May 19-25, 2013: Ravangla and Gangtok

I heard birds chirping as I awoke about 5:30 on the morning of the 19th in Tashiding.  The sun was out and I got up about 6.  I missed the direct share jeep to Ravangla, so about 7:30 left in a jeep bound for Legship on the Rangit River.  From Tashiding we descended about 2000 feet to the Rangit, crossed it over a one lane bridge, and traveled along the river downstream past its junction with the Rathong, just below Tashiding Monastery's conical hill to the north.  Because of a dam just below the river confluence, the water is a muddy brown instead of the usual whitewater.  The scenery on the way down was beautiful, with green forests and agricultural terraces and good views of the rivers below.  The road, however, was in bad shape and we finally crossed the Rangit again and arrived in Legship just over the river almost an hour after leaving Tashiding, only about 10 miles away.  I immediately got in a jeep bound for Ravangla, about 15 miles east.  The trip took us an hour on a good road, rising almost 5000 feet, with more beautiful scenery along the way as we rose higher and higher above the river.

We reached Ravangla about 9:30 and it was much cooler.  One of my guidebooks gives its elevation as 6800 feet and my altimeter showed it just 200 feet lower.  I checked into a hotel on the town's main traffic junction and had breakfast outdoors in the sun with a view of the weekly street market on the town's main street.  After breakfast I walked up the hill to the new Sakyamuni Complex with an 148 foot high statue of Buddha, dedicated by the Dalai Lama two months previously.  The statue is impressive, as is the space ship shaped conference hall next to it.  The views to the west were hazy, but I could see Tashiding Monastery on its hill below and, further, the ridge containing Pemayangtse, Rabdenstse and Pelling.  Few tourists were visiting the complex, perhaps because it cost 50 rupees to enter.  I went into the hall beneath the statue, containing very interesting murals on Buddha's life.  There are also relics donated by monasteries all over the Buddhist world (and a monastery in southern California), along with certificates of authenticity and photos of the donating abbots handing over the goods.

Clouds appeared, cooling things down considerably.  I walked to the nearby old and new monastery halls, with some interesting statues inside.  They were deserted, though some young monks were playing cricket nearby.  I wandered around as it became chilly and finally walked down about 3:30 for a late lunch or early dinner.  The town's popular little restaurant was out of almost everything, so I settled for beef momos, not as good as the chicken ones.  Just northeast of Ravangla is forest covered Maenam Hill, over 10,000 feet high and usually wrapped in clouds.  Ravangla is located on a pass ("la" means "pass") between the Rangit and Teesta watersheds.  (The Rangit is the major river of West Sikkim while the Teesta is the major river of East Sikkim.  The Rangit flows into the Teesta on the southern Sikkim border and the Teesta eventually flows into the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh.)  In the late afternoon I watched the fog drift into town coming up the valley to the southeast and then drift out again down the valley, and then come back, covering and then revealing the features of the valley and the mountains above.  At night it rained hard.

The next morning was cloudy and foggy.  About 9 I started walking to a Bon monastery a little more than three miles down the road I come on to Ravangla.   Misty rain fell at first, giving no views down the valley to the west or back to Ravangla.  The last half mile or so or the hour and a half walk to the monastery (a descent of about 900 feet) passed through a beautiful mossy forest.  I spent an hour or so looking around the small monastery.  Bon is the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, though now it has acquired most of the practices and iconography of Buddhism.  However, where Buddhists do certain rituals in a clockwise direction, the Bon do them in a counter-clockwise direction.  While on the ground floor of the very small prayer hall, I heard voices making noises like "hak, hak, hak" (with a long "a") on the upper story.  I went up to investigate and three monks in a small room were doing yoga breathing exercises, gathering very deep breaths and then expelling them in several short bursts.  I watched for a while and then came down and sat in the courtyard in the just appearing sun.  The three monks from upstairs eventually came down and one asked me if I would like a cup of tea.  He told me he is a Lepcha, from North Sikkim.  Lepchas are said to be small and shy, but he was big and relatively gregarious.   He told me that there were 35 monks at the monastery.

The walk back to Ravangla took about an hour and a half under sunny skies, though there were still clouds.  I had hazy views of Tashiding and the ridge with Pemayangste beyond.  Nearing Ravangla I could see the giant Buddha.  I had chicken momos for lunch, spent some time in an internet cafe, and watched the fog coming up the valley to the southeast in the late afternoon.  The summit of Maenam Hill was clear, and then covered by the incoming clouds.  After dinner the valley was clear.  I could spot lights.  By bedtime, however, it was raining heavily.

It was still raining heavily the next morning when I got up about 6:30.  It stopped about an hour later and I had breakfast.  As the sky cleared the clouds in the valley to the south east were again putting on quite a show.  About 11:30 I left on a share jeep bound for Gangtok, Sikkim's capital, about 40 miles east.  As we left the fog was just reappearing in Ravangla, but we had sun for the trip to Gangtok.  We proceeded down the valley to the southeast, curving along the sides of hills as we followed side valleys to the streams that had created them.  The views were again wonderful and we eventually had views of the Teesta, sluggish and muddy because of hydroelectric projects.  We descended more than 5000 feet and about an hour and a quarter after leaving Ravangla we crossed the Teesta, at about 1700 feet according to my altimeter, with a good view back to Ravangla high above not too far before we crossed the river.  At the unattracive town of Singtam just below where we crossed we met the main highway leading up to Gangtok.  I was glad to begin ascending as it was hot and humid along the river.  It took us a little more than an hour, rising almost 4000 feet, to take that congested road up to Gangtok, 17 miles away, with a lot of ugly roadside development along the way.

Gangtok is located on the west side of a ridge, with deep valleys on either side of the ridge and mountains beyond.  It is a beautiful location, about 5500 feet above sea level.  That is what my altimeter showed at the jeep stand, but the city rises about 500 feet higher to the top of the ridge and a considerable distance down the ridge.  I've seen its population given as 30,000 and 55,000.  I would suspect it is at least the latter.  Sikkim itself has only somewhat more than 600,000 people, and I've read that in the mid 19th century, before the mass arrival of Nepalis, the British estimated that there were only 5,000 to 8,000 people in Sikkim.

The jeep stand is on the highway, and I decided to go to a hotel near the top of the ridge, which entailed a steep climb of  maybe 300 feet, first along a steep road, then stairs, then another steep road.  The climb was worth it, though, as the views from the hotel's top floor restaurant are spectacular.  I had a late lunch and enjoyed the views of the city below, the deep, green valley beyond, and then the cloud topped mountains beyond the valley.  The monastery at Rumtek is visible on a ridge to the southwest.  Kanchenjunga can be seen to the northwest if it is clear.  About 4 I walked down to the newly modernized pedestrian Mall in the center of town to look around and check out tours to North Sikkim, most of which you can go only on a tour.  The Mall thronged with Indian tourists and I saw few westerners.  I've talked to several Sikkimese who have told me they don't particularly like the Indian tourists, finding them demanding, rude and noisy.  There are thousands of them here this time of year, escaping the heat of the plains  One guy told me that with two Indians you have a fish market.  I asked, "Fish market?"  He replied, "Noisy."  I walked around, went into an internet cafe, and had momos at a Tibetan restaurant before making the steep walk up to my hotel.

The next morning clouds filled the valley below, hiding it and the mountains beyond.  About 9 I walked up to the former royal monastery at the top of the ridge, just five minutes or so from my hotel.  The abandoned former palace of the chogyal is just behind it, to the north.  The palace is closed to the public.  At the monastery, in an open sided building just before the main hall, about 40 monks, mostly kids, seated on cushions on the floor were singing over and over again a simple chant of about ten or fifteen syllables.  In the main hall an additional 50 or so monks, again mostly kids, with the older monks in the front rows and the younger arrayed behind, were sitting on cushions (except the elderly leader on a sort of throne) and chanting, frequently accompanied by bouts of horn blowing, drum beating, cymbal clashing, and bell rignging.  The monks were chanting from the pages of scriptures laid out on little tables in front of them, the pages about two and a half feet long and four or five inches wide and filled with Tibetan script.  Some other monks were bundling the scriptures up, stacking the pages in a pile about two or three inches high, wrapping them in two pieces of red cloth, and then tying them between two boards.  While the chanting continued I walked around the hall and looked at the murals, statues and other items of interest.  Nobody seemed to mind me. 

Coming out, I walked around the back and up some stairs to a monk in a small room at the back of the hall.  He, too, was chanting, all by himself, and occasionally punctuated his chants with drum beating, cymbal clashing, and bell ringing, all done by himself.  I watched him for a while, and looked at the interesting murals on the walls.  Unfortunately, no photos are allowed in the monastery hall.  About 9:30 the chanting and singing stopped, except for the one guy in his own little room, and the monks filed out.  Some of the little boy monks started horsing around with each other.  It must be hard for them to spend hours sitting and chanting.

A little south of the monastery the ridge steeply descends and there is a "ropeway," a funicular, that I took down about 600 feet.  Despite the clouds, the views were great on both sides and the ride was well worth the 70 rupees, less than $1.20, it costs for a round trip.  From the base I walked to a chorten built in 1946 on what was till then a haunted hill, and then to the nearby Institute of Tibetology, a wonderful museum with thangkas (wall hangings), statues, scriptures, and many other interesting things, including cups made the top parts of human skulls.  The explanations are excellent, too.  I spent almost two hours in that single room museum.  Lots of noisy Indians came and went, but no other westerners.  Nearby is a pretty little park with a statue of the last chogyal, born in 1923 and died in 1982.  In the early 1960's, I think just before he became chogyal in 1963, he married Hope Cook, an American whom I have almost always seen described as a New York socialite.  The  plaque described him as a great democrat and was dedicated by the Nepali who has been Sikkim's chief minister (head of the state government) for twenty years or so.  I took the ropeway, now crowded with Indians, back to the top, where a misty rain fell. 

About 2:30, after lunch, a good Tibetan noodle soup, at my hotel, I walked up to the road along the crest of the narrow top of the ridge, just north of the former palace and in fact leading up to its gates.  I walked north, with good views on either side and took some steep roads that lead up to Enchey Monastery, dating from the 1840's but rebuilt about a century ago.  It is about 500 feet above the ridge with the chogyal's palace, with great views down to Gangtok.  A long wall of prayer wheels, with lots of prayer flags above, led the final way to the main hall.  The statues and murals inside were very interesting.  One fierce looking red bodied protector figure was pictured standing with an erect phallus, with a naked woman standing beside him, ready to hop on.  Photos are prohibited, but I saw a monk, no less, take a photo of the red figure with his cell phone,  So I did, too, when no one else was in the hall but me.  There were other very interesting figures, women with third eyes on their foreheads, clenched next to more of these fierce looking protector figures.  The women were featured in profile, and with their third eye perpendicular to the other two, the face, with only one of the normal eyes and the perpendicular forehead eye visible, looked Picassoesque. 

