Day 36 – 11th June 2009 – Kalimpong and Darjeeling : Finally some cold weather in the mountains! - 11th June 2009

Right – this one certainly is going to be short. It’s only been six days since the last entry, and we’ve just been hanging around in Kalimpong and Darjeeling which are in the hills in the north of West Bengal. The reason I thought I’d better right something now, is that Ev and I are just about to head off on a trek for ten days in Sikkim, which is the state north of West Bengal, and I think that by the time we get back I will have forgotten what we’ve been doing, and will also be so knackered the prospect of writing a huge blog might be just too much to ask!

We caught the train up from Calcutta, which was a nice quiet journey. We had a couple sitting opposite us who pretty much ignored us the whole way. When we arrived at New Jalpaiguri station the next morning we were surrounded by taxi drivers all asking whether we wanted to go to Darjeeling, and who wouldn’t believe us when we said we weren’t! We finally managed to get a taxi to take us up the mountain to Kalimpong which is a similar hill station to Darjeeling about 20km to the east. We stayed there for a few days in a rather expensive hotel which had been recommended to us by a guy called Avik whom we met in the bar of the Fairlawn Hotel. He grew up in Darjeeling and said it was really nice. We stayed there for two nights. We did a bit of sightseeing on the first day and then got a taxi over to Darjeeling the next morning.

I’m actually struggling to remember exactly what we did in Darjeeling. We were there for three nights, and as far as I can really remember, we did pretty much nothing on the first day, arranged a trekking trip up to Sikkim and got all the permits on the second day, and then went to the zoo and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute on the third day. That’s about it!!! Zoo was pretty cool. We saw a tiger, some common leopards and a few snow leopards, but it really isn’t the same seeing them cooped up in cages!

We got a jeep this morning up through the mountains into Sikkim. The journey started off pretty good as it was Ev, me, the guide and the driver. However after we’d stopped at around lunch time for the driver to have a beer or two, he started to get a bit more jolly. He stopped to pick up a girl who was hitch hiking, and then we found out he was stopping to pick up his mum too (what a good boy!). By this point the jeep was getting a bit cramped, but luckily we arrived shortly after that.

Now we’re sitting in the room, and the realisation that we’ve got to walk up and down mountains for the next nine days is setting in. Dear God help us!!!

(If you’re reading this on line, then it probably means we arrived back safe and sound)

Bye.

Simon and Ev