Darjeeling - a home away from home

Who would've thought that we'd come all the way to India, and that our favourite place would be the one most like home - as well as being big on tea (they have 84 tea estates here), Darjeeling is cold and grey. And we absolutely love it.

After the sweltering heat of Calcutta, the cooler weather here is unbelievably refreshing - we've done away with our traditional Indian outfits for the time being, and swapped them for trousers, long-sleeved tops, jumpers and socks. We've even had the odd bit of drizzle, which gave me the perfect opportunity to whip out my attractive pink waterproof jacket. No photos unfortunately ;)

To get here we took a three hour jeep ride from a horrible little town called Siliguri. It was another one of those journeys with gorgeous views, sharp bends and steep drops, but luckily our driver was calmer and more sensible than previous ones. Halfway through the journey we stopped off at a little roadside cafe and had our first taste of momo, traditional Tibetan Himalayan dumplings that are stuffed either with pork, chicken or vegetables, and can be ordered steamed or fried. As you can imagine, since arriving in Darjeeling, we've made our way through all of these options, and our favourite is steamed vegetable momo from this lovely little cafe stall. We've been having breakfast here every morning too - spicy omelette in a bun, followed by a cup of chai. The omelette comes loaded with green chillies and shredded vegetables. Every morning the owner asks "Chilli, sister?" and i foolishly reply "yes, please!", only to finish breakfast with my nose dripping and eyes running, much to her amusement. It's bloody good though!


As well as good food, Darjeeling of course does good tea, and today Karl and I walked along to a nearby tea plantation to see how our favourite hot beverage goes from plant to delicious brew. When we visited the spice plantation in Kumily, we had a taste of just-picked tea leaves. They pretty much just taste like leaves, and it's actually quite hard to believe this is where tea comes from. At the Happy Valley plantation today, we were taken on a tour of the machinery used to dry, roll, sift, ferment and heat these leaves and create tea. We also spent about an hour walking around the plantations - unfortunately we choose a bad time as everyone was on their lunch break, so we didn't see any actual tea-picking. But once again, the views were incredible, even if it was a bit foggy. And we met some hilarious kids who ran around us shouting hello, before asking whether we had any chocolate. I really wish we did, I felt terrible saying no!


One of the reasons we wanted to come to Darjeeling is because you're supposed to be able to see the Himalayas from here. March and April are supposed to be the best time for this, as the skies are clearest, but alas it wasn't meant to be for us! For the past few weeks a thick fog has descended on Darjeeling, sometimes so thick that we can't see the building opposite our hotel! Although I am quite disappointed at missing a glimpse of the mountains, it's quite cool to be walking around in the clouds :)

We've been making the most of the cooler weather here to do more exploring, and on Sunday we decided to visit the local zoo. The zoo here is quite small and is mainly inhabited by animals local to the Himalayas, including mountain goats and red pandas. They also had the Himalayan Monal bird which, according to the little information display, cries 'Klee-vich! Klee-vich!" - needless to say, this has now become one of Karl's favourite birds. We also saw some the most adorable little monkey, who was keen to impress and entertained us with various acrobatics before cuddling up to its mum:


On our way back, we visited a beautiful temple, with lots of colourful shrines to different gods and goddesses, including one that was hidden in a little cave underground. What made the temple all the more beautiful and special was the colourful prayer flags that were strung up all around. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


Ah, I almost forgot! One of the most interesting experiences we've had since arriving here was a much-needed trip to the hairdressers for Karl. At first glance, it looked nothing like a barber shop. On closer inspection, it still didn't! The guy chopped away at Karl's mop with just an old comb and a pair of scissors that weren't at thier sharpest. We were dubious as to how it might work out, and for a while I was convinced I could see a bald spot appearing. However, it turned out to be surprisingly good - in fact, it was way better than some of the terrible jobs done by various hairdressers in Bow. It was followed with a shave, thankfully with a new and fully sharp blade. It ended to Karl's dismay (and my amusement) with a very weird head massage that consisted of much hair-ruffling, prodding and rather a lot of thumping! All for a mere R70 (one pound) - bargain!

