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Hello everyone!
After the "adventure" that was our journey up to Darjeeling, we woke to see the true beauty of the area we were surounded by. It was well worth it! the air was fresh and clean, no smog! We were surounded by green, and no one had tries to hassel us for about an hour! We left the over priced dump that we had stayed at and decided to try and find the accomodation that we had prebooked, Cozy Nest Homestay it was called. We wondered around for a while a bit disorientated by all the steep hills and narrow staircases that were everywhere. we eventually found our barrings and headed towards where we were suppose to be staying when a man walked up to Brent and said " Are you Brenton Clark from Australia?". We were both a bit taken back by the strange man then it quickly clicked, this was our host, Wangchuck. We never called him Wang for short. He had been waiting on the street for God knows how long for us to arrive. He took us to his house which definatly was Cozy, and made us tea and snacks straight away. It was so nice just like going to a sweet aunties place and being spoilt. Wangchuck was a legend, so kind and knowledgable! After a chat and our tea we went out to explore our new location, the streets were so steep in parts. It was good to give the legs a bit of a warm up for Nepal. We went to a Tibetan restaurant for a late breakfast and the food was amazing, this became out local hang out for our time in Darjeeling. We walked up to what we thought was an observatory, it was really Hindu and Buddist temples. It was very beautiful, bright Tibetan prayer flags everywhere with baby monkeys playing off them, and the veiw was superb! Even in such a beautiful, holly place we were still offered an array of drugs! Everywhere we have been, about every five minutes in built up areas, some seedy man would walk up beside you and wisper in your ear his offerings. "Opium chocolate that gives good karma stura for one hour" or "Hashish, ice, speed, I get it for you!". It's radiculous! That nigh we had dinner with our lovely German frriends and decided that we would get up early to go to Tiger Hill to watch the sun rise over the Himalayas.
So again we rose before the sun and ventured in the darkness to meet our Germans and set off in the Jeep up the hill. It was like peak hour traffic in the city, there must have been a hundred jeeps heading up this one dirt road to this hill. The traffic eventually stopped and our driver informed us that we would have to walk the rest of the way. well about 5 hundred people were doing the same thing. Brent and I chanrged up the hill leaving the German struggling to keep up, there was no way we had got up that early to miss the damm sun rise!!! We got to the top just in time we climbed onto a platform that only a few short Indians had already occupied when in all her beauty, the sun rose her head. First of all it was just magnificant rays beaming into the sky, then the sky went a deep crimson red and then the sphere started to imerge. It was the most breathtaking sunrise I have ever seen. The local tourists started clapping. eventually when all the photo opertunities when taken people started to depart and there ws space to move around. We got down from our platform only to realise that the building that we had been standing on was blocking an amazingly clear veiw of the Kanchenjunga range! We raced around and started snapping up the rare opertunity to see it on a clear day!
The rest of the day we spent trekking around the local towns, the German girls left us after a while as they had to leave that nigh so they got a jeep back to Darjeeling and Brent and I finished of our 16 km circuit. We had an early night. I had started to develop a head cold which I was told happens quite a lot to tourists that come from 35 degrees to the nice mid 20's durrig the day and 12 degees at night. the next day we had to sought out our means of travel to Nepal, a lady we had met in our favourite cafe told us it took 31hours to get to Darjeeling from Kathmandu, we decided to fly. To our ignorance of the local festive calendar, all flight were apparently booked out because of the large festival that was happening in Nepal, and the next day was a public holiday so everything would be closed. We had to get a flight! So we eventually found a travel agent that some how got us 2 seats after a few phone calls. the next challenge was paying him. It was like the whole of India had migrated to Darjeeling overnight. To our dismay this resulted in all the atms that we knew of in town being cleaned out of money! We eventually found one after 4 hours of mucking around! The rest of the day Brent spent missioning around by himseld as I had developed a bad head cold from the climate change. So I slept while Brent explored the monument to Tenzing Norgay, the first Nepalese man to summit Everest, and the zoo.
Our last night in Darjeeling we spent chatting to our Geman friend Klaus, who we will hopefully meet up with in Nepal.
xo
- comments
Aunty Tania Sounds beautiful guys.. I'm glad you found a nicer place to stay.. Nothing like an old or young Aunty like person to look after you making tea and sweets. Can't wait for the next blog.. Love ya's xoxo Love Aunty xo