive to India from Nepal. And for good reason, because each town we drove through was an exact duplicate of the previous one with dull, grey buildings covered in the grime of truck exhaust and open cooking fires. They had little or no sidewalks and those they did have were covered with stalls selling fruits and vegetables, chickens, and car parts. Then there were the sleeping dogs and cows. It was all depressingly dirty with only the bright fruit and colourful saris of the Indian migrant workers providing any cheer for the people in these dreary towns.

Western-style tourist facilities were nowhere to be found. The hotels we had to stay in were the same as the towns: dull, grimy and depressing, catering only to Nepalese travellers. They never saw “tourists” and had only basic amenities, but no bed sheets, no heat, sometimes no hot water, and no decent restaurants. In these situations, we have learned to survive on bananas and egg fried rice. Of course, our silk sleeping bag liners come in handy too.

Kosi Tappu Wildlife Sanctuary Tents

Thankfully Carolann had planned a two-day layover at the Kosi Tappu Wildlife Sanctuary. We slept in tents and had to use an outdoor washroom (which was actually better than most of the washrooms we saw in the hotels on the way), but, after days of rain, the sun had come out and we were able to do two wildlife “safaris” where we saw wild water buffalo (their horns are bigger than on the domesticated ones) and over 50 species of birds. Sadly we didn’t spot any of the wild elephants that were raiding the local rice fields. Fortunately, they were also absent from our campsite, which was protected by an electric fence.

We noticed that this southern part of Nepal was more Indian than Nepalese. Our driver explained that it has been settled by Indians from across the border with the encouragement of the Indian government and with the inability of the Nepalese government to prevent it. The government doesn’t even collect any taxes here.

Southeastern Nepal on Road to India

India and China are both aggressively competing for control of Nepal’s resources, mainly hydro electricity, to feed their insatiable appetites for growth at any cost. Some fear that the two will split up Nepal into fiefdoms the way it was centuries ago and pillage its resources. India has already gained its foothold here; China is talking about building roads either through Burma or West Bengal to get to the ocean.

After four days we reached the border crossing into India. Although it looked like chaos, with cars and trucks lined up everywhere, it actually went quite smoothly. It seemed like we were the only ones who actually stopped in at the Nepalese immigration office – everyone else either just walked or drove across. Consequently there was no delay on that side.

From the maze of hundreds of jeeps parked on the Nepalese side, I scouted out one that looked to be in good shape and had seatbelts, while Carolann guarded our luggage. Negotiating a price for the three-hour ride from the border to Kalimpong, our first stop in India, was quite comical.

First, I had Birinda inquire about a price in Nepalese, then I walked around and talked to the drivers while inspecting their vehicles. As I went along, the other drivers followed me in a pack waiting to see the outcome. When I finally settled on a car and driver, there were smiles all around. I’m not sure if that meant I got a good price or not, but it seemed quite reasonable and the jeep had seatbelts (rare in this area) and was in good shape.

Once on board our jeep, we had to stop at the Indian border where a lone immigration official sat in a darkened hut at the side of the road. Again we were the only tourists; nobody else stopped. I guess we could just as easily have driven right on through and nobody would have cared. At least not until we tried to leave India and they discovered we didn’t have our entry stamp on our passports.

The ensuing drive up into the mountains on the India side was uneventful. It seems that we have become blasé about twisty, winding, dangerous mountain roads now. We just kept climbing up and up from Siliguri on the Bengal plains into the Himalayas until we reached Kalimpong town at about 1,500 metres.

One unusual feature was a 360-degree loop in the mountain road, where it actually passed back under itself. It was so narrow only one car could squeeze through at a time and our driver honked continuously to warn any truck or bus that we were coming.

Kalimpong, West Bengal, India

At the top, we discovered the small town of Kalimpong, which was built as a summer hill station by the British so they could escape the stifling heat of Calcutta. The town was stapled into the west facing side of the mountain to catch the sun’s rays in winter. It’s pastel coloured buildings of pale blues, pinks and yellows ran down the hillside and looked quite beautiful in the sunlight. But the reality was revealed on the dark street side where we found just another dirty, grimy steetscene of broken sidewalks, decrepit buildings, and a jumble of honking cars and trucks. It’s like a painted movie backdrop, pretty on one side, wires and dirty supports on the other.

