Hi !!!
So yeah I thought I should just write all about my trip before I forget all the brilliant details, I know I have been slow and should have written this a while back but I have a valid reason for the delay. Anyway so going back to the trip. On the first day we had just looked around and ate great food as the next was going to be a long one.
We woke up at 3 am to get to tiger hill to watch the sunrise over the Himalayas. We went with our awesome driver Rajesh to tiger hill and no one could guess that it was 3 in the morning. The place was packed with people. There were a lot of local women selling coffee there to wake us poor souls up. Talking to them made us realize how easy we have it. They wake up every morning at 3 to make the coffee and walk nearly 4-5 km uphill to reach the point. So yeah that was sort of a wake up call to stop cribbing about ‘how tough we have it’!! After the lovely coffee we waited for Dear Mr.Sun to rise and shine so that we could see that natural spectacle. The wait was so worth it, the sun rose from amidst the clouds filling up the sky with its magnificence. The colours were just beautiful. The scene was one the most beautiful scenes ever. The mountains and the sun together painted an awesome picture! After our senses were happily satisfied with nature we headed towards Ghoom monastery. It took forever since we had to swait for the cars to move. The monastery looked serene but once we went inside it was anything but serene. The tourists were going mad, moving the prayer wheel constantly and laughing. It did not seem like a place of worship. Visiting such places always makes me wonder what is wrong with human beings, why can’t we ever respect the sanctity of a place of worship. Why? Anyway so letting that go, the Buddha statue here was huge and very pretty while the statue of another monk was just scary. His eyes and eyebrows just reminded me of jinns (sorry); it just freaked me out a little bit. The paintings on the wall were really nice and worth looking at and the little monks who were chanting prayers were super cute!! I just wanted to pull their cheeks.
After this we headed to Batasia loop, which was by far the most useless point in the world. There was some tower kind of thing, it was called a war memorial, and the place was so crowded that it reminded me of Dadar station at 9 am. Utterly disappointed sis and I decided to skip this and head back to our hotel for some much needed rest; we had been up for hours by now. Back in the city we had lovely breakfast at Glenary’s a bakery and also had our first fight which was interesting. Tired after the fighting and satisfied after the eating we went to station to see if we could go on the toy train, which by the way is a world heritage site. From the beginning of this trip I was very excited about going on this train as it was the same one in Parineeta and was shown many times on travel channels. We got to the station and stood in a line only to be told that there were no tickets for 4 daysL(since the available ones were sold in black). Sad and disappointed we sat on the bench and stared at the train on the platform, sis thought that we should at least take some pictures standing next to it which made me more depressed. I think looking at my sad face the station master came and gave us a brilliant idea. He told us to go to the next station Ghoom by cab and then travel in the train from Ghoom to Sonada and go back to Darjeeling by cab from there. We decided to go and I finally got to sit and travel in that tiny toy train from the movies. The entire ride I was obsessed and was clicking videos. There were cars on one side while the train travelled on the other. The train was pretty slow since the altitude is very high in that region. School kids actually hopped on and off the train as and when they felt like it. The kids in the villages we passed got really excited looking at the train passing and merrily waved to stupid tourists like us. I thoroughly enjoyed this ride because of the glee on everyone’s face and the fantastic view of the valley below, it now reminds me of a porcupine tree song called ‘lazarus’ (okay weird brain alert but I love this song I do).
Very hungry after out long walk and the train ride we decided to go back to the hotel and get some lunch. We filled our empty stomachs yet again with Momos from Fiesta which were brilliant. Then very ambitiously we headed towards Happy Valley tea estate not realizing that it was a Sunday. We walked for a good 3 – 4 kms downhill only to realize that the estate was closedL. Sis was very close to killing me as it was my idea. The walk down hill was fine but going back up was quite a pain. But the view was breathtaking and very slowly we moved upwards. After getting back sis just refused to do anything and we decided to have early dinner at oops I have forgotten where L (memory lapse). After the nice dinner we slept like babies and waited for the trip to Mirik and Pashupati market (Nepal) the next day.
P.S in current news since this trip is pretty old now (coco plans to wash her hair at 6.30 pm the previous day so that she can be on time to college the next day 😛 and puts her hot laptop on her nose to warm herself !!! )
So bye for now…
Yours merrily,
VEE.
The Closed Portal 