Darjeeling limited

We have finished our time in Delhi and have moved on up to the mountains of Darjeeling, in the state of West Bengal (no sightings of Bengal tigers or Ochocinco's yet - sorry Dad and Conor). The ride up the mountain was without a doubt the most terrifying 3 hours of my life. The last half of the trip, we were driving through a cloud in the dark, so our driver had about 3 feet of visability, and could have driven off a cliff at any second. I said 2 full rosaries, I'm pretty sure I gave myself a new forehead wrinkle, and I woke up with a sore left forearm from gripping onto the door handle so tightly.

Once we arrived, things improved drastically. Darjeeling is stunningly beautiful, with some real rustic charm. It has the biggest mountains I've ever seen. Supposedly you can see Mt. Everest from certain points in town, but so far it has been too cloudy. Everyone hangs their laundry outside to dry (which I assume takes forever since everything is usually within a cloud), which makes it very colorful and, I think, really homey.

There are monkeys hanging out all over town. May is apparently the month for baby monkeys because they are everywhere, and really funny looking.

Darjeeling is famous for its tea, and there are tea plantations all around the outskirts of town. We visited one of them and saw the whole tea-making process - from the women picking the tea on the hillsides to the withering/rolling/fermenting/drying of the tea leaves - and got to taste some different teas. It was like a less-fun version of a winery tour, but still really interesting.

Tea party!

We visited the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, which has a trekking school and a museum about climbing Everest. The sherpa who was on the first successful trip up Everest, Tenzing Norgay, was from Darjeeling, and the museum had all of his climbing gear on display. His stuff was pretty low-tech - he just had woolen mittens and socks, and some furry boots with spikes on them - which makes the fact that he made it up alive and with all of his extremities intact even more impressive.

A lot of our time has been spent just walking up and down the hills of town. Darjeeling is kind of similar to Dharamsala, in that there is a very large Tibetan/Nepali population here and lots of Buddhist temples and monks. Unlike Dharamsala, however, it is much less westernized and still feels very much like we're in a crowded third-world country. I actually really like it here - it has all the charms of India without so much poverty, and no "beggar mafia". If only it was about 6000 feet closer to sea level.

A very ornate Buddhist monastery.

Jeremy joined us Sunday in Darjeeling, after 2 days on his own, during which he managed to amass some very classic India stories. He went down to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and his train caught on fire. Seriously. His railcar filled up with smoke, and he was shoved out the door onto the tracks by 50 other panicked passengers. The train stopped, the fire was put out with a fire extinguisher, and they were loaded back on the train and went on their way. Only in India. In Agra, he met a very helpful auto-rickshaw driver, who took him around all day and showed him the sights, and even let him drive the auto for a bit. I'm very glad I wasn't there to see it.

The train on fire.

Jeremy driving an auto-rickshaw. He's lucky to be alive.