Under the Weather in Darjeeling

If you read anything about Darjeeling, you will read about the toy train from New Jalpaguri. I had hoped to ride the train, but when I heard that the ride was an eight hour journey compared to three hours by jeep, I decided to take the jeep up and opt for the more scenic trip on the way back down.

I woke that morning and made my way out into the street in search of some bananas for the ride. After walking along the road for about half a block, I spotted a stand selling bananas on the other side of the road. New Jalpaguri is quite a motorized city and the streets are bustling with cars, trucks, jeeps, and buses along with bicycle rickshaws and other two wheeled vehicles, making any sort of pedestrian road crossing a precarious act. I waited for a break in the steady stream of traffic and rushed to the median to wait out the traffic coming from the other direction. Just as I saw my chance to make a run for it, a jeep pulled up, blocking my way, and a man in the front seat, hung his head out of the window and yelled, “Darjeeling!?” For a brief moment, I glanced longingly at the bananas just beyond the traffic, but knowing how priceless a share taxi with one space left can be, I nodded affirmatively and jumped in the back as the jeep took off down the road.

The jeep was packed with two passengers next to the driver in the front, four passengers on the bench behind the driver and four of us crammed into the back seats along the sides. I barely fit in the small space that was left, but I settled in as well as I could with my head tilted to the side to accommodate the low ceiling. The other passengers were all Indians and none seemed to keen on conversation.

As we reached the mountains, I began to see the train track that ran along side of the road. Each time we went around a curve, the track crossed the road so that the train was not riding along the edge of the cliff. Watching the track, I realized that 1) I would get a very similar view from the jeep as I would from the train and 2) that if there were traffic coming up or down the mountain as the train made it countless switches across the road, it would be very slow going indeed.

As we climbed, I saw that the view from the jeep was a pretty one, but I could only catch it in glimpses, as each time we went around a curve my perspective would alternate between rock face and scenic mountain view. My neck was beginning to ache from its awkward position and I was beginning to regret passing up those bananas, so I was anxious to get to Darjeeling.

I had painted a picture of Darjeeling in my mind’s eye of winding, hilly streets, quaint old storefronts and awe inspiring Himalayan views, so when we pulled into town on a dirty street, lined by rows of identical, two-story storefronts, I was a little disappointed. Fortunately, my need for food outweighed my need for awe-inspiring views at that moment, so I happily left the jeep and headed for the nearest fruit stand.

After a few bananas, I decided to make my way to the guesthouse I had chosen out of the guide book. The map of Darjeeling from my book was lined with thick black lines representing roads and vertical stacks of dashes of which I was unable to understand the significance until I began my ascent.

Darjeeling was build on the side of a mountain, so in order to get around, you must either follow the winding roads that lead, in switchback fashion, up to the top, or take the more direct route up steep staircases that lead between the levels of road. In my weakened state, neither option was appealing, so I decided to first find somewhere for lunch.

The roads in Darjeeling are lined with numerous shops and restaurants. The higher you ascend, the more the restaurants and shops seem to cater to the tourist crowd, so I stopped about halfway up, in a little Chinese restaurant off to the side. I was lured less by its cuisine and more by its location, knowing that I ate there, I wouldn’t have to make it all the way up the hill.

After a lunch of some kind of spicy soup, I was ready to tackle the rest of the hill. While I was eating it had begun to rain lining the streets with rivulets of muddy water. On the way up, I caught a glimpse of another Western tourist from underneath my umbrella, and asked her if she knew the whereabouts of the guesthouse I was looking for. She said that she had not heard of it, but that she was staying in a great guesthouse just up the hill and she offered to show me where it was. I thanked her and followed her up a steep hillside to a cozy little guesthouse where I booked into a room and settled in for a nap to wait out the rain showers.

Although I planned to get out and see the countryside, my next few days in Darjeeling were divided between reading a book I’d borrowed from the kitchen in my room as the rain beat against the window and the clouds obscured any view of the Himalayas or sitting in the guesthouse kitchen eating garlic mash potatoes and trying to figure out my latest sudoku, a Japanese number game that had been introduced to me by an Irish guest at the hotel. The combination of a lack of energy and the dreary weather, sapped me of all motivation to explore and I decided to head back to Bangladesh a day earlier than I had planned.