Darjeeling - TheQueen of the Hills.

Darjeeling my darling. We loved it. We got to NJP and after managing to get past the significant number of rickshaw touts and get to the jeep stand and start our 3 hour, windy James bond road, (but with significant potholes), journey to Darjeeling, the queen of the hills.

Firstly the lonely planet guide map is useless as there are no contours so the roads really make no sense. Because of this, and sheer exhaustion, we got a taxi to our hotel which had magnificent views of the Himalayas.
When I write this we have been to two other parts of India so I feel confident when I say that Darjeeling is different from other parts of India.
Firstly I was not hassled, there was still spitting but way less visible other bodily functions and it has way more of a mix of people and a way less strict dress code. However it is quite cold so one ends up wearing loads of clothes anyway.
When we arrived I needed to go to the doctor for my monthly blood test. I met with the lovely Dr. Das. I had to wait until the next morning to get the blood test as the Lab Technician said that I had to have the test fasting. We were staying in a lovely hotel ran by a Tibetan crowd called Dekeling. The following day I had the results within 3 hours and all was well. It cost a total of 400 rupees which is about 6.50. Dr Das told us about another Cork Woman called Edith Wilkins who was running a children’s home and he told us to visit her and gave us her number. We were not sure whether to call or not.

We spent our first few days wandering about and hanging about with a girl we met while queuing (for 2hrs) to buy train tickets called Sabina. We had a few beverages and lots of cake in Glenarys, a café we would return to for nearly every breakfast and quiet a few dinners and beers over the 2 weeks in the hill station. We saw the market and wandered about the streets absorbing the atmosphere.
We went to watch the sunrise at Tiger Hill. This involved getting up at 3.30 and catching a share jeep up the windy road to tiger hill. We could see the Jeep stand from our window so Terry was watching to see what time the crowd would arrive so we would not have to hang about in the cold too long. Typical stupid tourists we did not realize that the massive crowd of Indians on the road were not just Jeep drivers, touts and workers but also tourists. We got down to the jeep stand and managed to pile into a mini-minivan with an Indian family who were going to tiger hill. The mini-minivan seemed to be run on LPG or something but the smell of gas made me feel pretty unwell and eventually i had to get sick.

The sunrise was good and it was especially good as all of the Indian tourists started waving and clapping when the sun came up. The view of the sunrise glowing off the Himalayas was worth it, as well as being able to see the summit of Everest. On the way back down we stopped at Ghoom Buddhist temple and the war memorial garden at the Batista Loop.

We went back to bed at 7am when we got back to our hotel.
We did the joyride on the toy train which took about 3 hours to-do what I think was a 12 km round trip. The train is a world heritage site and set up a small museum which was interesting. You can get the train own to the main line at NJP where we arrived first, but it takes over 9 hours.

We also went to Observatory hill and had a gander at the site which is sacred to both Buddhists and Hindus, there is a cool temple in a cave. We also decided to find the Tibetan Refugee Centre. After searching for the place for hours we ended up getting very lost and eventually we ran out of road. We had 3 options; scramble up the hill until we came to another path, go back the way we came or go up the path that was behind an not so open gate next to us
So we choose to go through the gate. At first we thought we were in the botanical gardens as all of the trees had labels. We came out into a big garden with a gorgeous house in it and we were still wondering if we were in the botanical gardens except that there was nobody about we headed towards the gate were a multitude of soldiers with rifle, shot guns and state issued machine guns asked us what we were doing at the governor’s house as it was a restricted area. We hastily explained our situation and were thankfully not arrested.

The next day we met a lovely newly wedded couple from Dublin, Ronan and Fiona. Ronans brother the scrum half that is keeping Isaac Boss out of the Ulster team, Fiona’s dad and brother are world (or maybe just Irish I cant remember) handball champions and Ronan’s granny was friends with Edith so I said that I would go with them the next day to go and find the children’s home.

Terry did not go as he was sick – with the lack of cold weather clothes and an early morning freezing session watching the sun, he had developed a pretty poor flu and chest infection.
It turns out that terry and I were very close to the Tibetan Refugee place and the children’s home when we got lost. We arrived during the midst of the moving chaos. The foundation had built and adapted two buildings for the needs of their residential and drop in children. Edith spent years in Calcutta before moving to Darjeeling and setting up the place in Darjeeling and then in Siliguri. Fiona, Ronan and I,(and terry but he did not know it yet), offered to paint some of the rooms to help them get the houses ready a bit faster.
The four of us would spend a little over a week cleaning and painting with Fiona, in particular putting in Trojan work even though she was sick. We were invited to a party in Emma’s house that first night. Emma is from Cork and works for the foundation. She is engaged to the lovely Roshin who put up with my drunken ramblings. Terry did not come to the party as he was sick. The rest of us had a lovely evening with some good food, good company and a good old sing song. I got back to our accommodations at about 1am.everything in Darjeeling closes at 10 so I had to wake the poor doorman up.

The next day the painting began in earnest. 'Supervised' by Omar. Over the week we painted and did the glossing in the prayer room, counseling room, hall, parents are and the music room. Fiona scrubbed clean the carpets, furniture etc. we also pained some metal covers for the second floor windows and a few fire guards.

We were lucky enough to be there during Diwali and experienced the chaos of a few hundred children celebrating their first puja (Indian prayer thingies) in their new home and then being let lose, (while supervised), with a variety of small fireworks and sparklers. It was amazing.
We were at a lock in at the fantastic Joeys pub and did not get home until teen past the 11.

The next night we went for stew at Ediths and had to wake our poor doorman up again. Edith made Terry a separate pork dinner as he told her when drunk that he did not like stew. It was far from that kind of choice he was rared!
We had an absolutely fantastic time in Darjeeling. We enjoyed the painting and the hospitality of the children’s home. Particularly a lovely lady called Shopna who gave us lunch everyday. Edith and Emma were very generous with their time and opened up their homes to us. Poor Fiona and Ronan saw us for abut 12 hours a day. Not sure how they felt about that on their Honeymoon. If you feel like finding out more about the foundation or donating money this is their website, no pressure.
Anywho we decided it was time to head and our next destination was Varanasi and the holy Ganga River. Before we left we had another sightseeing day and we headed to the Zoo, the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (a really interesting place that had a museum about the Everest attempts),
the Happy Valley Tea plantation and high tea in a posh gaff. We saw snow leopards, yaks, the tiny tent used I the death zone at nearly 19000 ft and how tea is made for Harrods. Never use the toilet at the tea plantation. It is like every festival toilet ever, in one. Seriously.
We popped up to the home to say bye to everyone and the children presented us with lovely gifts. Ter nearly cried. Well ok he did not but I nearly did