Em's thoughts on Kathmandu

Patrick is currently high in the sky between Delhi and London and it's now my second night solo- the longest time we've spent apart since January. And with night 4 at the Mountain Guest House, it's also the most consecutive nights I've spent in the same bed since January. Well, I'm not completely alone- a large spider was scuttling around the room last night and I woke up to find a cockroach in its death throes next to the bed this morning. Energetic and potentially murderous spiders don't bother me, but one twitching roach had me in near hysterics and the most bravery I could manage was pulling on trousers before leaping from bed to door and flagging down the first cleaning lady I saw. She whisked it straight up with a bit of tissue as she is clearly made of stronger stuff than I.

Hubby's last post has mostly summed up Kathmandu - several nights at Tom & Jerry's playing pool and shooting the shit with Pradip and Saurav, eating some fabulous varied cuisines (from Vietnamese phone to Mexican quesadillas), wandering the streets of Thamel and beyond, and making drawn out goodbyes to the Dragomen, with people leaving in ones and twos since the 14th- Dutchie and I are the last holdouts!

If Kathmandu was my entry point to the subcontinent, I probably would have made the effort to do and see far more. I am somewhat ashamed at how little I've seen of this undoubtedly amazingly cultural and historical city beyond the tourist trap of Thamel, but after months of amazing culture and history and temples and ruins- girl needs a break. Today - my last full day in the city - I did very little besides spend a couple hours with Ram, who runs the trekking company I'm using and organise my packing (that which is coming around the Himalaya, and that which is spending some more time behind the deal at Mountain Peace). However I did take the time to go to a Vinyasa flow yoga class to properly stretch out before the trek. Remind me never to do yoga alongside 4 young and beautiful Nepali yoga teacher trainees again. Seriously.

Tomorrow morning at 7.30am I fly to Lakla, and begin 10 days of trekking, including (hopefully) reaching Everest Base Camp. Even the highest point on this trek is about 200m lower than Kilimanjaro was, and I'm starting on the diamox tonight, so fingers crossed I don't encounter any problems with altitude. I have my own guide and porter, as the alternative to the private trek was tag along with a family of 4, including teenagers. NOPE. I met my guide Tanjee this morning and went out to lunch with Ram, the manager of Nepal Spirit Adventure, the company I found in November. He's really lovely and supremely organised and helpful. I compared many trekking companies and am so far happy with the decision- a Nepalese-owned company was a priority (so all the money stays local), as was one that takes the welfare of guides and Sherpas seriously.

With the cold out of my system and a week of healthy Nepali food (so much better than all the oil and sugar in India!) in me, I am really excited to start this next chapter of the trip. And it will keep my mind off missing Patrick and being jealous he gets to see our kitties and drink real ale at the pub and see our friends... I finally get clean air in the mountains (Kathmandu is apparently the third most polluted city in the world and my lungs agree)!

Back to Kathmandu on the 29th, so see you then, loyal readers.

That's Why I'm Leaving from Kathmandu!!!

I'm sitting in the airplane at Kathmandu International Airport, composing my thoughts on this bustling, dusty, rubble-strewn, and weirdly prosperous city. It's almost like India on the 'easy' setting: overwhelming to the uninitiated, colourful and noisy, traffic obeying its own obscure rules, and touts everywhere. And yet ...   There's an order to the city that is lacking in India, except in exceptional places such as Mumbai and Kolkatta, a quietness in the noise, and a kind of peace amongst the hubbub. Maybe it's the magic of a secret kingdom two generations after opening, or the renewed purpose after the successful Maoist insurgency, or maybe India has jaded me beyond recognition. If I start talking about how peaceful and bucolic London is, you'll know which is which.

Our first day in Kathmandu, we stayed at the Hotel Tibet - an absolutely gorgeous hotel complete with rooftop bar and bathtub in the (clean!) bathroom. Afterwards we would move to hotel Mountain Peace, where the water came yellow out of the taps and smelled strongly of rust and soil, but for one glorious night we knew luxury, and it weren't half bad.

We walked around the city, with an eye towards finding Durbar Square - the centre of royal Nepal, and ground zero for the horrendous 2015 earthquake.   This meant threading our way through Thamel, the main tourist sector, and learning quickly not to even look at the odd fiddles being played by itinerant salesmen, unless you wanted to explain repeatedly that you have no intention if plonking down the equivalent of $50 on a musical curio. We found the square, but the $10 price of entry put us off.

That night, we went out for the final group meal of the tour, at a restaurant situated in an old monastery. The food was excellent, but the entertainment really stole the show. We were serenaded by a band and dancers, demonstrating via hand motions, eye glances, and expressions of indescribable boredom, the varying dance styles of the more than 24 ethnic groups of Nepal. This was dinner theatre for tourists, and they knew it. But the violinist, oh dear, the violinist. I think he suffers from Tourette's Syndrome, since he punctuated his entrances and exits by bleating like a goat then making three clicks with his throat. Interestingly, he did this at appropriate times during the performances as well. His compulsions were artistically minded.

The next day, we decided to see Swayambhunath, aka 'The Self-Risen Lord' aka the monkey temple. Fun linguistic note: the prefix 'swa' in Hindi means self, and sounds just like the French 'soi' - not an accident, an indication that Hindi is related to Latin and English if you go back far enough. The temple is on a hill on the west side of the city, and getting there involved walking 45 minutes through dusty, rubble streets (with a stop for lunch, on which more later), crossing the filth-choked river Bhagwati, and climbing up 365 monkey-infested steps to see a large Buddhist stupa complex. It was awesome, and I'm so glad that it took so much effort to get there - it made the trip seem a bit more like the pilgrimage it is meant to be.
  