In the late, cloudy afternoon I walked around and watched some of the little boy monks playing.  Eventually, I walked back and stopped at the Flower Exhibition Hall on the ridge, filled with spectacular flowers (and noisy Indians).  It contained incredible numbers of hydrangeas, not only the blue ones you usually see here growing wild along the roadsides, but the whole range from dark blue to bright pink.  Alstromeria (I think they are called) also grew in great numbers and many colors, and there were also gladiolas (I think) and many others.  Only a few orchids, though.  Besides the noisy Indians, the place was marred by loud hard rock music, very odd for a flower garden.  Nevertheless, I strolled around till it closed at 6 and then walked down to the Mall to check tour agencies to see if anyone was interested in a North Sikkim tour, have dinner, and use the internet,  On the steep walk back up to my hotel I could spot lights in the valley below.

The next morning I slept late, until 7:30.  The sky was cloudy and it had been raining.  After breakfast I made my way down to the jeep stand about 10 to go to Rumtek for the day, but after waiting an hour and a half and the jeep still not full and ready to go, I gave up and walked back up to my hotel.  I spent the afternoon up there in the restaurant and terrace outside, reading and enjoying  the great views.  The sun had come out and the afternoon was beautiful, though it clouded up late.  I watched the clouds drift into and fill the valley far below before sunset.  After dark, though, the clouds had dissipated and you see lots of lights in the valley and the hills beyond.

I was up the next morning before 6 and around 6:30 walked under cloudy skies to the jeep stand for North Sikkim, about 20 minutes away.  The jeep for Phodong, where I wanted to go, had left, but I could buy a seat on a jeep headed to Mangan and get off at Phodong, so I did so.  We left between 7 and 7:30 on the two hour journey to Phodong, about 25 miles away by road, but well less than half that, I think, as the crow flies.  From Gangtok we climbed about 500 feet over about four miles to the pass to the north and then went down the other side, crawling along a very bad road that followed the contours of hills into little side valleys, where we crossed rapidly flowing streams and several waterfalls.  The scenery was beautiful as the weather changed from wet and cloudy to sunny.  I had a seat in the back, but, fortunately, next to a window on the side with the best views.  I enjoyed the bumpy ride as we went up and down, but generally did not descend or ascend much, until we reached the very little town of Phodong, about the same elevation as Gangtok, on a little ridge with agricultural terraces below.  From there I could look across the deep valley to the pass we had crossed just above Gangtok on the other side.

From Phodong I walked back along the road towards Gangtok for about 15 minutes and then up a steep road, climbing 300 feet, for another 20 minutes to reaching Phodong Monastery, dating from 1740.  Monks old and young were wandering around outside as I went inside to look around.  Coming out, I wandered around and heard the bell of one of those large barrel prayer wheels in a small hall some ways behind the main hall.  I went inside and about ten middle aged and older women were sitting on the floor.  They began to sing just as I entered and all had small prayers wheels, except for one womanwho was operating the large one.  I listened until they finished, when one asked me where I was from.  She spoke good English and told me they were all Bhutia. 

I walked up the road another mile or so, ascending another 450 feet, to smaller Labrang Monastery, dating from 1884.  As I got close, I heard horns and drums above me.  Reaching the small, scaffold covered monastery under a now cloudy sky, I found the monks getting ready for their midday meal.  A long carpet had been rolled out in the little open space before the monastery and the monks, about 25 of them, were beginning to sit down on it.  Again, they were ranged in age from one end to the other, with about ten little kids at one end.  One appeared to be a girl, with long hair, while all the others has shaved heads.  Besides the kids, there appeared to be about five to ten teenagers and only five or so adults, including one gray haired man at one end.  From some buildings to the side of the prayer hall, a man not in monks' robes appeared pushing a large wooden box on wheels, which was filled with rice.  He was accompanied by two teenage monks with metal pails.  He reached the oldest monk and went down the line dishing large portions of rice into their bowls, topped off with a bit of cabbage dished out by one of the guys with a pail.  The other guy with a pail supplied a vegetable soup into bowls for each monk.  Nobody started till all were served and they said a little prayer.  Then they ate quite rapidly while two or three hungry dogs watched.  I noticed two of monks, a little kid and a young adult, ate with their left hands.  Finishing, they said another short prayer, though a few of the very young monks rushed off during the prayer to wash their plates and bowls at a nearby water pump.  The young monks did the washing up of plates and bowls as the monks dispersed after lunch.  Two boy monks rolled up the long carpets and then swept up the spilled rice and other detritus of lunch towards the grass while the dogs ate some of what was left.  I walked into the prayer hall and into an building open on one side and set up for the monks.  I guess they are using it while the main hall is under repair.  Four of the teenage monks came up as I was taking photos.  They were shy but friendly, posed for a group photo, and seemed to enjoy my showing them my photos.

Soon two monks, a chubby kid and a teenager, went to a little platform looking out over the valley to the south.  Each blew a conch shell several times as the other monks gathered and sat on cushions in the open sided building, with the gray haired one on a sort of throne closest to the altar.  They began to chant, with frequent horn blowing, drum beating and cymbal clashing, as I watched from the steps.  The head guy occasionally rang a little bell.

I started down before 12:30.  I would have liked to stay and listen to them, but I had been warned I should be on the main road in the early afternoon to catch a share jeep back to Gangtok.  On the way down, I stopped for a brief look at the scant ruins of Tumlong, Sikkim's third capital, located here after the 1780 war with Nepal.  I got down to the road before 1 and to Phodong shortly after.  There were no jeeps, but I was told one would come from Mangan.  One did, but didn't stop.  The sun had come out again and I sat on the curb in Phodong for about an hour and a half, getting up when a car would pass.  I was getting worried about getting back and asked a guy, who said he didn't think there would be any more share jeeps but that I could ask passing cars to take me to Gangtok.  A jeep just then came by and stopped as I signaled.  The guy I had been talking to apparently explained my predicament and the driver agreed to take me.  I thankfully climbed into the back seat occupied by two women, with another in front.  They were all teachers from the local school heading to Gangtok for the weekend.  Shortly thereafter we picked up another couple of women, a wizened and apparently very old woman and what may have been her granddaughter.  I enjoyed the almost two hour ride back to Gangtok.  Again I had a window seat on the side of the jeep with the best views.  We arrived in Gangtok before 5 and I had a bowl of Tibetan noodle soup as soon as I got back to the hotel.  I had eaten nothing but cookies and peanuts all day.

The next day was a big holiday, the full moon of the fourth month in the Buddhist calendar, celebrated as the day Buddha was born, achieved enlightenment, and died (or reached parinirvana).  About 6:30, in a light rain or drippy fog, I walked up to the royal monastery.  It was very foggy up there.  At first I sat on a cushion in back of the monks singing the same chant I had heard on my earlier visit.  A monk brought me a paper cup of tea and offered me some cookies.  Another gave me a little slip of paper with the words being sung.  I sat and listened to the somewhat mesmerizing singing for 20 or 30 minutes.  There were a few others sitting with me at the back, all of them Sikkimese.

I decided to head into the main prayer hall to hear the chanting, bell ringing, drum beating, horn playing and cymbal clashing.  Initially, I stood near one corner next to two monks seated on cushions with long horns, maybe four feet long, resting in front of them, the far ends on little wooden supports.  All the rest of the monks, maybe 40 of them, sat on cushions in rows on either side of a table in the center of the hall loaded with offerings, principally bananas in front and bags of cookies and other snacks behind the bananas.  A monk came over and asked me to go to the other corner of the monastery, where there were cushions to sit on.  I did and sat there watching everything until it ended about 8:30.  Many people came and went, bringing offerings lain on the table in the center.  Many of the women and girls were in beautiful traditional clothes, and a very few men and boys were, too.  They all prostrated three times as they entered, though usually not the full body on the ground prostration, but the one on your knees with your head touching the floor.  The stack of offerings in the center grew higher and higher, occasionally tended by the monks.

A young monk in glasses and wearing a high peaked red hat with ear muffs appeared every once in a while in front of the assemblage waving a staff with colored streamers and burning incense sticks at one end.  A large amount of butter sculptures were amassed just behind the offerings on a sort of altar.  Some of the pilgrims were making the rounds and placing new bills of currency before each monks, usually ten rupee bills but sometimes twenties.  A couple of times I saw a pilgrim asked a monk if he or she could get change, and then place a hundred rupee note in front of the monk and take back ten or twenty rupee notes to give to other monks.  At the end of the chanting, I noticed the monks folding up their bills and placing them inside their robes.

I walked around outside.  The fog had lifted but the sky was still cloudy.  Pilgrims were still coming into the main hall with offerings and then circumambulating the hall three times before heading elsewhere.  The gate to the lane that runs along the old palace was open, so I walked along it to just opposite the modest palace.  Down below the ridge, on the east side at a school, students and others were preparing to start a march.  I walked back and forth between the palace area and the monastery, as many people, many in beautiful traditional clothes, came and went.  I seemed to be the only westerner around.

About 9:30, after an hour break, the monks went back to doing what they had been doing all morning as the sun came out.  Shortly thereafter I saw the march begin and walked down from the monastery to watch it pass by just south and then west of it.  Marchers held banners and some yellow capped monks blew horns.  A palanquin with figures was carried by a few of them.  Most of the marchers were uniformed school children, both boys and girls, many of them carrying scriptures bound between two boards.  I followed the procession to my hotel and noticed that bystanders were lowering their heads to have the scriptures briefly places on top of their heads as a blessings.  Several of the school kids asked if they could do so with me, so I was blessed several times.  People were very friendly and again many were in beautiful traditional clothing.  At my hotel two monks stood blowing horns.  Or I guess I should say Tibetan clarinets.  Besides the horns, long ones and shorter ones, the monks use a sort of clarinet with seven holes, the holes usually separated by little bits of red coral and turquoise.

The procession headed down into town, and I was tempted to continue following it, but it was now 10:30 and I was hungry.  I ate breakfast at the hotel, enjoying the views and able to watch bits of the procession in town below.  Afterward, I got up to the ridge again just as the procession was returning to the school.  I wandered along the ridge, passing the palace again on the way to the monastery and watching all the people.  In front of the palace a man shouted, "Long live the King!"  At the monastery I found a place in the shade and watched the pilgrims circumambulating the main hall until about 1:30.  I spent the rest of the sunny afternoon in the hotel restaurant and on the terrace, enjoying the views and talking with the proprietor.  At night it was still clear, with lights visible in the valley below and the hills beyond. 

