I’m Allergic to Darjeeling (no, not the tea silly.)
As with last time I entered India from Nepal, I figured we’d make an easy start of it by visiting the hill station of Darjeeling. And as with last time, things didn’t go perfectly for us there.
We crossed the border and managed the local bus to the city of Siliguri easily enough, but soon after it got more troublesome. It was raining as we took the jeep up the bumpy, winding road to Darjeeling, and continued raining for almost all of our time there.
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, or the Toy Train as it’s more fondly known
This scarcely mattered to me, however, as shortly after arrival I began to feel unwell. By the time night fell I was very definitely ill, and by the next morning I was a VERY unhappy camper. I won’t give a complete rundown of just how sick I was, because a full description might put you off your next meal, but let’s just say that being unable to move from bed, shivering and pouring liquid out of both ends is not a pleasant state of being.
A rainy day (did we experience any other kind?) in Darjeeling
Sarah, the poor dear, hardly got to see any of the sodden city as she spent two days either nursing me at my bedside, shopping for medicine or trying to procure us train tickets. At one point we tried to make the 15 minute walk to the town’s private hospital, but I couldn’t quite make it. Fortunately it was cool in Darjeeling, the place we were staying made nice hot drinks (and was understanding about the mess) and I was mostly recovered from the illness less than 60 hours after it started.
A Darjeeling market street with the clock tower in the distance. Despite all the complaints I’ve made against the place the colonial architecture in Darjeeling is pretty cool, especially when juxtaposed with the misty, mountainous Himalayan setting
This left me in a position to walk down and arrange our bus tickets down to Kolkata for the following morning (as much as Sarah wanted to travel by train in India, there wasn’t a hope of getting a ticket within the time limits of our visa.)
Some visit, eh? We did manage a brief walk around town before departing the next day, but the things we’d missed out on would make a nice list of pretty much every major attraction in town:
-Darjeeling Himalayan Railway? Check. No tickets available for days.
-Views of Mt. Kangchedzonga? Check. We could hardly see 100m down the street for the clouds.
-Tea estates? Check. Even once recovered, my weakened condition made walking almost anywhere a challenge.
-Botanical Gardens? Tibetan monastaries? Ditto.
-Clean mountain air? Check. This wasn’t really particular to us. There are now so many jeeps going in and out and up and down the hills of Darjeeling that much of the town is choked with diesel fumes (though there are some pleasant pedestrian only streets.)
Gorkhaland flags hanging above a Darjeeling street. Though in the state of West Bengal, the large majority of Darjeeling district’s residents aren’t Bengali, but Nepali. Many of them chafe against what they see as colonial rule, and are pushing strongly (sometimes even violently) for their own independent state within the Indian nation.
All in all, I wasn’t too sad to be leaving. But the darned place just didn’t want to let us go! The morning of our departure turned out to coincide with a two day state (Darjeeling is in the Indian state of West Bengal) wide bandh, or transport strike. We somehow managed to wrangle a ride in a jeep down to Siliguri, which, given that the strike stopped for 12 hours overnight, ought to have allowed us to get our night bus down to Kolkata easily enough.
No such luck. First we arrived at the bus terminal, only to be informed that our travel agent in Darjeeling had called and cancelled our seats. Odd thing for him to do as we’d waved goodbye to him as we left town in the jeep. Then we were informed that in fact ALL of the Air Conditioned buses to Kolkata had been cancelled, and there was only a single, non AC bus going. We could get seats on it, but they would cost the same as our A/C sleeper tickets. Finally, after my making several phone calls to the travel agent in Darjeeling, him making several calls to the bus company, and Sarah doing her best not to lose her temper, we were given regular bus tickets and a refund of most of the difference in fares. Exhausting. And that was before the bus trip even started.
Other than slightly cramped seats and a lot of wind due to fellow passengers insistence on leaving the windows completely open all night, the bus wasn’t actually that uncomfortable. Which was fortunate, as we were to end up spending 22 hours on it. The Bandh recommenced, as scheduled at 06:00. Our bus, far BEHIND schedule, was still a long way from Kolkata when this happened.
The day that followed was filled with the same process being repeated over and over. Arrive at a small town with a roadblock set up at the main crossroads by the bandh organizers. Stop the bus, get out and sit around for a while. Play cards, maybe buy a bottle of water. Wait until a suitable amount of time had passed and the impromptu passengers committee could approach the bandh folks and plead that we had families with small children aboard and would really like to get them home. Finally win their agreement. Hurry back on the bus only to discover that they’d changed their minds. Negotiate some more and finally pull out of town with (hopefully) all the passengers aboard. Travel 5-25km to the next town. Rinse. Repeat.
A typical Bengali town, one of many where our bus was stopped for the bandh
This was all pretty exhausting in 37 degrees, high humidity and a still-unsettled stomach. Coupled with the fact that it was very unclear if we’d make it to Kolkata before dark, it was frustrating as well as exhausting. Thankfully most of our fellow passengers were pleasant folks, we had books, we had a deck of cards, and it really wasn’t nearly as miserable as it could of been.
A few highlights:
-Watching goats being hung up, throats cut, skinned and butchered outside the bus at our first stop.
-Sitting under an awning playing cards and becoming the main attraction in town for about 15 minutes until the dozens or so people who’d come to watch realized that we really weren’t that interesting.
-Easting solid food! Yummy dal and veg curry for lunch at a roadside restaurant.
-Having my first conversation in Bengali, during which I desparately asked for the whereabouts of the nearest toilet.
-Chatting with Naween, the passenger across the aisle from us and hearing him sing the love songs he’d written for his girlfriend.
-Visiting the filthiest toilet I’ve ever used. I’m serious. I pooed on the floor amongst thousands of squirming maggots. Ewwwwww!!!!
As the day wore on, the town bandh organizers got more and more lax about holding us up in order to convince us of their point (which was, incidentally, that the government should do something about inflation) and we finally arrived in Kolkata at about 17:00, tired, dirty, but otherwise unscathed.
More on Kolkata next entry. I promise it’ll have a more positive tone than this one 
Tags: Darjeeling, India, Llew Bardecki, West Bengal
