From the Beginning: West Bengal Hills

I am finally back from my trip that criss-crossed India and it was amazing! Its hard to believe that is all over now and in a few days I will be flying out of the motherland. Although it has gone by way too quickly, when I think of all the places I have been and seen I can't believe it all happened in about a month! I am grateful for the opportunity and for all the people that helped me, travelled with me, fed me, and housed me along the way. I guess I should just start from the beginning, March 16th me and Sarang left the ashram in Ahmedabad to catch a flight to Bagdogra in West Bengel to meet up with my cousins Anjali and Alpesh for a trip through the Eastern Himalayas.

I could barely control myself sitting on the plane, sleep was out of the question. In a few short hours I would get to see my cousins and start the journey to the Himalayas, a trip that we kind of added last minute. We started in the northern hills of West Bengal, in the typical Bengali market towns of Siliguri and NJP. We took a taxi from the airport to the NJP train station to try and grab some tickets on the scenic Himalayan Railway up to Darjeeling, but the line was torturously slow and the tickets were sold out. This ended up being for the best, as I will explain later. But when we exited the station, we decided to grab some cycle rickshaws to grab a bite to eat. We were, of course, swarmed by rickshaw-wallahs and in the confusion just threw our bags on a few and headed into town. The tiny, scrawny rickshaw drivers were struggling, you could see them putting all their strength into each rotation of the bike. I don't think alpesh's mammoth bag was any help, haha. I tried to get them to race, but they were concentrating pretty hard to make it up the hill. As I looked behind me to see Alpesh's kind of worried face that he or the rickshaw was going to tumble over as they peddled us through the crumbling town, I could only chuckle "welcome to India!". We later found a little roadside shack to book our trip up to Sikkim with, which at the time was very cheap, but our "travel agent" Sanjeet who had a sweet bowl-cut and a Charlie Chaplin mustache, booked us as Indian citizens which made things complicated, and we ended up leaving his package half way through (which is a story for later, haha).

The next morning we were in a jeep on the way up to the most famous of Indian hill stations in the foothills of the Himalayas: Darjeeling. The ride up was beautiful; we snaked up the green hills with the rising sun and morning fog creating a serene backdrop as kids walked along the road for God knows how long to get to school. We stopped in Kuresong for breakfast and I was introduced to what would become a week long obsession: MOMOS. Momo's are steamed or fried Tibetan dumplings filled with cabbage, ginger, carrots, spices, and sometimes chicken, and they are amazing. I later became a momo master, which I will tell you about when I get to Sikkim, (don't hate Anjali, you know you wish you were a momo master too). A plate of momos cost on average 15 rupees (30 cents!!)

Darjeeling is a pretty busy town that climbs up a very steep mountain ridge. The area was originally in the hands of the old Sikkimese Buddhist kingdoms, but is famous for being a retreat for the dirty Brits during colonial times. There are crumbling colonial buildings, sprawling tea gardens, packed local bazaars and plenty of tourists and hotels. It was pretty commercial (as I was warned), but a good spot to start the trip further up north (the real reason why we came). Unfortunately, it was foggy and cloudy while we were there, so the spectacular views of the Himalayas (including Everest) were hidden! Good thing we didn't get on the train though, because the ride would have been 4 times as long as the jeep ride, with no view, haha.

But regardless of the weather, we ventured out to see the sights of the town. One of the first things I noticed was how different even the people looked. The locals were a unique mix of Bengali, Tibetan, and more, which made us feel like we had left India. Buddhism is also very prominent in the area with plenty of Gompas and Monasteries. We started at the oldest Buddhist Monastery in Darjeeling (Yiga Choling Gompa), the first of many that we would visit on our trip through the Himalayas. It was absolutely beautiful, colorfully painted, intricately decorated, with huge murals on the inside, and a giant golden Buddha in the main shrine. Robed monks wandered around the grounds and prayer wheels spun in the wind. It was really serene and a great way to start the trip.