On the way down, however, I was molested by a macaque. He wanted my water bottle, and was taken aback that I didn't surrender it. He tried to reason with me by climbing my legs, pulling at my trousers, and finally by grabbing my ... pride and joy. All to no avail - I wanted that water. When he finally tried to grab my hat as a consolation prize, I told him to fuck off, in a tone of voice he was willing to respect. It was truly a moment of cross species understanding. He'll be dining out on that story for years. 
Speaking of dining, about lunch. We stopped at this tiny filthy local greasy spoon for chow mein and Thukpa (Tibetan veggie stew), and noticed that the cook was stoned. I mean, clearly blitzed out of his mind. We had already stopped and were having a Gorkha, a delicious Nepali beer bested only by Everest (which is delicious and hearty), so we were basically committed at this point. It's a good thing, too: we ended up having the most delicious chow mein I have ever experienced, and the Thukpa was amazing as well!  I know what you're thinking: we had misjudged the chef. Nope. At the end of the meal, he slowly slid back in the dining room, drawing the curtain separating it from the kitchen across his face like a veil as he did so, before subtly blowing his nose on it.

The lesson here: a high-functioning stoner is still a stoner, and still high-functioning.

That night, after an amazing dinner at Places, a super hip restaurant owned by a friend of Laura's named Pradeep, we all went out to a suspiciously cool bar called Tom and Jerry's for leaving drinks and pool before having a dance at a suspiciously shit nightclub called OMG. I danced in the circle to Taylor Swift's 'Shake it Off', which was oddly appropriate because I slipped on a spilled drink and fell to the floor, before getting back up and continuing to dance. Fearless Leader Laura later revealed that she thought I'd planned the whole thing. Score one for all those years of improv classes. :D

For my last full day in town, I had big plans: see the nearby city state of Patan, check out Pushpatinath, a temple dedicate to Lord Shiva in his 'King of Animals' guise, and the famous Boudhnath, one of the largest Buddhist stupas in the world! We accomplished precisely zero of these. Instead, I got a tattoo.

:D

It's a cool design I found: a Celtic Triskell composed of three paisleys. It's just an outline at the moment, located on my left shoulder blade, but I have plans to fill in the paiselys with green Celtic knotwork, while filling in the background with a deep purple. It will be a memorial of this trip - with me forever, no matter how embarrassed of it I eventually become. Much like this blog.

That day we saw off Laura, Steve and Bex, and with Su Chi having run off the day before, that left myself, Jonny and Emily to be fêted by Emma and Dutchie, the two final remaining Dragomen, at Tom and Jerry's for our leaving drinks. Emma and I got there after dropping by the Irish pub Everest, near our hotel, where the beer was reasonably priced, and the music selection appropriately Irish, but the smell of cigarettes being smoked in the nasty dank evening was ... well, actually appropriately Irish as well. It was like an 'Irish bar' in a mid-sized American town with a large student and alternative population. You know the type. Don't lie.

At T&J, we met up with Pradeep's friend Saurabh, whom I beat at chess in a stunning upset, and Pradeep himself, who beat me in a stunning ... what's the opposite of an upset? Also there was a cool Swedish social worker named Amanda, with whom we talked music, and Julie, who had just got back from Everest base camp and was drunk enough for everyone. Amanda argued that Sweden had tried to take over world music with Abba in the 70s and Ah Hah in the 80s, but had lost it all with Ace of Base in the 90s. She thinks Sweden is about to come back, but she had forgot that Iceland has stolen the Scandi music crown with Sigúr Rós and Of Monsters and Men. It's a sad business, but we all agreed that at least they were doing better than Denmark, which only dominates at awesome crime dramas, and at having produced Sophie Gråbol.

The next morning after a substandard hotel breakfast that had to be followed by a trip to a Western coffee shop for some caffeine that didn't taste like rusty soil I had to grab a taxi to the airport. By the time this goes up, I'll once again be in Delhi, where the temperature is 42 degrees Celsius in the shade, and the traffic is insane and oh my God I don't wanna go back LET ME OFF THIS PLANE!!!!

...

Stupid Delhi.

First foray into Nepal

Happy 2073! Nepal - in addition to having a timezone of GMT+05:45 (aka, 15 minutes ahead of India) - has its own calendar as well and we happened to spend new years eve last night at the delightful Royal Beach Camp.

Going back a few days, we crossed the border on the 9th with typical subcontinent levels of bureaucracy. To exit India, we all sat outside a glorified shack that had goats, chickens, children and a snake running\slithering around it and were called in one by one to answer an agent's questions (answers of which were in our passports in his hand) for him to handwrite our details in a hand-lined notebook no one will ever look at. About 45 minutes later we piled back on to the truck to drive across a bridge (a much shorter period of statelessness than when we exited Bolivia about 15 hours before officially entering Peru in 2013) to reach the impressively large and newly built Nepalese border building. The visa options are 15 days, 30 days or 90 days. The fact that I'm spending about 38 days in the country meant my visa cost $100USD whereas Patrick's was only $25. Visas in hand, Dutchie put pedal to the metal and took us a few hundred kilometres further west into Nepal. Our hotel for the night was in a nondescript town I never did catch the name of (Lahan, as it happens! - Patrick), like so many hundreds we've driven through in India.