Luckily our guesthouse, Holumba Haven, was on the edge of town and we rarely had to venture into Kalimpong town itself except for banking.

Kalimpong is located at the southernmost point of the Himalayas in West Bengal, India, at the base of a triangle, with Nepal and Bhutan on the two sides. Because of its location south of the Himalayas and north of the warm Bay of Bengal, this mountainous region is quite temperate. Temperatures range from a low of 3 Celsius in winter to 35 C in summer in Kalimpong, but they never get frost. We arrived in late November and it was quite warm during the day, with the temperature dropping to around 8 Celsius at night. This wouldn’t have been too bad, but our cottage had no heat and neither did the dining room. Very few places do in this part of the world. So we were quite chilled the first few nights.

Fall-blooming Cherry

The gorgeous gardens and views of the snow-capped mountains in the distance, however, made up for this inconvenience. And the cottages at our homestay were beautifully decorated with pots of azaleas, colourful bromeliads in shades of pink, red and purple, and lovely two-toned yellow orchids. In bloom when we arrived were orchids, a lovely fall-blooming cherry tree, roses, camellias, and several types of azaleas.

View from Top of Holumba Haven Guesthouse

It was difficult, in fact, to remember that this was part of India, because the area is actually more Nepalese than the southern part of Nepal was. It was originally part of the Kingdom of Bhutan until the Bhutanese lost a battle against the British who eventually turned it over to India at the time of independence. But most of the people here are descendants of Nepalese or Bhutanese immigrants or refugees and have the same “Tibetan” look, culture and lifestyle.

Until recently, a rebel Maoist group was fighting for an independent state they want to call Ghorkaland, after the original inhabitants of this area. The group had resorted to killings and intimidation in the past, but was now using political means like strikes to shut everything down. For the last two years, they have “encouraged” locals to withhold payment for utilities. This latter practice just ended a month before our arrival and seemed to have some effect because the West Bengal government in Calcutta was apparently offering some concessions.

Everywhere we saw signs on storefronts that read “Ghorkaland.” And their green and white flag was prominently displayed on cars, buildings, and on banners spanning the roadway. Our guidebook reassuringly cautions that strikes may shut things down, but adds that there has been “little violence” recently. (Update: just after our departure we read that one of the leaders of the rebel movement had been killed in a shoot out and there was a bomb attack elsewhere.)

We were told that the major complaint is that the Calcutta government (which is way to the south) takes hydro electricity, other resources, and tourism dollars from this popular area but gives nothing in the way of services in return, hence the protest.

And, in fact, while this part of India may look like Bhutan, it’s really Bhutan run by the Moldavians. There are constant power failures, crumbling infrastructure, packs of barking dogs that keep you awake at night, and little order on the streets. Snaking lines of exposed one-inch water pipes run alongside the road supplying spring water to stores and homes, but tripping up unwary walkers. I don’t even want to think what happens to the wastewater. Landslides regularly cut off the main highway and train tracks. And every morning at 9 and every night at 5, the power would shut off at our homestay.

It seems we may have ruined the romantic illusions of Kathmandu and Darjeeling for some of our friends. These are places of history, traditional customs, and iconic landscapes. And truth be told, the visions of snowcapped peaks and fields of lush tea trees cloaking the verdant mountainsides are still lovely – when you can see them.

Supposedly we’ve come at the best time for viewing. November is the time for clear-blue skies and no rain. But we’ve had rain and grey skies on and off for a month. Maybe this year was an exception – trekkers were stranded by bad weather at Lukkla and Jomosom in the Himalayas in Nepal. Maybe global climate change is affecting this part of the world too – the snow on Mt. Everest is melting away. Or just maybe if you stay at the one or two high-end hotels in these towns, riding around in an insulated air-conditioned bubble, protected from the noise, smells and dirty streets, and never going downtown, you might still find these places romantic. I don’t know, we just report it as we see it.

But the lovely gardens, mountain views and temperate climate (ideal for gardening) still made this town worth visiting. Cherry trees covered in exquisite pink blossoms, six-foot hedges of blooming azaleas, and orchids dripping off the trees in November can soften a lot of hardships and make you forget about the dirty streets.

