One Week In

Hello errvyone,

So I suppose I'm supposed to give you all a summary of my trip thus far. I'll try to do it justice, but no promises.

The flight was pretty good. We got the seats we wanted, the food was great and we got pretty wasted since we get all the free booze we want. Trip was pretty long though. Think the whole thing was 20 hours?

So we get in Delhi just fine. Andrew accidentally gives the guy for the paid taxis (since we didn't wanna have to flag down a tuk tuk after being on a plane so long)way too much money. The guy played dumb, but Andrew was pretty confident and sure enough to get him to cough up the extra 500 rupees he pocketed (15 bucks?).

So we tell the taxi to bring us near the central train station. Apparently its where a lot of backpackers go to find a cheap place and head out the next day. There is a reason why many people from delhi look down on this area. It was pretty filthy. I mean like shit and piss everywhere and people shouting at you ect...

I didn't notice it then, but Andrew was pretty shocked and stressed due to the culture change, which is obviously expected. I suppose my prior trip with Sean to SEA prepared me for what we saw. We decided to pick a guest house close to this celebration going on. Little did we know that it went on to 430am and starting again at 7am, suffice to say, we did not get a good sleep.

The next day we had about 6 hours to kill before we hitched our 15 hour train ride to Varanasi. We walked around with our bags and payed the obvious price. People harassing us to go here, buy that, do this. We avoided as much as we can. We sat down for some shade at one point and low and behold, a group of 'professional' ear cleaners offered their services. Did I say offer? I ended up reading hilarious testimonials he got tourists to write about his ear cleaning services. When I didn't respond well, he offered to look in my ears for free, lucky me. When I refused, he showed me various pictures of him cleaning other tourists ears. What a trooper.

Train to Varanasi wasn't too bad. We met some really cool people who had been traveling for a year and India was their last stop. They taught me a new card game which is pretty awesome and kills loads of time.

Varanasi is a crazy little city. Complete chaos and mayhem. You think your going to die just about every second your riding in the back of a tuk tuk. The merchants are relentless and are ready to start the bidding for anything you want about 5 times the price, hoping you'll settle for half which is still outrageous. We took on a friend, Alison is her name. We met her at the train station and is still traveling with us here in Darjeeling (where I am writing this). We ended up at a really nice guest house with a court yard, good food and close to the Ganges (what people go to Varanasi for). Took some walks on the Ganges, watched the beginning of a cremation, the whole works.

Ended up meeting these four awesome girls from Australia and pretty much chilled with them for the 3 days we were in town for. We took a sunrise tour on the Ganges by boat watching people bathe in probably the most polluted water source known to mankind, it was good times. We got serenaded and everything. Andrew searched his heart out for a sari for Lianne but alas, it is VERY difficult to haggle, especially when your a foreigner and you don't know shit.

We winded up in a variety of shops. Some saris were awesome but too expensive, others offered us shit. They try to doll you up a lot by offering you things to drink and showing you shit you didn't ask to see. We winded up at one place where they showed us these wool/cotton blankets. They were incredible. Seriously awesome stuff. We angrily haggled them down to 2500 rupees each from 4800 each. But in the end, we walked out thinking we'll find better stuff. I hope we do, cause this one blanket was animal themed, and I really really liked it. So I hope I can find something better in Kashmir or something.

We finally said our goodbyes to Varanasi and the people at the guest house and headed off to jump on a 16 hour train to JNP, the drop off point to get a 3 hour jeep to Darjeeling. We left at 730pm in Varanasi and arrived in Darjeeling at 730pm the next day. Suffice to say, we were dirty, hungry and tired as all hell.

The journey had taken a lot out of me. There were no signs telling us which train cabin we were in so we had to ask. People weren't very helpful except for one who finally told us. When we entered in our cabin, it was FILLED with people sleeping on 'our seats'. We thought it was the wrong cart, ran around for a few more minutes to then realize that they had just decided to sleep on empty seats since Delhi. I quite viciously, kicked them out of their spots, got stuck with the bottom bunk, although I'd rather it had been me over Alison or Andrew, and enjoyed a terrible sleep. The only redeeming feature of the ride, other than booting this one motherfucker who tried to cuddle me, was meeting 'Yesh'. Really nice kid on his way to visit his parents in Nepal. He gave us a bunch of advice, we talked about life, he showed me the girl he's arranged to be married, it was a nice chat.

Haven't bathed or eaten in 29 hours, we arrived at NJP station. We then scrambled to the jeep stand in the nearby twin city (Silguri) and hopped in a jeep packed with 12 people for a 3 1/2 hour ride or so. The drive was breathtaking. It seriously is fantastic out here. The hills and cliffs and tea villages. It was just spectacular. During the drive we went from sweating buckets, to cold as ice. The temperature drop and altitude change was pretty intense. We finally arrived at our destination, walked around for a bit in the cold, then found our destination.

Nice, quiet place. Beds are simple. The owner is really nice. We ended up having a nice chat with a Tibetan man who was quite distraught at the transformation happening in his city, the new apt. buildings and such. With some encouragement from him, we realized how completely different central India is from Northern. The people, the culture the weather, literally everything. We felt safe. No harassment, no fear, no leering. It is just so nice. Also, as a side note, people in Northern India are mostly Tibetan and Nepalese looking people, not south Indian (stereotype of what an Indian looks like).

Had a really nice first day, no beg bug bites :) (Andrews thing). We walked around almost the entire city meeting a lot of people, scoping the Himalayas. We eventually bumped into this Nepalese man who converted to Christianity despite his father being Hindu and mother being Buddhist. Our discussion led us into his home where we drank tea and furthered talking. Although he claimed to know the truth, he knew little about religious traditions or 'fads' outside his own city such as Islam being the fastest growing religion in the world. It was nice though, and his dog was hilarious. We met a friend of his, a famous drummer apparently.

We eventually met up with Alison, got some grub and then decided to watch a bollywood movie. Turns out, its from bollywood, not a bollywood movie. It was set in Darjeeling actually and wasn't too bad of a movie despite the over acting, but who gives a shit right? What the best thing was about it was that at one scene, this guy is trying to serenade his wife in a bar and who do we see? the freaking drummer guy we met at the christian dude's house!!!! Me and Andrew instantly looked at each other and burst out in laughter. I almost shit myself.

Well, I've left out a lot of details but this is what you're getting. Hope you enjoyed my first entry! PACE

NEW CHAPTER

So,

This is the first post of my India/Nepal trip. Haven't left yet, leave tomorrow. Packing is in process. I will attempt to update this blog more than I did while I was in SEA but I cannot guarantee it. I hope you all enjoy what I have to say.

-Dave