With another early morning start, we made it halfway across the entire country before noon, arriving at the Rhino Lodge in Sauraha on the edge of Chitwan National Park. Our first afternoon there, we jumped into rickety wooden carts pulled by oxen for the journey to a neighbouring village and the Tharu Cultural Museum. Chitwan became Nepal's first national park in 1973 and while that's been great for wildlife preservation, it did mean turfing out ("relocating") all the people who had been living there for generations. A few individuals' stories were profiled, discussing the positives and negatives of the change. We walked around the tiny village a bit, and saw new houses being built, but mostly just cooed over baby goats, calves, chicks and ducklings (along with a profusion of Marijuana plants growing wild by the roadside! - Patrick). We bumped along back to the hotel, past rice paddies and old men playing cards and kids kicking bottles around, watching the transition from traditional village to town catering to Western tourists, with the usual proliferation of shops selling bright cotton hippy pants and "traditional handicrafts."
When our oxen dropped us outside the hotel, an elephant and its minder veered off the main road towards us and marched straight through the hotel grounds to the river directly behind the restaurant building for bath time.  

Selephie game is strong

 Wild elephants aren't very appreciated here due to their habit of rampaging through crops, but the working elephants are used by rangers. The grass in the park is so high, travelling by elephant is the most effective way of catching and preventing poachers.  Naturally we scurried behind the elephant (Remi and Jonny caught a ride on her back, when the enterprising mahout saw an opportunity for making a few rupees from excited tourists). Whilst the elephant splashed around in the water, we found a perfectly located river beach bar. My first Everest beer (huge improvement on Kingfisher) coincided with watching my first sunset in Nepal and it was pretty damn gorgeous.

Waiting for my cheque from the beer company for this ad
Later in the evening, we went to another cultural centre for a dance demonstration. Most of the audience were Nepali and showed no hesitation in shouting raucous approval of the various performances, which at least was a break in the loud talking and selfie-taking. The first dance was all women, looking extremely bored and miserable. Luckily that was their only number, as the men really outshone them. The stick dance was quite cool, like a carefully choreographed stage battle. But nothing can match The Peacock. The crowd went wild when the portly peacock toddled on stage. The man in the suit did have impressive control of the puppetry controlling the neck and the audience acted like 1970s Mick Jagger was ripping off his shirt when the full plumage went up. Dance is the artistic medium that least captures me at the best of times, and cultural demonstrations take even that teetering level of interest down a few notches.   But the peacock was pretty good.

We spent much of the next day exploring parts of Chitwan. Firstly on the Rapti River by canoe, which was a long hollowed out tree that could fit about 10 people.  Our guide pointed out every last bird on the banks of the river, but as many of them (heron, egret, cormorants, plovers) are common in Florida, it wasn't too exotic. The occasional flash of an iridescent blue kingfisher was lovely and seeing an enormous wild peacock in a tree was pretty funny, when I've been used to only seeing them in the grounds of castles and stately homes.  The only other beasties we caught sight of from the canoe were a few crocodiles- some marsh muggers and the comparatively rare gharials. The canoe trip was very relaxing and pleasant, but after 40 minutes we pulled up to a bank and started a jungle hike (preceded by a variety of warnings of what to do if threatened by a rhino or sloth bear). Within the first 20 minutes of the walk, we got the sign to tiptoe through the leaves and were able to stand a few feet from a dozing rhino. The 7 of us on the walk stood silently on the main path while the main guide gestured for us to come down one at a time for a closer look. As I was crouched down next to the second guide in awe at the proximity of the triceratops (the guides called it a rhino, but I know what I saw), he woke up for a little snack. The second guide mouthed I needed to stay completely still and quiet- just as his mobile started ringing. Happily the rhino seemed more interested in returning to his nap than goring us, so I crept back to the path. Even though this was our only rhino sighting, I was thrilled. Patrick has never seen a large animal in the wild, and when I was on safari in Tanzania, I nearly missed completing the Big Five checklist, till the last morning in Ngorongoro when I saw a speck in the distance that the safari guide assured was us a rhino (and the 42x zoom on my camera did just pick out a horn). But being this close was exhilarating
The rest of the bush walk our guide pointed out the signs of other animals- claw marks on trees from tigers and sloth bears, tiger poo full of deer hair, rhino poo (they like to go in the same spot), elephant poo (and how you can tell it's a wild elephant), actually mostly just seeing poo and a few damaged trees. We climbed up to one of the observation towers the soldiers use to watch for poachers and had a nice view over the grasses and forest.

Later in the afternoon, we jumped into jeeps for a trip to Bis  Hajaar Tal (20,000 Lakes). We saw the usual selection of birds - kingfisher, eagles, peacocks - and a few types of deer. The whole experience of sitting in the back of an openair jeep became much more enjoyable as soon as the sun dipped down and it was under 38 degrees.  

Tuesday morning we piled back into Daisy for the short in distance but long in time drive to Royal Beach Camp, near Pokhara. The tents were ready pitched for us down on the sand near the Trisuli River. After lunch - and a beer for courage - Patrick, Remi, Bex, Stephen and I got into helmets and PFDs, grabbed an oar and hopped into a raft- time for some whitewater with our guide Pineapple. The Trisuli comes down from the Himalaya (so it is BLOODY COLD), and through Kathmandu on its way to India where it becomes the Ganges. Holy as the Ganges may be, I'm glad I swam in it closer to source rather than further downstream when it's full of faeces and cadavers. There were powerful winds that afternoon so even going downstream we had to paddle with some force. The rapids were Grade 3 at the most, much tamer than my first time whitewater rafting in Alaska, and all swimming was intentional, ie no one fell overboard. Fabulous way to see the canyon and beat the heat.