Native Coelogyne corymbosa

The people here are friendly, so very helpful and generous in that Buddhist way that we have discovered from Bhutan to Nepal. And, luckily for us, at every stage in our journey the sun has appeared at just the right moment to allow for trekking or viewing the mountains or enjoying the blooming cherry trees.

Would we go back? Good question. There is a region just north of here, closer to the Himalayas, called Sikkim, where wild elephants and one-horned rhinos still roam in uncut forests. It’s like Bhutan without the huge entry fees.  Maybe we’ll visit the next time we’re in the area.

But this wasn’t really India; it was like a poor man’s Bhutan. Nevertheless, now that we’ve dipped our toes into “India,” it’s time to dive in all the way. We’re off to see the real India, starting with Delhi.

Driving to India (Carolann's Story)

(Carolann's thoughts about our last few days in Nepal. This and other stories by Carolann can be found at Maturetraveler)

Our visas are expiring. It's time to leave Nepal. So we we're driving to India.

Drive? Why?

Because for one thing, we never like back-tracking. If we flew from Kathmandu to Calcutta, in order to be reasonably close to where we want to go in India's northeast, we would end up going south just to connect domestically to fly back north. Secondly, I've read some nasty things about the Calcutta airport and I want to spend time there as much as I want to sunbathe in the tar sands.

Most of all, however, my strategy has always been to ease Dan into India by avoiding the big cities, at least at first. Dan's been reluctant for many years to go to India. Too much distressed humanity. Too much chaos. Too much heat. But in the end, he's been getting too much encouragement from our friends to ignore India any longer. Our friends are coaching us on how to do India well. But the selling point, admittedly, is that it's inexpensive.

My thinking is that we'll first spend some time in West Bengal's leafy Darjeeling tea estates and from there into Assam's rhino-rich jungles. It's a good idea to seek out green spaces, elephants, birds, and try out a safari, Indian style. We'll deal with the grit and urban chaos later.

So I'm standing at the wall map in our Kathmandu guest house with Ganga, the owner, former guide, and our advisor.

"How long to get to here?"

"Five to seven hours."

"And after that, to here?"

"Five to seven hours."

"Perhaps, we can stop at this protected area. I hear there is good birding there."

"Five to seven hours to get there."

These are not large distances. Our first 200 km will take us a day because the road is so bad through the mountains. After the mountains, we're in the flat, arid part of the country, very much like India, which runs parallel at that point. Those further 200 km will take another five to seven hours because the road is so bad and busy. Whole chunks of road are regularly washed away in the monsoons. In the rainy season, there will be flash floods careening through the river bed, up and over the banks, water belching out of the Himalaya and surging into India.

But it's dry now, so driving over several sandy, rocky basins is possible, but slow going. We cross what in a different month is the life blood of India, feeders of the Ganges River.

Although driving to India is not most people's first choice, it's a gift that we can even move around the country like this. Until three years ago, Nepal was in the grip of civil strife. The Royal Family had been massacred in 2001 by a deranged Crown Prince, weakening an already tenuous future for Nepal's monarchy. The country disintegrated into factions, armed conflicts ensued. Maoists, notoriously anti-monarchists, disrupted tourism and violent crime increased. Atrocities were committed on all sides. While a peace was struck in 2008, the newly elected Maoist leadership still must bring in a new constitution by the end of November. The Canadian government posts a travel warning on Nepal suggesting that strikes and protests may precede the constitution.

Curiously, we're not seeing any volatility, but perhaps we're just insulated. Instead, weather is on everyone's mind these days. When these mountains get socked in by clouds and haze, tourism stalls. People lose money. Flights are being cancelled around the country because of the weather, not politics.

But back to the exit plan.

I see logic and value in driving out of Nepal. It will take three nights and four days. We'll see something of Nepal that's not about mountains. It will cost us each about $350 including our private jeep transportation, our hotels, meals; by comparison, if we flew to Calcutta and connected to another domestic flight, we might pay almost as must after incidental fees.

Over and above those costs, we're paying $300 for birding at Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve. This co-operative tent camp is installed within an important sanctuary where ornithological research is done. We will be provided with an expert guide for a three-hour jeep run through the jungle and guided walk at dawn. This is the kind of enterprise we've known in Costa Rica. It's important that Nepal be part of the international work being done in tracking bird DNA and banding. And a group of Italian birders have logged nearly one hundred sightings over two days here.

Yawn.