May 11-18, 2013: West Sikkim - Pelling, Khecheopalri, Yuksom and Tashiding

I left Darjeeling by share jeep soon after 10 on the foggy morning of the 11th, heading down the narrow road north to the border of Sikkim.  The trip to Jorethang just across the border is less than 15 miles, but took an hour.  The road was pretty good near the top, but deteriorated near the bottom as we dropped more than 5000 feet to the river that is the border, a beautiful trip with great views passing through thick forest, with lots of bamboo among the trees, and later small farmsteads and large tea plantations.  We went through one small town on the way.  At the border my Sikkim permit (issued for free in Darjeeling) was checked.  Sikkim was independent, or semi-independent as a protectorate of India (and before that, Britain), until 1975 when it was annexed by India and made a state.  It borders on Tibet and the Chinese didn't recognize the annexation until 2005.

It was warm in Jorethang, at about 1500 feet elevation.  At 1:30 I left on a share jeep heading north to Pelling, about 30 miles away.  The first 15 miles were along the Rangit River to the small town of Legship, a trip of about an hour as we climbed only about 700 feet in elevation.  From Legship it took another half hour to make a very steep, zigzagging climb of about 3000 feet over 10 miles to Geyzing (also spelled Keyzing and even Gyalshing, and probably several other ways).  I had great views of the Rangit Valley as we climbed, and later views towards the south.  The forest was again full of bamboo among the trees.  After a 15 minute wait in Geyzing we drove the final five miles or so to Pelling through forest as we first rose and then descended a bit, hitting fog on the way and arriving between 3:30 and 4.  Pelling is on a ridge, with views of Kanchenjunga when clear.  A sign at the entrance to the town said 6250 feet elevation while another one in town said 2150 meters (about 7000 feet).  One of my guidebooks says 2085 meters (about 6800 feet), while my altimeter, set in Darjeeling, read about 6400.  I suppose they all could be right, as Pelling runs along a road zigzagging down the side of the ridge.  I checked into a hotel near the top and looked around.  Fog obscured all the views.  It was foggy at night, too, followed by rain.  I had momos (Tibetan dumplings) for dinner and a hot bucket bath after dinner.  The night was cold but I slept warmly and well.

I woke up about 5:30 the next morning and checked the view.  Kanchenjunga was cloud covered.  I went back to bed and got up about 7.  I ate breakfast on the hotel terrace starting about 8 and Kanchenjunga was now partially clear, with good views as the drifting clouds revealed more and more of the snow covered ridge to the north.  The sun was out and it was very pleasant on the terrace.  The clouds eventually began to close in a bit, and by about 9:30 it was getting cloudier on the mountain, although it was still sunny in Pelling.

Before 10, after spending a good part of the morning at the hotel gazing at Kanchenjunga, I started walking up the ridge, along the road I had come the afternoon before, towards Pemayantse Monastery, less than a mile from Pellling at the top of the ridge, about 500 feet higher than Pelling.  On the way I could still catch glimpses of Kanchenjunga through the trees.  Pemayangste is said to be Sikkim's second oldest monastery, dating from the early 18th century.  It's located in a beautiful spot, with fantastic views.  Up to about noon I could still see a bit of Kanchenjunga to the north.  To the east and below are the ruins of Rabdentse, Sikkim's second capital.  Inside the monastery are impressive statues on the first and second floors, and on the third floor an amazing twelve foot high wooden representation of a heavenly palace, with seven levels and lots of figures.  Apparently, it took a monk five years to make.  Unfortunately, it is behind glass, but you still can see it fairly well.  The third floor was markedly warmer than the lower two with the sun beating on the metal roof.  The walls of the third floor seemed to be newly painted and very colorful.  Five sections were covered by large yellow pieces of fabric.  Eventually, I checked under them.  Each one covered a copulatory scene, one showing scrota.

I spent quite a bit of time in the monastery and walking around it.  There seemed to be only a few monks around.  Eventually, I found a path through the surrounding woods down to the road and walked down the road and then along a path to the Rabdentse ruins, dating from the late 17th century.  They seem to be restored heavily.  The capital was abandoned and moved further east after a 1780 war with Nepal.  Nepal annexed a large part of Sikkim, including Darjeeling, after the war, but the British made them give it back after their own war with Nepal in 1814-1816.  The views from the site are wonderful, though Kanchenjunga was now hidden by clouds.  I looked down the deep valleys to the north and east and tried to pick out some of the places I was headed to.  The sun was still out, but the air cool, and I spent quite a bit of time wandering around and enjoying the views.

I walked back to Pelling, arriving about 3:30, and about 4 headed to the Sanga Choeling Monastery on the opposite side of Pelling.  The sky was now cloudy and the walk took me about 45 minutes on a dirt road that climbed very steeply, more than 500 feet, at the end.  The views were great until I hit the fog.  The decrepit monastery is under restoration, with a dirty floor.  Nobody appeared to be around.  I looked around inside and on the dark top floor found a statue of a blue copulating Buddha with a white woman.  I hadn't seen that before.  Outside, the fog was blowing all around.  Several rock chortens (stupas) stood upon a rock platform next to the monastery.  Long, thin prayer flags on long poles lined the edge of the cliff.  The scene was quite beautiful in the swirling fog.  I stood on a rock platform on the edge of the cliff as the fog swirled up.  About 5:30 I started down through the fog and was back at my hotel after 6.  The town was again very foggy that night.

Kanchenjunga was hidden by clouds the next morning.  There were no share jeeps to the next place I wanted to go, so before 9 I left on a half day tour that would take me there.  Lots of Indian tourists come to Pelling, taking half day and full day tours by jeep of sites.  We descended steeply, more than 2000 feet, to the river at the bottom of the valley to the north, crossed to the other side, and stopped at a "rock garden" along the river for 20 minutes or so.  We then traveled along the river, rising above it but still descending along a road with great views to a waterfall at a hairpin turn in the road six miles from the town of Yuksom.  There must have been 20 or 30 jeeps parked, or trying to park, along that narrow road near the falls.  With maybe 8 or 10 people per jeep, there was a mass of people, all Indians but me (and me only for a short time) before that relatively minor waterfall.  Eventually, our jeep made its way through the mass of jeeps and headed back the way we had come for about five miles before taking a road that headed up steeply (about 2000 feet) for six miles to Khecheopalri Lake.  It was noon when we arrived and parked among another mass of tourist jeeps.

I skipped the lake for the time being and strapped on my backpack for the steep climb up to a homestay on the hill above the lake.  It took me half an hour to make more than 500 foot climb through beautiful thick forest along a rocky and then muddy path up to the top of the hill.  It was a sweaty climb.  I was glad to get to the top and check into a little room in a wooden building adjacent to the home of a man named Sonam.  He was away, but his wife checked me in.  There are 27 houses and a small gompa (monastery) in the little village, including three homestays, one run by Sonam's sister and one by his father.  He apparently doesn't speak to his father, who is 82 and is said to be a former cook for the Dalai Lama.  The people in the village were very nice.

The day was cloudy, but I could see Pellling on the ridge to the south.  I had a good lunch about 1 with three other tourists and sat talking with them through lunch and after as it rained.  About 4 the rain let up and I walked around the village.  Two little boys were playing cricket on a grassy space bordered by a semi-circle of tall prayer flags on poles, with a huge pig in a pen just beyond.  The pig got on his hind feet as I approached.  I think he or she was hoping I was bringing food.   I walked around the stone and wood houses and the corn and vegetable patches and the small monastery, and then took the steep path down to the lake, the way I had come at noon.  The path was slippery after the rain.  The lake was completely deserted but for me and a monk near a little monastery building.  All the Indian tourists had left.  Hundreds of colorful prayer flags fluttered along the jungle path to the lake and along the lake itself.  The lake is considered holy.  Any leaf that falls onto the surface of the lake is said to be immediately plucked off by birds.  I didn't see any birds doing this, but then again I didn't see any leaves on the surface of the lake.  I did spot a leech that had latched onto my foot. (I was wearing sandals.)  I pulled it off, but the anti-coagulant it emits when it attaches to you made the bite bleed quite a bit.  The bite is painless.

I made the steep walk back up to the homestay between 5:30 and 6, meeting Sonam just before we reached the top.  The clouds were breaking up and I caught a glimpse of Mount Pandim, over 22,000 feet high.  We had a delicious dinner in the kitchen, after having watched Sonam's wife cut up a chicken on the floor.  Dinner was chicken, dhal, and a spinach and potato dish.  We sat around and talked till late, drinking some milky white home made Sikkimese millet beer, called chang or tomba.  Sonam was interesting, but a little difficult to understand.  He is either a Lepcha or a Bhutia.  The Lepchas, originally from the Burmese border area, are the earliest people in Sikkim.  Bhutias are Tibetans that began arriving in the 17th century (I think).  Nowadays, they both are outnumbered by Nepalis, who began immigrating in the 18th century and are now something like 75% of the population.  They were the force in favor of Indian intervention and the deposition of the Choygal (king) in 1975.  Now they dominate Sikkim politically.  I went to bed about 10:30 and slept warmly.

I was up about 6 the next morning.  The sun was out and felt warm.  Pelling was visible to the south, as was a bit of Pandim, at least for a while.  After a very good breakfast, I walked around the village again.  About 9 I put on my shoes for the first time in months and began a walk to a meditation cave on a hill high above the village and the lake.  From the village I first descended along the ridge and then ascended through beautiful forest with lots of ferns and great views.  The sky was mostly cloudy by about 10, but there was some sun.  Eventually, I reached a couple of farmhouses on a little knob on the ridge above corn fields.  Hanging on the porch of one of the wooden houses were ears of corn, red, black, yellow, and multi-colored.  From there I descended a bit to a little saddle where a big tree had been felled.. (Sonam told me you can cut down two trees a year but have to get permission for the specific tree before doing so.)  Two men were using axes to cut the tree up, a task that could take weeks.

From there the path became quite steep as it ascended through beautiful thick jungle to the top of the hill and the meditation cave.  Through the trees I had good views of the lake below, now recognizably in the shape of a footprint.  The path was wet and covered with leaves and soon I realized that there were leeches along the path.  I stopped, found a rocky spot, and pulled more than ten off my shoes before they could penetrate to my feet.  I continued along the path, battling leeches all the way.  I would have to stop and check for leeches every few minutes, hurrying through the leaf litter on the path to rocks where I could check my shoes.  At one point I took off my shoes and socks to check if any had made it through.  One had.  I pulled it off, but the blood left a red blot on my white sock.  Eventually, I lost the path in the deep leaf litter.  I searched around, but eventually the leeches, the bugs, and my lack of luck finding the path made me decide to head back the way I had come.  I was glad to get out of the leech zone.  I checked my feet again and only the one had gotten through.  I  must have pulled well more than 50 off my shoes, though. 