We all passed a delightful evening playing uno, eating too much (I'm finding Nepali food much healthier than Indian), finishing up supplies of vodka and rum, and dancing around our campfire on the beach. With all the excitement of the day, I was in the tent by 10pm and only vaguely stirred when I heard a merry crowd of Nepalis counting down and cheering in the new year.

. 

As I finish typing, we're only 21km from Kathmandu and the end of our time with Daisy, though we don't have to make Dragoman goodbyes till tomorrow.

Gangtok Style!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist. Short entry this time, since there's only 2 days to cover. We left for Gangtok early in the morning and drove through the mountains in jeeps hired for the occasion. Entering Sikkim state means effectively passing through an international border: you have to show your passport and fill out paperwork in order to be let through. This may have something to do with the fact that Sikkim was an independent state until the 1970s, before its Nepali immigrant population became a majority and voted for union with India, or it may be because Sikkim literally borders onto China, and the Indian government isn't taking any chances on that score.

At the border town of Rangpo, we stopped for lunch, and I made the mistake of eating at Domino's. Don't ask me what possessed me - I just felt like going them a chance again, and I was filled with memories of eating bad pizza in uni that are undoubtedly somewhat idealised. Emma, of course, was not tempted in the least, and ran off to get chaat with the other reasonable people. Anywho, I got the spicy triple pizza, with stuffed garlic bread. Both were basically inedible, thanks to the absurdly spicy chilli peppers used liberally. It was pizza as designed by 14 year olds: spice used not to enhance flavour, but to prove one's machismo. And even once the peppers were removed, I still had to deal with the fact that it was Domino's pizza underneath. I cannot recommend staying away from it highly enough.

Once we were in Gangtok itself, we got a chance to do a little sightseeing, particularly of the local highstreet, Mahatma Gandhi Marg. In stark contrast to to so much of India's urban areas, the street was clean, well designed with attractive buildings, and had large numbers of families and shoppers wandering about at leisure. Laura, our fearless leader, described it as Southampton in the mountains, and she absolutely bailed it. We found a cafe, serving fantastic pizzas and coffee, that gave us our first wifi connection since Darjeeling. :D

The next day, we had a visit to the cool Rumtek Monastery, the world headquarters of the so-called 'black hat' sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The buildings themselves are quite recent, but then, so is the current incarnation of the Lama in charge of the whole shebang. I got a lovely picture of one of the guardian gods playing a sitar (and a horse-headed support god absolutely rocking out on bass), and we were treated to an absurdly engaging, and interestingly cadenced, tour by the inimitable Mahoy Raj. The man was dressed in a waistcoat and matching trousers, like a banker on a break, but filled us in on the different branches of Buddhism, the length of a Buddhist philosophical education (16 years at the least), and the iconography of the golden stupa containing the ashes of the most recent Lama. It was an absolute kick.

Monastery aside, the other highlight was Vincent's going away drinks, held at the Live Loud Bar. Emma was still wiped from being sick, so she state in and read, but the rest of us sailed out to a suspiciously well appointed bar to do the man proud. The bar band started playing Daft Punk's 'Get Lucky', and it took about 5 seconds to realise that they were actually really good at it. By the time they launched into Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance', performed as a heavy metal thrash fest, we realised they were the greatest bar band ever. Even their original song, kept tastefully for dead last, was well crafted and excellently performed. I don't know their names, but if you are a record producer in Sikkim, you are going to want to find them immediately. Live Loud, April 8th - use some Google fu!

After the band finished, we all danced the night away... Or rather, we danced until 10, when I went back to the hotel. We had to get up at 4:30am the next day for our insanely long journey back to Siliguri, where we parted from Vincent (sob), rejoined Daisy and began our trek into Nepal, and I'm not one to miss the basics of a good night's sleep. But the man himself was kept up until midnight by some of the younger, spryer set, and there are amusing pics and video of him being goaded into trying test tube shots at a bar on the way home.

We left the Himalayas with a lump in our throats; the weather has been cool, the sights dramatic, and the pop music surprisingly excellent. From here on in, it would be back to good old Indian heat.

May God have mercy on our souls.

Into the Himalayas!

I'm back in Daisy, the Dragoman truck, sweating through the lowlands of Nepal after 9 days of paradise. In this instance, paradise is defined as cold, wet and cloudy weather on top of a mountain. Ah, the Himalayas.

We left Kolkatta on a sleeper train to Siliguri, in the northern part of West Bengal. The goal was to sleep through the journey, and get into town in morning, before boarding jeeps to take us into the mountains, and into Darjeeling for three glorious nights. I say goal - I did not sleep at all. This was due to a few issues. Number one, the compartment was clearly built for tiny people - I'm not a big man, but I wasn't able to fully stretch out, so that meant either crooking my head off to one side, or sleeping on my belly with my shins in the air. Secondly, the family in the compartment across from mine left their light on until 1am, when I accidentally woke them up trying to turn it off. But the biggest reason was this: the I kale in my throat from our last day in Kolkatta had become a nasty cold/bronchitis/flu abomination, and I spent the whole journey blowing my nose and feeling rubbish. It's been almost two weeks, and I'm only now getting over it.