Darjeeling has been a lovely way to end our trip to India. While a lot of other towns and cities have been hot, chaotic and noisy, Darjeeling has been cool, calm and clean, and I've felt really content here. I'd love to stay longer, but tomorrow we begin our journey back to Calcutta, and on Saturday it's off to Malaysia!

Kerala & Bangalore

The India leg of our trip is almost over. There's only one week before we fly to Kuala Lumpur, and I feel like I haven't updated this blog nearly enough!

To bring you up to speed with our 'adventure', this is what we've been upto for the past few weeks. Make yourself a cup of tea and get comfortable, this is probably going to be a long post:

The heat of Cochi - where Karl bought his dhoti - was a bit too much for us, so after a couple of days we moved up to Kumily in the Cardamom hills. Our bus driver made it his personal mission to overtake every vehicle on the road (including petrol tankers, and often on some very steep and scary bends) but the views were absolutely amazing, especially when we went past the tea plantations.



In Kumily, we lazed around a drank a lot of cardamom tea & coffee. Eventually we decided we should do something more productive, so we went on a tour of an organic spice plantation, guided around by owner Sebastian (who apparently goes by the nickname Baby, although I couldnt quite bring myself to call him this). The tour was brilliant - we got to learn about and taste loads of things, including cinammon, nutmeg, cloves, chillis, ginger, tumeric, coffee, tea, garam masala, cocao and cardamom.

Clove plant

Karl with 'Baby'

No trip to Kerala is complete without a trip down the backwaters, so we made our way down to Allepey, where we spent three blissful hours being paddled along the rivers while we watched river-side village life pass us by. The canoe paddler (i know that's not the right term) recommended a quiet little place on the riverbank to stop off for lunch, and we had a scrumptious thali meal - spicy fried fish, lentils, rice, potato curry, various chutneys and poppadoms - all served on a banana leaf, and washed down with some refreshing coconut juice. It was perfect, it was exactly what we'd wanted Kerala to be like. On the way back, Karl was invited to have a go at rowing - I felt a bit like a queen, reclining on my comfy cushions with a belly full of delicious food.


From here it was on to Bangalore, which seems cleaner and less chaotic than any of the cities we've visited so far, especially Mumbai. It was refershing to finally see some nice public parkspace, so as well as exploring some of the malls and shopping districts, we also chilled out in Lalbagh Botanical Gardens and visited Cubbon Park. We tried to visit a couple of temples, but Bangalore proved too difficult navigate with our crappy Lonely Planet map. After walking around past streets filled with rubbish and cow dung for half an hour, we found ourselves back where we'd started - at a big wall that smelt like sort of public pissing area - and decided to call it a day. How a city that's supposed to be modern and forward-thinking can fail to have any visible street signs is beyond me.

Also, it was while in Bangalore that we decided to try the Maharaja burger at McDonald's - Karl liked it, but I was a bit underwhelmed. The highlight for me was the Coca Cola, which I've become slightly addicted to during the trip. A visit to the dentist will definitely be in order when I get back next year...


After a tiring 35 hour train journey to Kolkata (Calcutta), where we stayed for a mere 24 hours, we've now made our way up to Darjeeling. We're here for 4 days and the internet's pretty decent, so I'll write again and upload some photos within the next couple of days.

Till then...! xxx

New Outfits

Moving on from Goa to Kerala, we felt a bit of a shift in culture. Goa's pretty touristy, and although i wasn't lazing about in a bikini, it felt ok to be wearing tank tops coupled with either shorts or knee-length skirt on the beach. But once we'd moved on to Cochi in Kerala, I started to feel a lot more self conscious. Even though I was wearing a below-the-knee skirt and a not-very-revealing top, i still felt like everyone was staring at me. More than they were staring at Karl! What's more, 9 out of 10 pedestrians were men - I don't know if the staring was just curiosity, or if it was creepy, but it was definitely making me feel uncomfortable.