I returned to the village about 1 and had a delicious lunch.  I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, doing some reading and talking with the other tourists, and watching the friendly village children.  At one point, hours after I had returned, I tucked in my shirt and noticed a bloodstain.  Two leeches had been attached to my side just above my waist.  They had drunk their fill and were now gone, leaving two bite marks on my side and bloodstains on my shirt, underpants and trousers.  Sonam said they had come from trees, rather than the path.  It rained about 5, but was clearing at nightfall, when a sliver of a moon could be spotted.  I had a hot water bucket bath in the simple little bathroom, which felt very good after no bath the night before.

It rained long and hard overnight.  When I got up the next morning between 6:30 and 7 we were fogged in.  The fog lifted and it cleared up some, but there was no sun.  Soon after 9 I left to walk to my next destination, the small town of Yuksom, visible from Khecheopalri.  Sonam gave me a bamboo pole to help and found me a porter, a teenager from the village, to carry my backpack at a cost of 400 rupees, about $3.50.  Yuksom is 17 miles away by road, but less than 6 by trail.  We made the steep descent to the lake in about 20 minutes, walked along the road just a bit, and then took another steep path down.  The path went through forest and farms and was in places dirt, or rocks, or cement, or even stairs.   After the rain, it was very slippery in places, especially the rocks with moss all over them.  I slipped three times and fell two of those times, once landing hard on my left arm.  But all was well.  I had some beautiful views over the very green countryside under a cloudy sky.

A particularly steep and slippery portion of the trail preceded a rickety suspension bridge over a stream, and after the bridge the trail was better.  We passed a house with prayer flags all around it and soon could see the road near the waterfall where I had stopped on the way to Lake Khecheopalri.  We reached that road after about two and a half hours and a drop of more than 2000 feet.  A road marker indicated 8 kilometers, or five miles, to Yuksom.  We walked a short distance along the road, crossing the fast flowing Rathong River, flowing southeast to join the Rangit, by bridge and then soon after leaving the road by a set of stairs that turned into a steep trail up to Yuksom.  We passed houses and farm plots and eventually had good views of the hill above the lake where we had started.  Along the path, and along roads all over Sikkim, grow blue flowered hydrangeas, and there are fuschias here and there, though not in the numbers of the hydrangeas.  The sky became darker and there were a few drops of rain as we climbed.  After a climb of over an hour, ascending something like 1400 feet, we reached the road again just below Yuksom and arrived in town just after 1 p.m. after a hike of about four hours.  I checked into a comfortable hotel room and said goodbye to my porter, who was immediately heading back to the village from where we had set out.

I ate lunch, tomato soup and thick Tibetan bread and about 3 set out to explore the town.  A sign I saw as we entered the town said it is 1850 meters (about 6070 feet) in elevation, while one of my guidebooks says 1780 meters (about 5840 feet).  Again, both could be correct as there is a considerable rise from the lowest part of town to the highest.  My altimeter registered about 5750 on arrival at my hotel.  It had shown Lake Khecheopalri at 5900 and the village above the lake at 6450.

I walked through town along its long,curving central street and reached the Norbugang Park at the top end, about 200 feet higher than my hotel.  Here, under trees draped with prayer flags, is a stone made throne with a white chorten (stupa) in front.  A particularly large pine stands just behind the throne.  The throne looks restored.  It was here in 1641 or 1642 or sometime around then that three lamas arrived, one from the west, one from the south, and one from Tibet to the north, and summoned a man from the east who arrived and was crowned by the lamas as Sikkim's first Chogyal, or king.  The chorten is supposed to contain soil from all over Sikkim and there is an indentation in a rock in front of the throne that is supposed to be the footprint of the lama from Tibet.  The high seat of the four seat throne was for this lama, with the Chogyal to his right and the other two lamas to his left.

I walked north of the wooded throne area to a grassy meadow looking north up the valley of the Rathong leading to Kanchenjunga, with huge, forest covered mountains on each side of the narrow river canyon.  Clouds filled the canyon.  I walked back to the throne area, very nice with all the big trees and prayer flags, and stopped by a little monastery building with a very large revolving drum prayer wheel.  Before 5 I started to walk back down and it was soon raining.  I passed the little lake, Kathog Lake, whose water was used to consecrate the first Chogyal.  People in town were very friendly.  After dinner I got ready for a bucket bath and when taking off my shoes and socks discovered a quite bloody sock and two leech bites near my ankle.  The leeches had long gone.  I must have picked them up on the trail from Khecheopalri. I should have checked when I arrived in Yuksom.

When I awoke the next morning I heard monks chanting from a nearby monastery. When I finally got up I walked over to the monastery.  There were only maybe a half dozen, including two little boys and an old man.  A younger man was chanting into a microphone, with speakers wrapped in plastic outside the small monastery.  A group of about 15 Tibetan women, some with prayer wheels, sat along the walls.  The chanting was occasionally punctuated with cymbals, drums and horns.  I watched and listened for quite a while and spent maybe an hour at the monastery.  The two little monks came out and ,after one fetched some embers from behind the monastery, they piled up several pine boughs and set them on fire.  It took a while for the boughs to catch fire.  The little boys would kneel down and blow onto the embers.  I noticed that a censor on the rail of the monastery porch also had green pine needles in it.  The women  left during a break in the chanting and some of them did chores around the monastery,  One was preparing food over an open fire behind the monastery.  I saw and smelled tomatoes being fried.  I walked back and had breakfast outside, as the sun had come out.

After breakfast I walked to another monastery, new and seemingly deserted, on a slight hill in town.  From there I walked to the little lake just beyond and then along the road to where the trekking trail starts for multi-day treks up towards Kanchenjunga.  I talked with a French guy who was just getting back after eight days.  He took along his six year old and his three year old and said they did fine.  He, however, suffered from altitude sickness.

I came back for lunch about 2.  The sky clouded up in the afternoon and I walked to a ridge just south of town called Tashi Tenka, the former grounds of Sikkim's first royal palace.  Farmhouses lined the stone path to the site.  It sprinkled a bit, but the views from Tashi Tenka were superb, pretty much a 360 degree view of the surrounding area.  To the south I could spot Pelling on its ridge, with Pemayangste Monastery and Rabdentse to the left, higher on the ridge.  To the east I could see the road to Tashiding, my next destination, through green hills of terraces and forest.  To the west is the Khecheopalri area and the route I had taken from there.  I couldn't see the lake, hidden in a bowl, but I could see the hill above the lake where I had stayed.  To the north is the narrow Rathong Valley, the route to Kanchenjunga, filled with clouds and with high hills on both sides.  Close to town and towering over it to the east is a forest covered hill with a monastery, Dubdi Monastery, on it.  About 4:30, while I was on the ridge, it began to rain hard and I found shelter in a little structure with a Nepali guy who lives on the ridge.  We discussed different kinds of bamboo while we waited out the brief rain, and then he went to cut grass for his cow and I walked back to my hotel.  It began to rain heavily again just as I got back. 

The next morning was cloudy and drizzly.  I went to breakfast about 9 and after walked back up to Tashi Tenka to enjoy the great views from the former palace area.  On the way back I stopped at a house with flowers all along it walls, which the woman living there proudly showed me.  She had fuschias, some sort of colorful lilies, and lots of other flowers I couldn't identify.

About 10:30 I started the steep walk up to Dubdi Monastery on a stone path covered with moss.  A light rain was falling.  The route was slippery, but beautiful, with magnificent forest and great views down to Yuksom.  Bushes with big white trumpet lilies grew along the path near its beginning.  The climb to the monastery is almost 800 feet above the town in less than a mile.  I passed a couple of monks coming down.  I walked slowly with lots of stops for the views and photographs and took about an hour to get there.  The rain stopped on the way up. The monastery itself is disappointing as it is covered with scaffolding.  It is in bad shape, with crumbling wall paintings.  A sign said it is the oldest in Sikkim, dating from 1701.

I looked around and then continued further up the ridge, ascending about 200 feet, through a spectacular forest of moss covered trees.  I encountered leeches again and found that one had attached itself to my foot.  It had already left, leaving a bloodstain on my sock.  I probably picked it up on the climb up from Yuksom to the monastery.  I found the path to to a village said to be 40 minutes away and started along that, but the light rain which had reappeared now became heavier and I decided to head back.  The rain had pretty much stopped by the time I again reached the monastery.  About a third of the way down the stony, mossy path from the monastery, I encountered a muddy road and decided to take that back to Yuksom.  It took a lot longer than the path, but was much less slippery.  It wound its way along the hillside, with great views and lots of birds chirping.  It arrives at Yuksom near the trekking trail north.  On the northern outskirts of the town I passed several houses and a couple of pig sties.  In one I watched a big sow feeding her six very energetic piglets.  She eventually got tired of them pulling at her and stood up and shook them off.  I got back to town about 3 and had a late lunch and then sat talking to a couple of other tourists for the rest of the afternoon.  By the time night fell it was cold and foggy.

The next morning was relatively clear.  From my hotel window about 6 or 6:30 I could see a snow covered peak far up the Rathong Valley to the north, but it soon was covered by clouds.  The sun was out so I walked up to Tashi Tenka to see the magnificent views in the sunshine.  I think, though, the views are more impressive shrouded with clouds.  I had a long breakfast, at first in the sun, though it clouded up by about 9.  I wandered around town and made my way back up to the coronation site at the top of the town before coming down for lunch.

About 2 I left on a share jeep bound for Tashiding, less than 12 miles away to the southeast.  It took us about an hour to cover those 12 miles, on a windy, badly paved road, but with great views of the terraced and forested hills and deep valleys.  Sikkim is a small state, only about 70 miles from north to south and 40 miles from east to west, but the hills and deep valleys make trips much longer than they seem on the map.  We dropped about 1200 feet, passed an impressive waterfall right along the road, ascended and then descended again into Tashiding, on a little saddle between a long, high ridge to the north and a conical hill to the south.  I got a room in a very basic, wooden hotel, for all of 200 rupees (less than $4) and about 3:30 began the steep climb up to the monastery atop the conical hill just south of town.  One of my guidebooks says Tashiding lies at 1490 meters (about 4900 feet) elevation.  My altimeter showed about 4400.

From the town I walked down to the base of the conical hill and then climbed up the steep stone path to the top, ascending 800 feet.  The stony path had little moss, though, at this lower elevation.  It passed houses and farm plots and forest.  Boys were playing cricket on one part near several houses.  My altimeter registered 5000 feet when I reached the top, where there are five or six nice monastery buildings.  Dating from 1717, this is supposed to be Sikkim's holiest monastery.  The Guru Rimpoche, who introduced Buddhism to Tibet centuries ago, is supposed to have stayed in a cave here.  The Dalai Lama was here a few years ago. 