Siliguri itself has little to recommend it: hot, flat and dusty, it's little more than a jumping off point for Darjeeling, but in that it serves admirably. The jeep ride follows the tracks of the famous 'toy train' - the 1890s tiny gauge railroad built by the Brits when they made Darjeeling the summer capital of the Raj (Kolkatta being a bit hot in the summertime). Actually, it doesn't just follow the tracks - the tracks crisscross the road repeatedly, since the road was built effectively on top of the path up the mountain that the tracks also use. The train still runs, mostly as a tourist attraction, but is slow enough that no car (or pedestrian) has ever been endangered by it.

We stopped for lunch and had our first Momos: Tibetan dumplings, much like Japanese gyoza, filled traditionally with pork, but often enough with veggies (tourists in India being notoriously vegetarian). With them, we also had the first honest-to-god spicy sauce we've had on this trip. As it happens, either the Himalayas are the only part of India where proper spices can be found, or our waiters in the rest of the country have been bald-facedly lying to us about the spice level of our food. Not that I blame them: I'm sure many is the tourist who overestimates what they can handle, spice-wise, and I'm sure the charms of laughing at wannabe spice warriors lose something after the 100th go round.

Darjeeling itself was surprising, in a lot of good ways. Firstly, it was cleaner than almost anywhere else in India. The mountain air was crisp and refreshing, especially once you get to the pedestrian zones where jeeps aren't allowed to belch filth on you. The people were all really well dressed, and healthy-looking, and even the stray dogs looked pleasant and cared for. But most astounding if all, we found good coffee. No, let me say that again. We found what is possibly the best coffee in India, and possibly outside of Ethiopia itself. It was at this very modern cafe on the high street, complete with baked goods that were in constant danger of running out, probably because they too were outstanding. The Himalaya Java Company is not messing around, kids.

We were in town for three nights, so rather than give you a blow-by-blow, I'll hit the major points. We visited the Tibetan Refugee Centre, a little farther down the mounting. In addition to picking up some gifts (and a beautiful purple pashmina scarf for Emma), we got to see some woodworking and spinning being done by some of the refugees, as well as see an interesting exhibit on Tibetan history, specifically the bits involving Tibet's brief period of de facto independence before being 'liberated' by the People's Liberation Army. It's interesting to think that Tibet was a theocracy before then, and the Dalai Lama, who is a pretty democratic and humble guy, would otherwise have been absolute ruler of the country. I saw an article later on in Gangtok, hinting that, in order to prevent the PRC from naming (and therefore claiming) the next incarnation, the Dalai Lama might choose not to be reincarnated at all. It would be a big step, but I suspect the Dalai Lama feels that preventing China from legitimising it's colonialism makes it worth while.

The walk back was quite tough - not for Emma, of course, but for the rest of us normal people. Vincent and Emily were left behind while we decided to keep going up past town towards a Hindu temple, from which we were hustled away because we had no intention of taking off our shoes just then. We did manage to meet up with Bex and Jonny, and together we got tea at the Golden Tips tea room. Dear lord, Darjeeling tea is good. Later on, we bought some as gifts for friends and family, and while we couldn't afford the really good stuff, we were able to get some very nice examples of what tea can do.

After three days, it was time for us to push on, this time to a tea plantation called Karmi Farm, owned by Andrew, a Scottish-Himalayan whose highland credentials are obviously impeccable. While there, we had no internet, so our days were spent hiking through mountains. Drinking the surprisingly good Sikkim brew called Hit, and reading obsessively in the cool bright air. Andrew's library was excellent, and we all found something to pore over: for me, it was 'Flashman on the March' - a fake autobiography of a Victorian hero who reveals himself to be a total coward and self-described poltroon during the Abyssinian war. It's part of a series; the general idea is well-researched historical fiction taking the piss out of (while also celebrating) British colonialism. It was very funny, informative, and made me want to see Ethiopia first hand. Just, you know, not in the summertime.

Unfortunately, our time at Karmi farm  was marred by illness. Not just mine - although the splitting headache/nausea/fever was jolly good fun - but Emma's as well. She caught my bug back in Darjeeling, and the jeep rides really ended up taking it out of her. She still did all the hiking, but was way more affected by it than she has been in the past. Since he's going to be hiking to Mount Everest Base Camp in a few weeks, she was a little concerned. I'm sure it's just being sick, and she should be fine in a few days. Stupid illness.

Our last night in Karmi Farm, we were taught how to wrap momos into their delicious dumpling form. While Emma gave it a try, Jonny, Bex and I quickly became obsessed. We ended up wrapping what must have been hundreds of momos, until our hands were shaking, our muscles sore, and our backs bent over. No one wanted to quit firsts, so none of us did. As a reward, Andrew introduced us to Tongpa, the local home-brewed sake. It was interesting, and then delicious, especially with hand-wrapped momos or dinner.

Finally, before heading off to bed, we gathered around the old laptop to watch episodes of 'The Mighty Boosh' - an utterly insane show with some of the most cheaply made, disturbing, yet oddly gorgeous special effects anywhere. It reads like a fever dream, and certain images, such as a threatening eel-obsessed cockney criminal playing a song on the piano about 'Eels' will never fully leave my mind. Meanwhile, Andrew's staff danced and drank in the dining room, in what can only be interpreted as an example of authentic life, as opposed to us silly laptop-watching hooligans.