 An enthusiastic birder for 50 years, Dan's in his element. I couldn't care less but I'll tag along. I enjoy walking in nature. And in fact, I'll even source opportunities for Dan.

We have an understanding that for any uncomfortable jungle tripping to see birds, I get one opera. And as it happens, I've just found out from a vacationing sound engineer from Abu Dabi that Dubai has just opened an opera house. And since this visit to Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve has us sleeping in tents, and walking up a lane to outdoor toilets during the night, and that there's cobra in this area, and our camp is surrounded by electrical fence to keep out the wild elephants.... I expect dress circle seats at the opera.

(Note to self: figure out how to include Dubai on our flight plan in 2012).

 For two days we do not see one western tourist...nor one western toilet for that matter. But squatting is good for me, especially since I threw out my back the morning we departed from Kathmandu.

Two extra-strength Robaxicet tablets later, and a well-placed lumbar cushion, I sleep a good part of the way though the mountains. At each stop, I stretch and do exercises that I've been taught by my trainer. I know Lynn is shaking her head at this moment and probably thinking that I've not been doing my core-strengthening exercises as much as I should have. She's probably right. But it was bound to happen given the demands of trekking in this country.

While it's fascinating to walk around a Nepalese town that sees few tourists, it's challenging to find dinner in a Nepalese town that sees few tourists. Locals generally don't eat out. The two hotels of Hetauda are noisy, one less filthy than the other, and both have restaurants we cannot stomach. And that's the end of the restaurant options. There are a few stalls selling a kind of deep fried donut. There are some chicken skewers over coal - but meat handling and storage techniques here are fast making me into a vegetarian.

Still there's hope.

The first delightful thing we discover about Hetauda is that it's not just another crumbling, dusty, gritty mess of commerce with grey buildings, and grey air that you can chew and wear at the same time. It's main street is lined end to end with hundreds of large, leafy trees. The sun shines on a town that's green. The road becomes an avenue.

And the sun shines on us when Vider approaches. A young man in jeans and a nicely pressed shirt introduces himself and offers assistance to help us find a restaurant.

My senses are alert to touts. Likely, his uncle owns a restaurant.

"My uncle owns a restaurant, just down the road there. I will show you."

Dan and I exchange knowing glances but start enjoying Viber's company nevertheless as we follow him to his uncle's restaurant. The restaurant is decent enough and we order our safe egg-fried rice.

Viber is a journalism student and minors in English.

"Do you know that the ABC of journalism is: Accuracy, Balance, and Credibility."

Now I'm feeling uncomfortable. I've already flunked out of trekking in Nepal (another story). I expect I'd also fail the ABCs of journalism. I have always lacked credibility in Dan's eyes since we see the same world so differently. And Balance, well it depends on the day. Accuracy is linked to credibility. Maybe journalism is a matter of Faith. Do you believe the world through another person's eyes? But I don't want to confuse our young idealist by introducing the "F" acronym.

Our beer is served. Viber continues, looking for that spark of conversation that will turn strangers into friends.

"Do you know the meaning of life?

Dan quickly responds. "Forty-two."

Viber is puzzled but he's not the only one. Who would guess we'd run into a philosopher in Hetauda.

Dan tries to summarize the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (a novel in which it's revealed that the meaning of life is a meaningless "forty-two").

Viber grows thoughtful. "Maybe you're right and no one knows the meaning of life and never will."

Dan sees a potential convert to his godless belief system (I regularly remind him he's going to hell after he dies) and continues:

"You see that guy pushing the cart stacked with bags of rice? Does he ask himself the meaning of life? He's probably just focused on making enough money to feed his family."

Viber nods his head. Dan continues.

"And since he doesn't ask questions about the meaning of life, do you think he's a happy man or an unhappy man." Dan is trying hard for dialectic discourse.

"He is a happy man."

"How do you know?"

"He's my father's cousin. He smiles a lot."

Viber adds: "I know what you mean. I think that most of these people here are in the cave. Plato says they will never see the light. But I want to change that. I know that Nepal can be a beautiful place."

"I think so too, Viber. Just look at the trees in Hetauda and how they give beauty to the town. They stand out, like the pink and red saris that women wear. There are flashes of colour in the dust. And look at your future. You're young and educated and going to make a difference."

"Yes, I will do that. I'm a Maoist."