In the first building a fairly large group of people, mostly women, were prostrating to chanting and bell ringing.  Under a cloudy sky I walked around the muddy grounds.  All but the first building were locked up.  Workers were busy at one spot, maybe putting up a new building, near the four story main hall.  Towards the back, on the southern end of the hill, is a group of several chorten, all painted white but one, which is painted gold.  They are said to contain the relics of lamas and chogyals.  A couple of workers had been whitewashing some of them, splattering paint all over.  Mani walls, with painted figures and "Om Mani Padme Om" written in Tibetan on them, led to the chortens and surrounded them.  At the very southern end, high above the confluence of the Rathong and Rangit thousands of feet below, are lines and lines of colorful prayer flags. 

The sky was cloudy and getting dark.  A couple of monks and several other people were circumambulating the chortens.  Not wanting to walk back in the dark, I stayed as long as I dared and then started down and after about 45 minutes (compared to an hour going up) reached town just before dark.  I had dinner in a small wooden restaurant along the town's one street.  At night it was clear and I could see the lights of Ravangla, my next destination, on a ridge up much higher to the east. 

April 30 - May 10, 2013: Darjeeling, Ghoom, and Kurseong

Before heading up to Darjeeling from Siliguri on the 30th, I decided to take the hour bus ride west to the Nepal border.  My 180 day stay in India allowed by my visa was ending on May 17 and I doubted that was enough time for me to see all that I wanted to see in Darjeeling and Sikkim, so I headed to the border to see if I could leave and reenter India and get more time. Until last December, India required that you spend 60 days outside India before reentering, but the government had removed that restriction.  Still, I wasn't sure that applied to my ten year visa.

I took an 8:30 bus west to the border at Panikanti, about 15 miles from Sililguri, passing tea plantations and the town of Naxalbari, birthplace of the Marxist Naxalbari guerrillas, on the way.  The friendly Indian immigration officer said I could leave and come back, so I had him stamp my passport and I walked over the bridge to the immigration office in Kakarbhitta, Nepal.  I remembered crossing this bridge in the dark one night in 1979 after a long bus ride from Kathmandu.  I wasn't allowed to enter India because I didn't have a special permit to enter West Bengal, required at that time, and thus had to return to Kakarbhitta for the night and cross into India the next day at an alternative crossing into Bihar.

It cost me $25 and 100 rupees for a Nepali visa.  After getting the visa, when I told them I wanted to immediately return to India, they told me I had to spend at least one night in Nepal.  I tried to talk them out of that, but they showed me the regulation.  Finally, one of them suggested a "gift."  I asked how much and he said $10.  We settled for the 400 Nepali rupees they had given me in lieu of $5 in change when I purchased my visa, plus another 100 Indian rupees, so about $7 in total.  I got stamped out and walked back across the bridge and got a new entry stamp for India.  I arrived in Siliguri after a crowded bus ride about 12:30.

Back in Siliguri I went to the train station to see about the narrow gauge train to Darjeeling and found that since a landslide in 2010 it no longer runs from Siliguri, but from Kurseong at about 4800 feet elevation.  I had lunch and at 2 left on one of the many frequent jeeps that travel from Sililguri at about 400 feet elevation to Darjeeling at about 7000 feet elevation.  Seats cost 130 rupees each, but I bought the two front seats for 260.  The road followed the two foot wide tracks of the rail line for about 10 or 15 minutes before branching off to the northwest.  I could see the foothills of the Himalayas soon after leaving Siliguri, which is only about 50 miles from Darjeeling.  We drove through flatlands planted with tea at first and passed through a military base with roadside signs quoting George Patton, which seemed odd to me, followed by Buddha and Gandhi, which I suppose was even odder.

We reached the hills about half an hour after leaving Siliguri, after a gentle rise to about 1500 feet elevation. The road, with lots of ugly development along it, climbed steeply to Kurseong under overcast skies and rejoined the narrow railroad bed just before Kurseong about 3:15.  The train station in Kurseong has a sign stating it is at 4864 feet elevation.  The road and train tracks run right alongside each other through town under the shops lining the street.  Kurseong has about 40,000 people, mostly Nepali, and its streets were clogged.  Almost all the school children along the road through town were wearing sweaters in the cool weather.  Clouds had begun to swirl by as we entered Kurseong and in town we encountered a thick fog.

The climb was less steep after Kurseong, with the train tracks always right along the road.  It was foggy all the way, and especially so when we reached the high point of the road and rail line at the small town of Ghoom at 7400 feet.  From Ghoom we descended the remaining four or five miles to Darjeeling and passed the narrow gauge train coming from Darjeeling.  The weather brightened somewhat as we descended and we reached Darjeeling about 4:30.  It was still cloudy, but the sun did make a brief appearance.  The main road through Darjeeling, called Hill Cart Road as it is the route of the original road from the plains constructed in 1839, was clogged with traffic, including jeeps headed all over the hills and to the plains.  Darjeeling now has over 100,000 people.

From the jeep stand on Hill Cart Road it is a steep climb (maybe 300 feet up) through narrow lanes to Chowrasta, the main square of Darjeeling.  I huffed and puffed my way up with my backpack and then took another narrow, but less steep, lane from Chowrasta to a hotel where I checked in before taking a walk.  It was cloudy and cool, but not raining.  I had changed into long trousers and put on my windbreaker on the trip up from Siliguri, but was still wearing sandals.  I walked back down to Chowrasta, filled with Indian tourists (and locals) who far outnumber the foreign tourists.  Clouds blocked the views down and the north end is a construction site.  Chowrasta is a pedestrian only area, as is the walk down a gentle slope along the Mall to Clubside, so called because the late 19th century Planters' Club is situated just above it.  A colonial era clocktower stands a little further.  The ridge upon which Darjeeling sits was discovered in 1828 by a couple of British army officers who decided it would be a good place for a sanatorium, allowing patients to escape the heat of the plains.  Britain rented it from the Choygal (king) of Sikkim (it was later ceded to Britain) and the town was established in 1835, getting its name from the Dorje Ling ("Place of the Thunderbolt") Monastery that was located there.  The Hill Cart Road up from the plains was completed in 1839 and tea growing introduced at about the same time.  By 1857 Darjeeling had about 10,000 inhabitants, mostly Nepalis working on the tea plantations.  The little railroad was completed in 1881.  I had dinner that night at a Tibetan restaurant and had a good hot shower at my hotel before bed.

It was mostly cloudy the next day, though the sun poked through occasionally.  I walked through Chowrasta and along the Mall before breakfast.  A guy at breakfast told me he had been here ten days and it had been cloudy and rainy all the time.  It is supposed to be less rainy this time of year, until late May or early June.  After breakfast I walked up to Observatory Hill, just above Chowrasta, site of the original Dorje Ling Monastery.  The monastery has moved and the hilltop now houses a combination Buddhist and Hindu temple, with lots of prayer flags fluttering in the wind.  I spent some time at that colorful spot before walking down to the colonial Windemere Hotel on the ridge between Observatory Hill and Chowrasta.  The Windemere is a wonderful old hotel with old furniture and old photos and letters displayed on the walls.  It has a genuine colonial ambiance.  They didn't seem to mind me wandering all around and looking at everything.

Leaving the Windemere, I walked further away from Chowrasta on a lane that led to the now closed and derelict colonial Gymkhana Club and St. Andrew's Church, all locked up.  A little further on is the former residence of the British Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, now reserved for the Indian Governor of West Bengal and not open to the public.  While walking along, I could hear the May Day speech being given on Hill Cart Road by the politician who heads the Gorkhaland local authority.  The inhabitants of these hills, mostly Nepalis, want their own state, but for the time being have settled for a semi-autonomous local authority.

The sky cleared a bit after lunch and I could see the ridge to the east, with a long drop to the valley below.  I walked down a narrow lane to the 19th century Bhutia Busty Monastery, moved from Observatory Hill.  The friendly old monk in charge showed me around before I began the steep climb back up, a rise of 300 or 400 feet.  A red uniformed band was playing in the Chowrasta bandstand at the end of the afternoon.  That night fog swirled through Darjeeling's narrow lanes.

Sun streaming through my windows woke me up the next morning at 6:30, but soon the sunshine was gone.  After a big and delicious breakfast at a very friendly and popular restaurant oriented to westerners, I walked northwest down Darjeeling's ridge to the Happy Valley Tea Estate, a drop of about 300 feet to the top of the plantation, and then another 300 foot drop through the tea gardens to the factory.  Twenty or so women were engaged in plucking leaves and tossing them into the baskets on their backs as I descended.  With a group of Canadians, I got an excellent tour of the factory, which unfortunately was not in operation as the previous day (May Day) had been a holiday and so no tea was picked.  I later read in the newspaper that tea workers get 90 rupees, about $1.60, a day and that there are 55,000 of them, plus another 15,000 employed at the height of the season.  The explanation of tea picking and processing was very interesting.  Happy Valley is the highest in elevation of the more than 80 Darjeeling tea estates.  In fact, there are photos of it covered with snow.  Except for what it sells at the factory, all it produces is exported, including to Harrod's in London. 

In the early afternoon the sun came out, though there were still many clouds.  I took off my jacket as I walked up through the tea estate and back to Darjeeling and to the somethat disappointing Botanical Gardens below Hill Cart Road.  I walked through narrow lanes from the gardens back to Hill Cart Road and then to the train station to check schedules.  A sign at the station gave the elevation at 6812 feet.  Five old and very small steam engines were on display in a nearby shed.  While I was there, the tourist train that makes several daily runs to Ghoom and back arrived.  It was pulled by a diesel locomotive and had only two small carriages.  I visited a nearby Hindu temple with a view of the Happy Valley Tea Estate and then watched as the 4 p.m. tourist train, this time with four carriages, left for Ghoom.

From the train station I made the steep climb up to Clubside, passing the 1921 post office, an excellent Tibetan curio shop, a fancy tea shop and the clocktower.  I spent some time looking around the somewhat shabby Planters' Club.  It clearly has seen better days.  The old furniture looked worn and the deer heads and tiger heads and skins on the walls moth eaten.  There are some interesting old photos, though, including one of the members in 1916.  Also on display is a World War I Maxim gun and two oxygen tanks from the 1924 Everest Expedition, which started from the Planters' Club.  A plaque listed club presidents.  The first Indian name dates from 1971, while the last British name from 1982.  From the porch of the Planters' Club I watched the sun disappear into massive clouds to the west.  The main part of Darjeeling ridge faces to the west, with a wide and very low valley down below.