Our Himalayan adventure was not yet complete: we still had one more stop to make before our journey into Nepal. The next morning, we set out for Gangtok, but that will be another story. In the meantime, I leave you with the following memory, one that will last far after so much else has fled my mind. In a word:

Eels. 

Kolkata is no black hole

Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) is essentially the polar opposite of Chennai. It's green, walkable, full of culture and interesting history, considered the cuisine capital of India and is even a bit cooler to boot. So much excitement I never even considered a visit to a mall or cinema!

We had a lengthy train ride from Puri but we were in comfy seats and were constantly plied with food included in the fare. Jonny-the-Scouser and I for some reason had seats well apart from our comrades so we amused ourselves by watching Tom Hardy's Kray bros film, Legend. Good entertainment, but rather confusing when one is immersed in the 1960s East End to look up and see dozens of people hanging out of passing trains. 

Our arrival into Howrah station sadly did not signal an opportunity to jump straight into the city. Leaving the others standing guard over a pile of bags, Laura and I joined the pre-paid taxi queue which took us over an hour to move to the front of. Auto-rickshaws (Tuk-Tuks) aren't allowed into the city centre, so instead the transport of choice are big yellow Ambassador cabs, strongly reminiscent of New York. We crossed the Howrah Bridge, purportedly the world's busiest, and its likeness to the Queensboro (described so eloquently in The Great Gatsby) maintained the similarity. The city is even designed on a grid system and has a massive long park running through the middle of it! 

After finally making it to our lovely hotel (miraculously not killing anyone on the way, hard as our driver tried), we set out for the Maidan Park. We missed the opening hours of the Victoria Memorial but enjoyed strolling the grounds, just a small fraction of the enormous park. For once, no one looked twice at us, and we weren't remotely conspicuous as a hand-holding couple. In fact, I think we were in a minority of the chaste, as every tree and bush seemed to be providing shelter for heavily snogging couples. As dusk fell, we decided to pop into St Paul's Cathedral, which looks a bit more like Canterbury. I didn't get to look round it much because within a few moments of entering, a young man came up to us with the usual introduction of "HelloWhichCountry?" and upon hearing England, his next question to me was "I have your phone number?" It's a real shame that I "don't have a phone" because I was then treated to the story of how he used to be a drug addict but is DEFINITELY clean now (not sure I believe that, looking at his eyes) and is studying hotel management and wants to come to London. By the time we finally extracted ourselves from him to try look at the architecture a bit, the church was closed and we were shooed out. 

As it was the last night of that leg of the trip (meaning we were losing Hannah and Caroline), we had a group outing, taking the Metro (the network consists of only 1 line, but it's clean and reliable) to the swank Park St area for a fabulous meal at the delightfully named Peter Cat restaurant. Their special, the Chelo Kebab, is deservedly famous, but necessitated walking home so as not to slip into a food coma.

At breakfast the next morning we met one of the new travellers of the last leg of the trip, Bex from Kent. Patrick and I adopted her for the day and the three of us walked miles together, getting to know each other and bonding over a shared hatred of southeastern rail. Our first stop was the colonialism-on-steroids behemoth that is the Victoria Memorial. I'd read a description comparing it to "Taj Mahal meets US Capitol," which I can't better. In addition to a nice dome, there was a photography exhibition of Gandhi, and one of the better museums I've seen in India, much of which focussed on various social reformers, satirists and artists of the 19th and 18th centuries. The real reason to visit however is a rather camp statue of King George V, who we renamed Sassy Britches due to a very, well, sassy twist of the hip that's been captured for prosperity in marble. Sadly cameras are strictly prohibited inside and searching 15 pages of google images has revealed nothing. We spent the next few hours wandering far and wide, seeing more of Maidan Park, stuffing our faces with Kati rolls from a street stall, and feeling like we were back in London when we walked through Park St Cemetery. Back at the hotel, we met the last 2 group members - Su Chi and Remy -  and went out for another group meal at The Great Booze Story. Seemed like a promising establishment at first, but quickly proved too loud and dark to chat much, and also pretty incompetent at running a kitchen, since everyone was long long done with their meals (some had even paid up and left), when I was still waiting for any sign of my burrito (not a famously complicated dish). 

I was up at 5.30am Wednesday morning for a really special tour of the city. The Rs.2100 price tag nearly put me off (and in fact Patrick decided to catch up on sleep instead), but it was genuinely worth it for nearly 4 hours spent with Manjit, who grew up in the neighbourhoods we visited. He seemed to know everyone we passed, and had unfettered access to a Buddhist monastery, Zoroastrian fire temple, Chinese temple, Jewish synagogue, and a multitude of markets. We spent hours winding through back roads of the "grey" areas (ie, immigrants who are neither black nor white), watching the city wake up, and trying a multitude of foods from street vendors. Manjit is clearly a popular character on these streets and our little group was happily received everywhere. It never felt like we were intruding on people's lives, just observing and interacting. The men at work were always happy to have their photo taken (I asked each person, as having a camera shoved in my face without asking - which happens all too often in India - is a massive pet peeve of mine, and I extend the courtesy of a request before removing my lenscap to take a portrait). As well as leading tours, Manjit is a successful photographer in his own right, and articles featuring his work have featured in several major British newspapers. His English is impeccable and he loved making jokes and puns, the sure sign of fluency. As Patrick and I missed out on tours of Delhi and Mumbai, I was really happy I decided to see a side of Kolkata I never would have found on my own. Due to the early start, the rest of the day was fairly subdued before our 10pm train.

