darjeeling! the place has it going on. it might be the most beautiful locale i have ever seen. perched along the crest of a hill just in front of the himalayas, it reminds me of a swiss town high in the alps, except with a lot more tibetan and bhutanese people, poverty, $7 hotel rooms, and monastaries. although it still has its fair share of cathedrals too. the best tea in the world is grown here, and you can sip it while sitting in wicker chairs at colonial establishments that have been here since the colonial british era. even though its the warmest time of the year here, it always stays below room temperature. the town is cloaked in clouds – apparently if they were to disappear it is possible to view mt. everest from just down the road, but it doesn’t look like the clouds are going anywhere soon. we took a jeep up here, but its possible to take an eight hour toy train ride up from the sweltering lowlands that chugs (with steam) along a tiny narrow gauge train track. we’ve been eating meals with but three of devin’s unlimited supply of female friends. they happened to be in darjeeling and later kolkata at the same time as us.
although darjeeling is technically in the indian state of west bengal, on the street it is part of independent gorkhaland. there is an intense independence movement that basically controls everything, including whether businesses are allowed to be open, which they frequently aren’t because of political strikes. proposed gorkhaland would occupy a strip of northern northeast india. this is one of the biggest and established movements of its kind in india, although there are numerous others as well. like almost every problem the developing world has ever known, why don’t we blame this one on the british. they created the awkwardly shaped state of west bengal that grouped a few mountain dwelling nepalis in darjeeling with tens of millions of bengalis living in kolkata. by the way, there used to be an east bengal too, but now it is bangladesh.
now here is the juicy news. on our last day in darjeeling an opposition gorkha leader was brutally hacked to death with a traditional nepali knife at a political rally just down the street from where we were staying. the front page of the local papers had a huge picture of him bleeding out on the ground. no sensitivity from the press here. so the entire town went into lockdown mode. we went to visit the girls at the house they were staying at, and we had to stay there for the rest of the day because apparently it was too dangerous to be on the streets. although later that night we wandered the streets for adrenaline’s sake and it was fine. the next day we managed to find a jeep out of town although it was tough to do because all the jeeps were parked – their owners presumably inside their houses mourning. we had purchased a train ticket, but of course we were to pick it up the day everything shut down, and we couldn’t. so when we got to the bottom of the hill (after being privy to some motion sickness from one of the guys stuffed into the back of the jeep with us) and found our way to the train station, everything was sold out for the next three days. so we ended up taking a night and the next day too “sleeper” bus to kolkata. i’ll just skip describing that journey so i can avoid reliving it.