I was awakened the next morning by the sun at 5:30.  The sky was clear and shortly after 6:30 I made my way to an viewpoint north of Observatory Hill and just a short walk from Chowrasta and was pleased to see a magnificent view of snow covered Kanchenjunga (also spelled Kangchendzonga), the world's third highest peak at over 28,000 feet.  It is about 40 miles north, on the Nepal-Sikkim border.  A small cloud was drifting off the peak, but other than that the entire ridge of snow covered peaks on either side of Kanchenjunga was cloudless.  I just sat and watched for a while, and then walked to other great viewpoints along the lane rounding Observatory Hill.

After breakfast I walked down again to the Happy Valley factory, as I wanted to see it in operation.  Inside was a nice, warm tea smell and I watched the machines rolling the tea leaves and other sifting them.  About 11:30 the woman tea pickers (the pickers are all women while the other tea workers are all men) tramped into the factory in their rubber boots to have their morning's pluckings weighed.  That was fun to watch, with the weighed sacks of bright green tea leaves then dumped into a pile on the floor before being gathered up into big bags and spread out on the long withering beds, where they spend 18 hours losing much of their moisture as cool and then warm air is blown below them.  Some tea remained on the floor and it was somewhat amusing to see tea bound for Harrod's being swept up off the floor and deposited on the withering beds.

From the tea estate I walked up to Hill Cart Road and then away from Darjeeling until I reached a 19th century cemetery, with laundry drying on the grass next to some of the tombstones. I walked up the steep slope of the cemetery to get to another lane that led to the zoo.  Inside the zoo is the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, formerly headed by Tenzing Norgay, and its museum.  The displays included much of his mountaineering gear and much information on Everest and other expeditions, including lots of photos and newspaper articles.  The spot where Norgay was cremated in 1986 at the age of 72 is just outside the museum.  The zoo itself was very interesting, with decent enclosures and some wonderful animals, including colorful pheasants, red pandas, black bears, Himalayan wolves, tigers, leopards, a black panther (same species as a leopard, but black), and even rare clouded leopards and snow leopards.  They were quite active in the late afternoon and I spent quite a lot of time watching a huge tiger pace maybe ten or fifteen feet from me.  I saw the wolves being fed.  Half chickens were tossed to them, which they devoured, or you might even say wolfed down, in about three or four bites.

It had clouded up and a cold wind came up in the late afternoon.  From the zoo I walked back to Darjeeling after 5, stopping at a level part of the ridge called the Shrubbery, which I have to admit only reminded me of Monty Python.  There are views of Kanchenjunga from the Shrubbery, but by late afternoon it was completely cloud covered.  For dinner that night I went to Glenary's, a popular old colonial era restaurant on the Mall.  It has a fireplace and many old photos on the walls of its big dining hall.  The menu had roast beef and french fries on it, and I was tempted to order it, but didn't.

The next morning I was up about 6.  The sky was sunny, but Kanchenjunga was cloud covered.  About 9:30 I began a walk along a quiet road on the eastern side of Darjeeling's ridge that climbed to Ghoom, four miles away.  Along the way I had hazy views down the valley below and across to the ridge leading to Tiger Hill at about 8500 feet elevation.  When its clear, there are great views from Tiger Hill of Kanchenjunga and many other peaks, including Everest far to the west.  I passed the Allobari Monastery, undergoing reconstruction, on the way.  I got to Ghoom (also spelled Ghum, but I prefer Ghoom and most signs have it that way) about 11 and walked through town, with the two foot wide train tracks right along the road, to the train station, with a sign saying it is 7407 feet in elevation.  The tourist train was at the station and there is an old steam engine on display next to the station.  I went into the interesting museum on the top floor of the station and spent quite a bit of time in there.  There were some great old photos and maps.  It turns out Mark Twain was here in the 1890's and descended the rail line back to the plains in some sort of non-motorized carriage with only a hand brake.  He wrote that the trip was the most exciting day of his life. Maybe the most dangerous, too.

The sky had clouded up by 12:30 as I began the descent to Darjeeling, about five miles away via Hill Cart Road.  Just below the train station a side road leads to a monastery built in 1850.  The young monk with the keys had to be summoned from a cricket game just behind the monastery.  Inside is a beautiful large statue of the Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of the future.  Clouds were beginning to swirl up the hills as I left.  I passed an ugly modern monastery right on Hill Cart Road with the teenage monks playing cricket in a little courtyard in front.  The train again passed as I walked down Hill Cart Road, busy with traffic, to another monastery, this one very nice.  Inside was another giant Buddha and very interesting paintings on the walls, including topless women, which I can't remember seeing in any other Buddhist monastery.  It was getting cold as I reached Batastia Loop, where the rail line makes a 360 degree turn at the end of a ridge spur on its way down to Darjeeling.  Inside the loop is the Gurkha War Memorial, with an obelisk, a statue of a soldier, and a list of local soldiers killed in action.  As I understand it, the Nepalis who served, and still serve, in the British Army, and in the Indian Army nowadays, are called Gurkhas, while the Nepalis who live in India are called Gorkhas.  My hotel owner says the pronunciation is the same.  It is just that Gurkha is the traditional spelling for soldiers, for historical reasons.  My hotel owner said Nepalis in Nepal are not called Gorkhas, but Nepalis.  Of course, not all citizens of Nepal are of the Nepali ethnicity.

Further down the road, about halfway from Ghoom to Darjeeling, is another, very large monastery right off the road.  When I arrived it was crowded with Tibetans and maybe other people, probably including Lepchas, the original inhabitants of Sikkim, and Sikkimese.  Lepchas and Sikkimese are descendents of Tibetans who emigrated centuries ago.  Signs welcomed the monastery's young leader back from his graduation from a university in Bhutan.  I remember the name of the university, Tango, only because I wondered if the dance instructors came from Argentina.  The young abbot, or whatever he is, was speaking while seated on a brightly decorated chair in front of the main door of the monastery, with hundreds of people in the courtyard in front and on stairs and landings.  I could only get a glimpse from a stairway.  Soon it began to rain and I ducked into a small prayer hall where two old monks were sitting and using straps to revolve great big prayer wheels.  The one closest to me motioned me to sit in a nearby chair, so I did so and relaxed while watching them patiently revolve their prayers wheels.

When I left, the rain had stopped and the ceremony was breaking up.  The young abbot (I think he was perhaps a reincarnation, as there was a photo of him as a little kid in the prayer hall where I had sat, along with a photo of an old man with the same name, except with a "I" after the old man's name and a "II" after the boy's name) was walking through the crowds under a red umbrella held by a monk.  He carried a silver and gold object and pressed it against the heads of those gathered in front of him.  He smiled often.  Other monks in red accompanied him, one with a yellow hat, others with red hats.  Two other monks stationed on the veranda of the main prayer hall continuously blew horns, with their cheeks quite puffed up.  The young graduate patiently made many rounds of the courtyard, blessing everyone who came up.  The crowd thinned out, with some leaving the monastery courtyard to go home and some entering the big prayer hall.  The ones entering the prayer hall left thin white shawls on the seat in front of the main door, where the young graduate had sat and spoke, and on one of the five big statues at the back of the hall.  Many in the crowd were beautifully dressed in new traditional clothing.

As the young graduate finished his rounds and left, I went into the big prayer hall, dedicated by the Dalai Lama in 1993.  It is a beautifully painted hall.  The five big statues along the back wall include one of a woman with one breast bare.  I wandered around as the crowds left and monks began to file in to begin their evening prayers.  They filled the hall quickly and began beating drums, clanging cymbals, and blowing horns before commencing chanting.  I watched for a while, the only non-monk in the hall, before leaving.  However, it was now cold and raining outside, so I stood on the veranda and listened to the monks through the main door, which had a canvas covering discouraging entry.  The rain stopped at about a quarter to 6 and I began the two and a half mile walk back to Darjeeling.  It took me about an hour, with lots of traffic on the road, but at least it didn't rain any more.  I got back to my hotel just as it got dark.

It was cloudy when I got up the next morning at 6.  There was little sun in the morning and some rain in the afternoon.  I spent several hours in an internet cafe.  In mid afternoon I looked for something to eat, but the restaurants and other shops were closing because a political party had called a strike after a fight between its members and the members of another political party in the nearby town of Mirik.  The shop owners close down or face vandalism.  In the open market with stalls along one of the little lanes coming off of Chowrasta I was able to buy a plate of ten vegetable momos (Tibetan dumplings) for 20 rupees and they were pretty good.  After lunch I sat in my hotel room, with windows looking out over the fogged in valley east of Darjeeling's ridge, as the rain came down, with thunder and lightning.  About 5 I went to one of the few restaurants open, in a hotel, and had a poor dinner that took about an hour and a half to arrive.  It was rainy and cold as I walked back to my hotel.

The next day was foggy and cloudy and I spent most of the day in an internet cafe.  The strike had been lifted.  As every morning, I had had a delicious breakfast at a little restaurant very popular with foreigners.  For 120 rupees you get eggs, fried tomatoes, cheese, crunchy hash browns, and two pieces of thick brown bread.  For lunch I got some more momos at the market, but this time chicken ones, six for 30 rupees, followed by an ear of roasted corn on the cob for 10 rupees.  For dessert I ate a chocolate brownie from Glenary's Bakery which cost me as much as the rest of my lunch.  We had short intense rainstorm about 4 and it was drippy and wet thereafter.  I had a good dinner at Glenary's, the colonial era restaurant over the bakery, and walked back to my hotel about 9 through thick fog and misty rain.

The next day was cloudy and cold.  I've been told it has been this way for about six weeks.  It is usually somewhat cloudy in April and May, but not as bad as it has been.  Still, everyone arriving from India's hot plains, where it is now regularly over 100 degrees, is happy with the cool weather, if not the lack of views of the mountains.  I read somewhere that the highest temperature ever recorded in Darjeeling in 80 degrees.  I spent most of the day in an internet cafe with a few walks around town and had another dinner at Glenary's.  After dinner, walking back to my hotel, I could see lights in the deep valley to the east of Darjeeling's ridge.  That valley had been filled with clouds for days.

And the next morning it was fogged in again.  The day was foggy and cold.  About 10:30 I made a steep descent, more than 500 feet, through the fog on a narrow lane, partly washed away in one spot, to the Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Center, established in 1959.  I spent quite a bit of time walking around and watching friendly Tibetan women spinning wool (on spining wheels made of bicycle wheels) and making carpets on looms.   A storeroom contained hundreds of balls of wool colored with both vegetable and chemical dyes.  The photographic exhibition was closed, as it was being repainted, but there were some posters around, including a few gruesome ones showing some of self-immolations of Tibetans in protest against the Chinese.