Patrick, Hannah, Bex, Emily and I decided to join forces for a trip to the Botanical Gardens (actually the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden), about 10km away across the river. Though Tuk-Tuk drivers will happily squeeze 5 passengers into their little vehicles, the huge Ambassador vehicles will only take 4, so the girls jumped in one cab, and we hailed another a few minutes behind. Contrary to literally every other taxi ride we've had in India, the driver used the meter without argument, so the long journey only cost Rs.107. We waited at the gardens entrance for the girls for a while, then decided they must have either been dropped off at another gate, or have gone on ahead to the Great Banyan Tree, which was the reason for our visit, so Patrick and I decided to wade in, in the hopes of running into the others. The gardens are massive and include many different paths, with difficult to read signs pointing the way to various points of interest. What should have been a fairly direct path to the Banyan became a circuit around most of the park- which was lovely! And the tree at the end was truly spectacular. At first glance, it appears that you're in front of a regular forest, till a closer look reveals all the "trees" are actually all connected. It's about 200 years old (the main trunk died after a lightening strike in 1925) and covers around 4 acres and photos absolutely don't do it justice. (We later discovered the girls' driver had dropped them off in a different part of the city, another driver tried to severely rip them off, and a mob formed to shame the dodgy driver- they never did make it to the gardens, but had a great story to tell once they arrived back at the hotel- but we're sad we didn't get to say bye to Hannah).

We found a taxi to take us back to the city, had another Kati roll each, broke down and visited a bookstore (in which Patrick made friends with a guy very keen on sharing his meandering philosophies), and went back to the hotel to grab our bags in preparation for the overnight train to Siliguri. 

Seeing so much of Kolkata really challenged the expectations I had about this city, which I think still suffers from very outdated stereotypes. However, our trip did end on two very sombre notes. Shortly before leaving the city, we learned about a bridge collapse, in the area we'd explored during the photography tour. It was packed with people early in the morning, so it's horrendous to think how full of people the area must have been when the accident occurred in the afternoon. Reading the newspaper the next morning, we learned that the construction company (blacklisted by other states, but hired by West Bengal), was likely rushing the job as they were under pressure to get the flyover completed ASAP, as the project was years behind. Naturally, a great deal of finger pointing has ensued, with the company even calling it an "act of God." 

Due to the accident, some roads were closed and the taxi had to take a fairly circuitous route to the train station, including through many slums built up along the edge of the railway lines. A moment's glimpse from a moving taxi just shows grim desperation, but a longer look shows more of the spirit that keeps the community going- entrepreneurship, smiles, multi-level homes, even a kid sat on a pile of rubbish watching a video on his smart phone. Like it struck me visiting the villages, we see but a sliver of life as we hop about the globe, but how many of these people will escape life in the slums? I hope many will- though I've never seen past Calcutta, the image of blinding poverty everywhere is no longer true, and I hope poverty continues to decrease so that so many do not have to live surrounded by rubbish and no access to safe water. It was a sobering final view of a city that we spent a short amount of time in.

Next stop- night train to Siliguri and jeeps to Darjeeling.

Puri and the Juggernaut

After 5 days and nights roaming the tribal territories of Orissa, we arrived at our last stop before Calcutta - the holy city of Puri. The place is famous primarily for the Jagannath Mandir, a massive temple complex dedicated to Lord Vishnu in his incarnation as Krishna (Jagannath means 'universal lord'). The temple, once a year, builds and sends out a massive, multi-story high chariot to take the idol from the temple grounds out to a smaller shrine in the middle of a man-made lake and back again over the course of a 10 day holiday, one day per incarnation. This massive chariot is the origin of the English word 'juggernaut' - the pictures make clear that this is no exaggeration.

Our hotel was lovely, located on the outskirts of the city, with a pool, and overpriced beers, and wifi, and laundry service - exactly what we needed after our time in the lack of aircon. Our first order of business is to be taken on Tuk-Tuks to see the sights, including the aforementioned temple, as well as a monastery, dedicated to a Hindu sadhu known for his 8-foot-long dreadlocks, where Emma was stung four times by a particularly territorial wasp. I am, and have been, terrified of wasps since I was stung as an 8 year old in Florida. At the time, it was the worst pain I'd ever experienced, and nothing since then has really measured up, so I've had that fear lurking in the back of my mind ever since - Emma, of course, was mildly annoyed by the stings, and her ability to shrug them off makes me think I'm maybe exaggerating the dangers.

After the monastery, we went to see the temple in the lake, which contained replicas of the idols of Krishna, his brother Balarama and his wife, Lakshmi, located in the Jagannath. 
 This was as close as we would ever get to the things themselves, since the temple is off-limits to non-hindus, but we did go to see the outside of it in the middle of a major market street. We were taken to the top of a library building across the street, from which we could see all three entrance gates, as well as the awesome Kalinga-style spire on top, as well as the massive kitchen complex, off limits even to the Brahmans of the Temple, where the offertory food known as Prasad is made before it is laid before the gods and then given out to the faithful. It was the wrong time of year to see the chariot, sadly, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless, and we felt well touristed by the time we went back to the hotel.

