DARJEELING

9/24 We’re in Darjeeling, famous for its tea. We have changed hotels 3 times in 3 nights, starting out in traditional Tibetan guest house and have ended up in a quiet place with the best views ever. Our room has an incredible panoramic view, high in the clouds(we are at 7000 ft). As the clouds roll in and out, we can see the valley below, and the mountains in the distance. We just had a rare view of Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. Really cool!

Sleeping at night hasn’t been easy. Between the chorus of barking dogs, generators switching on when the electric goes out, the 4 a.m. Muslim call to prayer that blasts over loudspeaker for the entire city to hear. We‘re no longer in Kennett Square.

Dogs roam wildly all over the place here. Good news is, there are no cows here on the streets. That eliminates having to watch every step to avoid the cowpies. The dogs bark all night long and sleep in the streets during the day when their not eating the trash. We saw a woman and baby sitting in the middle of the street yesterday with cars whizzing by, the baby playing with the dogs, while she was on her cell phone. I can’t even begin to imagine the germs! Monkeys roam wild, hanging in the trees, climbing along rooftops.

Our visit here included a trip to a tea plantation, where we met up with some Aussies we enjoyed being with. It’s great when we find people who speak English! We hiked down a long, rocky hill to get to our destination, very unlike what I thought the entrance to Harrod’s Happy Valley Tea Plantation might be. At the bottom of the steep slope, a Tibetan woman took us into her teahouse, a 1950’s rendition of a mishmash of dirty stuffed animals, a woman nursing a baby, sacks of tea, a boy making momos (a Tibetan staple) and whatever else the tiny crowded room held. We learned about tea, and what makes Darjeeling the top quality tea. We toured the “factory”(all terms are used loosely), as the women pickers napped on the floor on their lunch break. These poor souls are paid 68 rupees($1.48) per day to pick the tea. We tried to imagine their lives as they toil all day in the fields and then go home to care for their children and homes. We have it so good! We had hoped to take a taxi back to the top of the hill and learned that wasn’t an option. As we climbed back up, I thought of the woman doing the same after a long hot day of work, day in, day out.

Carrying the tea in from the field.
We visited the Tibetan Refugee center reached by a very scary drive up a jeep trail like road with hair pin turns that was washed out here and there.  We later learned, and saw a picture, women built the road by hand in the early 1960s.  At the Center is an orphanage and an old folks home, as well as a craft center where they sell their handicrafts to help support themselves. We could only find a few small things we were interested in- a total of $2 US. We delighted 2 little boys with peppermints! We continue to ponder the plight of the Tibetan people.  Now, how do we get back to town?  We ask a man standing by the only car in site for a ride.  He kindly agrees.  On the way down Kema tells us he was 2 years old in 1959 when his parents fled Tibet for India when the Chinese invaded.  What journey that must have been walking over the Himalayas wih a 2 year old baby. Kema has lived in the refuge center ever since.  Soon we pass the Tenzin rock climbing school, founded by the first person to climb Mt Everest, Norgay Tenzin (with Edmund Hillary) in 1953.  Kema tells us Norgay was Tibetan and lived in Darjeeling.  In fact we learn that Tenzin lived on the same road, Gandhi Road, as our hotel!