Rather than make the steep ascent the way I had come, I walked down another 150 feet to the road, called the Lebong Cart Road as it is the extension of Hill Cart Road from Darjeeling to the former horse race track at Lebong, a flat space on a spur below Darjeeling.  You can see the race track from Darjeeling when it is clear.  I walked back to Darjeeling on the road, a longer but easier route that took me an  hour and a half or so.  There wasn't much traffic until I got to the area called North Point, the northern end of the ridge.  Shortly after North Point, I could climb up to the lane leading to the zoo and took that back to Chowrasta, passing the zoo and the Shrubbery.  I had another chicken momo lunch about 3 and after 4 walked through Chowrasta and along the Mall to Clubside.  The red uniformed band was again playing in the bandstand in Chowrasta.  There is a great book store in an old colonial era building on Chowrasta.  Most of the buildings,though, are ugly modern ones.  I ate dinner again at Glenary's, with a very foggy walk back to my hotel afterward.

When I got up about 6 the next morning I could see down into the deep valley to the east through the swirling clouds.  The sun didn't make much of an appearance, but I went up to the roof of the hotel and could see a bit of the Kanchenjunga's snowy ridge.  The deep valley west of Darjeeling's ridge was also visible through the clouds.  After ten or fifteen minutes, the clouds swirled in and erased the view to the east, and eventually to the west.  I had another wonderful breakfast and then walked down to the train station and bought a ticket (the last one available, the ticket seller told me) on the narrow gauge railroad for the next morning to Kurseong, as far as it goes since the 2010 landslide.  About four times a day, a train, called the "Joy Ride," goes to Ghoom and back, with stops at Ghoom and at the Batastia Loop, but I preferred the longer journey, which cost only 30 rupees compared to 335 for the Joy Ride.  I walked back up to the Mall and got my required Sikkim permit and spent the rest of the day at an internet cafe and walking around in the drippy fog.

The next morning I left at 10:15 on the train to Kurseong.  As usual, the sky was cloudy as we left.  The train had only two carriages, one first class and one second class.  Both were full and my seat in the 28 seat second class carriage was fine.  I lucked out, too, getting a window seat on the side of the train best for views.  I thoroughly enjoyed the 20 mile trip to Kurseong, which took a little under three hours.  It took us about half an hour to rise the 600 feet over five miles to Ghoom, where we stopped for five minutes.  Some passengers got off at Ghoom and the train was never full thereafter.  Most, but not all, of the passengers were tourists.  Except for two Koreans who got off at Ghoom, I was the only foreigner.  From Ghoom we made the descent to Kurseong at 4800 feet, making brief stops at two other stops on the way.  The sky was cloudy all the way, but I enjoyed what views we had and the slow pace of the train.  People on the streets in the towns would spot me and smile or wave, or both.  In the towns the little train rumbled right past shops.  I almost could have reached out and touched the merchandise.  Nearing Kurseong we had some wider views, especially down the deep valley northwest of Kurseong.

We arrived at 1 at the station at the southern end of town after passing through the town strung out along the narrow highway.  From the station I walked a little over a half mile up a gentle rise to Eagle's Crag, a view point looking both north over a ridge jutting out west from Kurseong and to the valley beyond and south down the widening valley to the plains.  I think I could see the outskirts of Siliguri thirty miles away.  The sky was cloudy, but the clouds weren't clinging to the town, as has often been the case in Darjeeling.  I walked back to the station and took another road heading down towards the western ridge and stopped at old St. Andrew's Church, where about thirty women were singing and praying.

I had planned to take a share jeep back to Darjeeling, but it was almost three o'clock and I decided to walk back to the station and see if there were seats on the 3 o'clock train back to Darjeeling.  There were, so I bought a first class one for 185 rupees, more than six times the second class fare.  A jeep ride back would have taken half the time, but I enjoyed the train.  The trip back took just less than three hours, with a fifteen minute stop at Ghoom where two more carriages were attached.  It took just over two hours, with two very brief stops, to travel the fifteen miles from Kurseong to Ghoom, so we were traveling at a blistering seven and a half miles per hour.  My carriage was never full and the ride was comfortable and interesting.  The sun even made a very brief appearance just north of Kurseong.  We hit some fog maybe 500 feet above Kurseong, but it lifted before settling in again near Ghoom.  Coming down from Ghoom, especially at the 360 degree turn at the Batastia Loop, at the end of a spur, we had great views towards Darjeeling and the valley to its west.  Clouds filled the sky, but you could just barely make out the lower reaches of Kanchenjunga to the north.  The view fogged in as we approached Darjeeling and it was raining when we arrived just before 6.  As the rain came down fairly heavily, I made the steep climb to the Mall under my umbrella and ate an early dinner at Glenary's.

April 23-29, 2013: Calcutta, Murshidabad, Malda, Gaur, Pandua and Siliguri

My flight from Port Blair to Calcutta left shortly before noon on the 23rd.  I couldn't get a window seat, but from my aisle seat I did get a view of Port Blair and Ross Island shortly after takeoff.  We soon were in clouds, probably as we crossed over the main chain of the Andamans on our way to Calcutta.  The flight took two hours.  After landing, the toothless old man next to me had great difficulty getting out of his seat belt.  He couldn't figure out how to undo it, so he opened it as wide as he could and then tried to get his legs through it.  I noticed it as soon as his granddaughter (I think) in the seat next to him and she undid it for him.

Calcutta airport has a brand new modern terminal, opened only about a month earlier.  It was quite cold inside.  I took the hour long bus ride from the airport to the city center.  The last two times I've taken that bus, after flights from Bangkok, the first thing I've noticed is all the garbage along the streets.  This time I didn't, no doubt because I'd been in India over five months and am quite used to seeing garbage everywhere.  I checked into the same friendly hotel I've stayed in during previous stays in Calcutta and then walked to a nearby bookshop.  Calcutta felt relatively cool compared to Port Blair, though I suppose the temperature was in the 90's.  I got trapped in the bookstore when a big rainstorm hit.  I didn't have my umbrella and so tried to wait it out.  It got dark and the rain continued.  During a slight decrease I made a run for it and got a little wet on my way to a barber shop near my hotel, where I got a much needed haircut.  The rain had stopped by the time I was finished and the evening felt cool.  I meant to go to bed early, but stayed up reading newspapers in the hotel lobby.  I'd seen hardly any newspapers during my month long stay in the Andamans.

The next morning I walked past the busy street side chicken market, and then the fruit and vegetable market a block or so north, on my way to the bus station to check on buses to Murshidabad.  I came back for breakfast and then took a taxi to Sealdah Railway Station and bought a ticket for the 11:15 train north to Murshidabad.  A large crowd had gathered on the platform as the train pulled in, with young men jumping into the open doors of the still moving empty train as it pulled in.  I waited till it almost came to a stop and muscled my way in, getting a window seat.  The train was crowded, with three people seated on seats made for two, and hot, though there was a fan over me, which helped.  We left on time heading north through Calcutta and its suburbs and satellite towns.  It took about an hour and a half until we reached the green countryside, with rice, bananas, and many other crops.  My seatmates were pretty disgusting, hoicking and spitting all the time.  I noticed that almost all persons in the carriage were young men.  We passed through several cities and towns, including Plassey (as the sign at the train station spelled it; the official spelling is now Palashi).  Plassey was the site of the 1757 battle in which Robert Clive of the East India Company defeated the Nawab of Bengal, leading to British rule in Bengal and eventually all of India.

The train reached Murshidabad, 120 miles north of Calcutta and former capital of Bengal under the Nawabs, at 4:30.  Surprising to me, there was no station and we got off in what seemed a rural area.  Murshidabad is now just a small town, with something like 40,000 people instead of the million or so it might have had in the mid 18th century, but I still expected a train station.  I found a bicycle rickshaw to take me the couple of miles or so to the hotel I wanted to stay in on the Bhagirathi River next to the former palace of the Nawabs.  I got one of the nicest rooms, with a balcony overlooking the wide river and a view of the palace a bit downstream.  The hotel is right on the river, with a very nice garden all around it.  I watched the sun disappear into the clouds over the trees on the other side of the river just after 5 and then walked to the palace complex just downriver.

The huge palace was built in 1829-1837, well after the Nawabs had become figureheads under British rule, and is in what is called Italinate style.  It's facade is more than 400 feet long, with columns at the top of the stairs leading up to the main door.  Two lions stand guard at the base of the stairs in front of plaques in English and Arabic script.  The palace is called the Hazarduari, meaning "thousand doors."  Apparently, it has a thousand doors, real and fake, inside and out.  Across a wide plaza is an even longer building, the white painted Imambara, housing the tomb of the Nawab who built the palace.  The buildings face each other rather than the river.  There is a small and pretty multi-domed mosque on the river and another small domed building between the Hazarduari and the Imambara.  A European style clock tower also stands between the two big buildings.  The buildings were closed, although quite a few Indians were strolling around the big open space.  It was humid, with no breeze.  I strolled into the adjacent town, with newer buildings among ruins of mosques, gateways and other buildings.  Families were living in one of the ruined buildings.  A muezzin began the evening call to prayer just after 6, which must have been just after sunset.  I walked back to the hotel and met the very friendly owner.  He told me he built the hotel 20 years ago.  I appeared to be the only guest.  He showed me around his garden just at dark, showing me jasmine, lemon grass, and a bright orange flower.  I had dinner at a simple restaurant in town and had a not very good thali.  My bed had a good mosquito net and a fan, and I opened wide the windows to the veranda, but it still was hot when I went to bed.  It cooled off over the night.

The next morning I awoke about 5 and went out on the balcony to look at the morning mist over the river.  The Bhagirathi flows from the Ganges, which is about 10 or 15 miles to the north.  Bangladesh is just beyond.  The Bhagirathi eventually flows into the Hooghly, which also flows from the Ganges and passes by Calcutta on its way to the Bay of Bengal.  I think they are both considered distributaries, rather than tributaries, of the Ganges.  I went back to bed and got up for good about 6 to sit on the balcony in the morning cool.  The wide river flows quite rapidly.  Boatmen came downriver from the little village a little upstream.  I walked to the palace grounds in the morning sunshine.  It was already getting hot.  There was no wind.  People were exercising on the palace grounds and one couple were even doing yoga at the top of the steps to the Hazarduari.  Gardeners were trimming hedges.  I walked a short distance along the river to a newer, smaller, but decrepit palace,dating from the 1890's I think.  It was right on the river and had a couple of European style statues in front.  It was cooler along the river, with flowering trees, orange and purple.  I walked further downstream, past another small riverside mosque and the remains of what may be walls of a former fort until I reached a large, two story, white gateway just inland from the river.  Just beyond it was an overturned truck on its side, full of sand.  Men were shoveling out the sand while one man worked on the undercarriage, draining gas.