So that evening I purchased a two-piece Indian outfit - a loose-fitting pattered & sequined top, paired with some nice loose black trousers. Very comfortable. People continued to stare, but at least now I knew it was just curiosity! Here's me in my outfit with our guide at a spice plantation (more on this in a future post):


One thing I noticed almost instantly in Cochi was that the men don't wear trousers - they wear dhotis instead, which is a long sheet of fabric wrapped around the waist. At first I found this pretty weird - it looked like they'd just got out of the shower and only bothered to get half-dressed. Karl on the other hand found it intriguing, and decided that this would also be his outfit of choice whilst in Kerala.

The next day he purchased a dhoti of his very own for R250 from Fort Cochi, a nice island nearby, reached by ferry. At first I wasn't entirely convinced - it seemed like a novelty purchase, and he'd probably never wear it again. And it looked like a skirt. I soon had to eat my words, and it now seems like quite an inspired purchase! Yeah maybe it did look like a skirt, and we've had a few baffled looks, but on the whole he's had some great feedback from the locals, such as "Vow! You look great!" along with lots of 'thumbs up' and smiles, and suggestions on how to best tie it around the waist:



We're in Bangalore now, which is a lot more modern so the dhoti has been temporarily packed away, but hopefully not for long.

Goa

Today is our last day in Goa - we've spent the past week and a half idly bumming around a few of its gorgeous beaches, each of which has offered up a different type of experience.

We started in the south at Colva, which used to be a small fishing village. Although it's now more touristy, you can still see fisherman pulling their boats out to sea and drying their enormous nets in the nearby fields.

We also saw a new boat being christened on the beach by a priest, who afterwards appeared to crack open a bottle of what looked suspiciously like beer! Colva is quite popular with Indian tourists in particular, it seemed, and every evening there'd be a huge crowd of people (both tourists and locals) who would come to watch the sun set.

After a few days we headed up to Anjuna beach in the north, which was much more lively, wit loads of bars where you can chill out during the day and dance on the beach at night. We were in Anjuna for Holi - the Hindu festival of colours, where people celebrate the beginning of spring by throwing coloured powders at each other. Obviously we weren't going to miss out on the opportunity to join in and by midday we looked like this:

Unfortunately the powders stained our skin a little so we looked a bit like that for a couple of days afterwards too!

A couple of days in Anjuna was more than enough for us - the beach wasn't brilliant and the guys in the room next to us spent most of the night playing thumping music while droning on and on about his 'philosophies' on life. Seriously dude, no one cares.

At Candolim beach we stayed at the Ave Maria hotel which was reasonably priced (R700 per night in total) and was owned by a funny old lady who laughs at anything and everything and cooks amazing homemade food. Our days were spent either walking along the beach or chilling out by the pool, and in the evenings she'd make a delicious dinner. We asked one morning if she could make a pork vindaloo - a Goan specialty - and they went to the market to buy some fresh pork especially for us. It was delicious - definitely one of the best things we've eaten so far.

Finally, at Majorda beach in the south, we stayed at Vivenda dos Palhacos. It's an amazing hotel - there are only a handful of rooms, each with their own unique theme. We stayed in the Madras room, which has an enormous bed (it came up to my waist, i used a stool to climb up onto it!) and an outdoor bathroom with a brilliant shower. The hotel also has a cool chlorine-free pool, surrounding by beach chairs and hammocks. Seriously, if I could afford to stay there for a week, i would! Breakfast and dinner are a communal affair, a great idea that allowed us to get to know the other guests, who were all so friendly - as were Simon and Charlotte, the brother & sister who run the place. Our stay there was courtesy of the wonderful ladies at GDR, as part of my leaving present from work. Thank you again :)

If we could spend more time here, I would've liked to have visited a couple more beaches such as Arambol in the far north and Palolem in the far south. However, after a week and a half i'm a bit 'beached out' and quite keen to move on and do some actual travelling! So, this evening we board an overnight train to Kerala where we'll hopefully be able to cruise along the backwaters and do a bit of sightseeing. And I guess while we're there we should probably check out the Keralan beaches too...