We then went to the Samten Choling Gompa, which was by far my favorite. We went when there were no tourists there, so some older monks called us over and offered us a seat in the courtyard where lots of little kid monks, many of them orphans, were running around the grounds. The elders greeted us with big warm smiles, and asked us where we were from and all. They told us about themselves, their monastery and a little bit about Buddhism. One monk's English was flawless, and when I asked him where he learned it, he said he taught himself (made me think about how hard it was for me to motivate myself to learn Gujarati while in India, haha). They invited us back the next day to sit in on their morning chanting. When we arrived, the slew of tourists had arrived to see the giant golden Buddha, and as we walked through the small crowd, a monk from the day before spotted us and had us follow him around back to a small room overlooking the valley below where about 30 student monks were doing their morning chants lead by some of the elders. The same monk with great English was at the front of the students, and greeted us with the same big warm smile. I had to pinch myself to realize I was in the Himalayan mountains listening to the sacred chants of Buddhist monks, it will be one of my most treasured experiences in my whole trip through India. A little Sample:

SACRED CHANTING

The final Monastery of the day, the huge Druk Sangak Choling Gompa, housed over 300 monks and was like a Buddhist castle. The vaulted ceilings were covered in bright frescoes and the walls covered in intricate paintings telling ancient stories. We arrived as they were beginning their evening chanting. As we peaked over the curtain into the huge main hall, a young monk walked over and hurried us inside. He sat us down at the back and gave us some food. It was quite a sight, all the monks chanting and eating, amidst huge golden statues in a room covered in bright paint. I was also inspired by the generosity of the monks in all the monasteries we visited, all were very inviting and greeted us with genuine kindness. It definitely further sparked my interest in Buddhism, which fueled my shopping spree of books at the local book store later that night.

So one of the main attractions of Darjeeling is to watch the sunrise over the Himalayas (Everest, Lhotus, and more) from tiger hill, which we attempted...twice. Both times, we got a hazy, foggy semi-sunrise over the clouds, which was pretty disappointing, but the Bengali tourists were at least very entertaining as they packed the tiny viewing spot (I'm talking well over a hundred people), reminding us all we were still in India...peaceful sunrise? haha, yea right! Loud cackling, babies crying, people selling coffee, post cards, and batteries, and, my favorite, the loud gasp coming from the crowds at the first sight of the sun. It was fun, haha, so in the wise words of Anjali, we looked at the "silver lining", and enjoyed both Everest-less mornings.

The second day we also visited the interesting Japanese Peace Pagoda, made by a Japanese organization dedicated to peace after the atomic bombs hit Japan. They have built over 70 of these peace temples around the world. As we walked up to the pagoda, the constant vibrations of a huge Japanese drum echoed through the woods, and the the lone voice of a woman singing a Buddhist prayer could just be made out. We sat in the temple and joined in the drumming with our own little drums, and then walked up a small hill to the huge white Pagoda that had large golden Buddhas in all different forms. From there we headed to the zoo that housed leopards, red pandas, and even a snow leopard (like the crazy one in Planet Earth that chases that deer across the mountain). We also stopped in the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute that had really cool exhibits on Everest and mountain-climbing. It had tons of old pictures and equipment of the first guys to reach the top of Everest, which was pretty sweet, I thought of John Scott, haha.

One of my favorite places in Darjeeling was the self-help Tibetan Refugee Center. As the communist China took over the Buddhist areas of Tibet, India gladly opened its borders to fleeing refugees, and these self-help centers can be found all over India; however, this is one of the oldest and most authentic little Tibetan village. They maintained a lot of their traditional culture and sold hand-made Tibetan rugs, jackets, etc. to make a living. The ladies that made the carpets were lots of fun. They kept telling me "very very hard work!" and when i replied, "but very beautiful", one lady shoved her hands in my face to show me her callouses and then grabbed my hands and made me feel them, saying "This (her fingers) is not beautiful!", which was followed by them cackling something in Tibetan, pointing and laughing at me, haha. It was crazy how they hand wove the rugs though, counting each individual string. And the wool was also all hand spun in yarn. I definitely felt a little proud of India for welcoming all the Tibetan Refugees in their already over populated and complicated country.

We got to try some authentic Tibetan food of momos and noodle soups at this awesome little restaurant (one of my favorites in India), drank fresh, delicious Darjeeling tea, sat with Buddhist monks, and wandered around the zig-zagging streets and bazaars on the steep mountain ridge. Although we still hadn't seen the snow-capped Himalayan peaks, it was still a great couple days. When we were trying to decide what to do to celebrate Sarang's birthday one night, he had a pretty good reply "It doesn't really matter, I'm in Darjeeling for my birthday!" So next we venture further north in hopes of finally seeing the Himalayas.