I walked back to the hotel to find the breakfast I had ordered the night before had already been prepared and was cold.  So I ate a cold omelet and buttered toast, but did get a hot cup of tea.  After breakfast I sat on my balcony until about 10.  There was now a slight breeze off the river and I watched the birds, butterflies and squirrels in the garden and the boats on the river.  Utpal, the friendly owner, came by and I chatted with him for a while.  He took me on his motorcycle about a mile east of town to the ruins of the large 1723 Katra Mosque, made of bricks with two remaining very thick minarets.  The Nawab who built it is buried under the steps to the courtyard, a sign of his humility.  I walked around the grounds and then walked back to town, stopping at an even more ruined mosque, much smaller, with bamboo growing in front of it.  Its domed roof was mostly gone.  People along the way were friendly and I arrived at the Hazarduari about noon.  It is now a museum, and air conditioned, and I spent a couple of hours inside.  I didn't count the doors, but I did enjoy the architecture and the collection of memorabilia.  It is three stories high, but you spend almost all your time on the middle story, with a long banquet hall and a central durbar hall with a throne.  On display were all sorts of weapons, a palanquin made of ivory and sedan chairs made of ivory and silver.  There were lots of paintings, including all the Nawabs from about 1700 and several Britons, including Cornwallis, with wide black eyebrows under thinning gray hair.

I had another poor thali lunch, though it had some fish, and then walked downriver to the newer palace.  People were living in the ruins of its backside.  I climbed the stairway at the back to the open corridor above the rooms where people now live, disturbing a pack of dogs that had had the area to themselves before my arrival. I also explored the ruins of another large building further behind the palace.  I walked a bit more downriver, past the large, two story gateway, and then returned to my hotel about 4:30.  I sat on my balcony, then looked around the garden, and finally found a place to sit right on the river until dark.  Utpal came by and I chatted with him.  He sent one of his workers to buy me a small watermelon, which was delicious.  Three of his friends showed up for their nightly game of bridge in the lobby of the hotel and I went off to another unsatisfactory thali dinner.  A full moon was rising to the east.

I slept well and got up at six the next morning and sat on my balcony until I went down for breakfast 15 minutes before the 8 o'clock scheduled time for my breakfast.  Again, it was already prepared, but fortunately for me still hot.  Afterward, I sat on the river and enjoyed the breeze off the water.  Utpal came by about 9 and at 9:30 took me by motorcycle a bit more than a mile north to Katgola, the mansion and garden of a rich Jain merchant.  I wandered around the grounds, also containing a temple and the ruins of another large building, and visited the mansion, filled with old furniture and photos.  I think the mansion, four stories high, must date from the late 1800's.  It had chandeliers, a billiard table and a library with encyclopedias, multi-volume histories, a book on the 1922 attempt to summit Everest, and volumes of the works of Shakespeare, Ruskin, Scott, and Thackeray.  There were quite a few photos of the descendant of the original builder who was a Congress party official in the 50's and 60's.

From Katgola I walked back to Murshidabad, visiting several sights along the way, although what I enjoyed most was seeing the everyday life of rural Bengal.  People were very friendly.  They don't see too many foreign tourists here.  Utpal showed me his foreigner registration book and I doubt he has had more than 50 foreigners staying at his hotel over the past three years.  On the way back to Murshidabad I stopped at a small and uninteresting home of a former financier named Jagat Sett and the much larger and more interesting palace, filled with colorful idols, of a former collector awarded the title Raja Bahadur.  A little further on I explored the family cemetery of Mir Jafar and his descendants, including his four sons (three of which succeeded him as Nawab, and later descendants, recent Nawabs now resting in colorful tile tombs of pink and green.  Mir Jafar betrayed his nephew the Nawab Shiraj-ud-Daula at the battle of Plassey, helping the British win the battle.  Shiraj-ud-Daula was assassinated after the battle and Mir Jafar became Nawab.  His two wives were also buried near him, but in walled tombs.  I asked the caretaker why their tombs had walls, and he said he didn't know the English word but it was because of purdah.  The day was hot and sunny, with mango trees and rice paddies along the way, and I passed by the ruins of another mosque before arriving back in Murshidabad for another desultory lunch about 1:30.

The sky darkened in the afternoon, with a few drops of rain.  I walked through town for quite a way until I reached a ferry crossing to the other side.  The crossing on the motorized, bamboo floored ferry cost all of two rupees. I watched an approaching ferry offload two very heavily laden bicycle rickshaws with towering loads of jute, maybe 15 feet high.  I crossed myself, sharing the small ferry, without rails, with a car and many people, including a lot of uniformed students heading home after school.  On the far side, bicycle rickshaws loaded with jute were waiting for passage across the river.

I started walking to Khosbagh, the garden tomb of Shiraj-ud-Daula, and was soon offered a lift by a teenage schoolgirl on her bicycle.  I was a little dubious, but sat Indian style on the rack on the back of the bike as the strong girl pedaled us along the bumpy road.  My perch seemed precarious, especially when cars came by and she swerved to the lip of the asphalt.  I was afraid of falling backward and conking my head. I did get bumped off just as we were arriving at the walled garden.  I thanked her and said goodbye before going inside. The small building inside the garden apparently was built to house the grandfather of Shiraj-ud-Daula, and they both are buried there, along with other family members.  A small mosque sits at the far end of the garden, behind the building with the tombs.  I looked around and then walked back to the ferry landing, a 20 minute walk as the sun was reappearing.  People were quite friendly on the way, seemingly surprised to see me.

I reached the ferry crossing and spent about 45 minutes there before crossing.  It was quite interesting to watch the jute loaded cycle rickshaws and some motorized small vehicles also loaded with jute getting on the ferry.  Several straining men had to brace the overloaded rickshaws as they skittered down the steep decline and onto the rickety ferry.  I also watched a woman shampooing her long hair in the river.  I finally crossed about 5, sharing the ferry with another overloaded rickshaw and only a few people.  The almost toothless boatman seemed pleased to have me take his photograph.  It took me about half an hour to walk back to my hotel on a humid, windless, late afternoon.  I watched the sun disappear into the clouds over the trees on the other side of the river just after I got back and then talked with Utpal until his 7 o'clock bridge game.  The game finished about 8 and he dropped me off by motorcycle at a fairly good restaurant in town on his way home.  I walked back along the river under a full moon after dinner. 

The next morning I was up about 6:30 and sat on the balcony until breakfast.  Afterward, I sat in the garden and talked with Utpal until about 10, when I checked out and took a share jeep south to the big city of Behrampore, a 45 minute trip.  The driver leaned on his horn almost the whole way.  At 11:30 I left on a hot and crowded bus bound for Malda to the north.  The scenery along the way was flat with ugly development along the crowded and bumpy highway.  I did see rice growing.  After about 3 hours we crossed over the very wide Ganges via the Farraka Barrage, built to control the downstream flow of the Ganges.  Both the highway and the railroad cross the river via the barrage.  Downstream are big white sandbanks in the middle of the river, while upstream there are none.  At places along the barrage you look down and see roiling water, where water was being released through the barrage.  More than an hour after crossing the Ganges we reached Malda.  I took a cycle rickshaw to an okay hotel on the dusty main road.  The afternoon was very humid.

I had come to Malda to see the old Bengali capitals of Gaur and Pandua.  About 8 I found the bus heading to Gaur, about ten miles south, but it was incredibly small, with almost no leg room.  So I hired a taxi to take me there and back for 600 rupees, about $11. Bengal had Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms before the 13th century Muslim conquest.  The ruins at Gaur are all from the Muslim period.  We stopped first at a large mosque built in 1526 of brick with stone facing.  Nearby are the remains of a five story brick gateway to the city, built in the early 15th century.  Designs are on the bricks and the walls adjacent to the gate are now nothing but dirt mounds.  Mango trees, heavy with mangoes, were everywhere.  I was told June is when they ripen and are harvested.  We drove on to the over 80 foot high Firuz Minar, made of brick with a few remaining tiles.  A huge banyan tree stood nearby, full of noisy birds.  At the next stop were the ruins of another mosque and a domed mausoleum, all of brick.  A large gateway nearby had some colorful tiles remaining.  We walked through a large grove of mango trees to the excavations of the old palace and the remaining portions of very high brick city walls.  Next, we drove through another gate further south to two more very nice mosques, the final one with many remaining colorful tiles, both inside and outside.  We were only about two miles from the Bangladesh border when we turned back to return to Malda.  Gaur was sacked in 1537 and abandoned after a plague in 1575.  I got back to Malda about noon.

At 2 I took a bus north about ten miles to Pandua, first visiting the ruins of the enormous Adina Masjid (Mosque) built in 1364.  It is said to be the largest mosque in Bengal and one of the largest in India.  The grassy quadrangle is surrounded by 88 brick arches.  The main wall is brick and stone, with the stone mihrabs (prayer niches) carved with beautiful designs.  Inside the long prayer hall, only about half of which still has a roof, is a large raised platform for the king and his family.  I walked all around and then followed the little road that led past farmhouses with friendly people to the Eklakhi Mausoleum, so called because it cost 100,000 rupees to build.  It was built in 1412 of brick with stone lintels with the remains of Hindu gods.  Nearby is the Qtub Shahi Mosque, dating from 1582.  I walked back the way I came and stopped to watch some women making bidi, the cheap cigarettes sold all over India.  The friendly women seemed to enjoy having their photos taken, and enjoyed even more seeing the photos.  Along the way back, children were playing cricket, grain and cow dung were drying on the road, and people were relaxing after a day's work.  Everybody was very friendly and I think I enjoyed the walk more than the ruins.  I caught a bus back to Malda about 6 and had to stand on the half hour trip.

Shortly before 9 the next morning I left Malda on the long, 8 hour bus ride north to Siliguri, 160 miles away.  The window seats had little leg room, so I took an aisle seat on what became a very crowded and slow bus.  For the first half of the journey there was a lot of traffic on the poor road, with many stops and much horn blowing.  Once we reached a new four land highway we moved more rapidly.  The flat landscape was not at all scenic, with rice and corn and other crops and lots of ugly highway development.  Nearing Siliguri we passed through the narrow wedge, maybe 15 miles wide, between Nepal and Bangladesh and started to see some tea estates about 20 miles before Siliguri.  It was overcast most of the day, but with some sun.  It didn't seem quite as hot as previous days, with an occasional cool wind, probably coming down from the nearby Himalayas.  Siliguri, at about 400 feet elevation and with more than 700,000 people, is a transport center.  I think the people are largely Nepali.  Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa who first climbed Everest with Sir Edmund Hilary, has a prominent statue in town.  I found a decent hotel near the big bus station and looked forward to getting up into the mountains.