Our second day was given over to a day trip to Lake Chilika, where, after a 90 minute drive, we boarded a longboat and cruised out to an island community where we toured the area, smiled at children, and tried not to be converted to the worship of Kali by a very enthusiastic fisherman. We also saw a man giving another man a haircut in the middle of the street - it would have been very poignant and indicative of the problems of rural poverty, except that the men on the island had seriously well-styled hair, so apparently the lack of a brick and mortar shop is no bar to fashion.

Afterwards, we had lunch at a beautiful beach-front campsite on another island, where I was astounded to realise that I knew ALL of the trees from my childhood in South Florida. Seriously, there were seeds I remember playing with, banyans a-plenty, and the shocking realisation of just how constructed a physical environment I grew up in. Also, there were big, black, lovely ants crawling all around us and getting swept around by the strong cool breeze - they were utterly uninterested in attacking us, so they totally had our sympathies against the ravens flapping about and looking for their next meal. On the ride back to the jeeps, we saw not one, not two but around 7 Irrawaddy dolphins swimming through the shallow, brackish waters of the lake; we had been told by a very informative but not necessarily well-informed American that this was the wrong time of year to see any, so either we were very lucky, or Global Warming is a bit more immediate than I had thought.

 We ate that night at the Honey Bee bakery, where the food is as outstanding as the service is dire. Seriously. When we ate there the day before for lunch we waited 90 minutes in an empty restaurant for pizza. The fact the we went back the next night as a group tells you how bad service generally is in India, and just how good that pizza was. Sometimes, late at night, I still miss that pizza. Also, Emma found a sign on the roof terrace that pretty much ensured her loyalty forevermore: someone had stenciled in the logo for the show Alias, a spy show by J J Abrams starring Jennifer Garner, next to the security camera. It was as if the place was meant for us. Except for the service. The service was terrible.

For our last day in town, we all went out for a group bike ride through the surrounding villages of Puri. Well, most of us did. Caroline took one look at the bikes and decided to do literally anything other than ride the delapidated and rusty Dutch bikes through Indian traffic. After an awkward start, we all toddled off down the road to see the villages and enjoy a little much-needed physical exercise. Of course, Emma took the lead - she cycles 16 miles a day to and from work, while I do so less often, while I decided to take the rear, in order to make sure we didn't lose any stragglers. This brilliant division of labour did have one drawback; my chain snapped in half just after I had been held up by some traffic. Everyone else, other than Jonny, was already out of sight ahead of me, so there was nothing for us to do but walk our bikes and hope that someone, my wife perhaps, would eventually notice that we were missing.

We walked along for a good 20 minutes before that happened.

At a chai stop, Niranjan phoned ahead for jeeps, who arrived to take Jonny to meet Caroline and Laura at the end of the bike ride, while I took Jonny's bike for the final leg of the tour. Only then did I realise why Jonny had been quite so eager to surrender his machine - the handlebars hit my knees anytime I tried to turn, and the brakes were basically nonexistent. When we all arrived, safe and sound and remarkably incident-free, we walked to a craft village where we had the opportunity to purchase some legitimately lovely silk work (we got some small things for presents) and then came back to Puri. For the afternoon, we went on one last trip, this time to see the Sun Temple at Konark.

This massive building was built in the 1200s by the king of Puri in honour of the sun god, Surya. While today, Hinduism tends to focus on Vishnu and Shiva and their related gods and goddesses, Surya is an older, Vedic deity (like Indra, the king of gods) who has fallen mostly out of fashion. The temple is an odd mix of ruin and astounding preservation, thanks to the soft soil in the area: while the Sanctum Sanctorum collapsed in 1823, the audience hall still stands in its impressive bulk, complete with carvings of Kings, Gods and acrobatic copulations. Our guide, greater for his enthusiasm than his English skills, was particularly keen on showing me the latter, and in teaching me tantric philosophy and making wild claims about how all of scientific progress is really just proof of tantric philosophy. I, meanwhile, was mainly interested in dying inside.  It truly was a situation where we got more out of just being there and looking at it than we got from our guide.


The temple is built to represent a massive chariot, with 12' wheels carved onto the base of the building, with each wheel acting as a sundial, while 7 horse statues at the front act to draw it forward. In the back, an astoundingly Egyptian looking frieze shows the influence that Alexander the Great had in linking the Mediterranean and subcontinental worlds. But the most impressive thing we saw wasn't even architectural. A gigantic wasp, the largest I have ever seen, attacked, killed, and (after considerable effort and a succession of false starts) flew away with the corpse of a preying mantis. It was odd to see the struggle of nature, red in tooth and claw, taking place amongst the hordes of tourists at an 800 year old temple, but it was also more engrossing than nodding and smiling at our guide's incoherent sex talk.

On the way back to the hotel for our final night, we stooped by at a charity school that Dragoman donates money to, set up to serve the children of the Telugu-speaking fishermen who ply the coasts. We were received by the entire school, all lined up to give us a good stare as we shuffled in front of them, sweaty, stained and feeling deeply foolish. We were introduced as benefactors, which we effectively were, and then stood in an uncomfortable silence, until someone had the idea of shaking hands with a five year old in front of them. At this, the dam broke, and we shook hands, exchanged names, and high fived literally hundreds of students until the principal let them leave school for the day. After that, we were given a tour of the premises, including the computer lab and library, before we fell back in the jeeps, tired but blissful, to grab an early night.

Our train to Calcutta would leave at 5:30 the next day.