５ Darjeeling
- Peaceful Resistance in the Sphere
November 25, Sunday (Continued)
Left Patna by Night Train
The night train was delayed one hour at Patna. Such delay was common in India. The problem was that I could not know the details of delay while waiting at platform. Neither announce nor station employee were available there. It was useless to ask Indian passengers. I didn’t know why but probably they were used to that. I had to bring my luggage and cross the overbridge to see a board or to ask at an information. It annoyed and exhausted me. Finally the train left Patna at 23:10 p.m. I walked into the dim aisle. What’s this! Somebody was sleeping on my bed. I showed my ticket to him. I set up a sheet and a blanket and slept soon.
November 26, Monday
General Strike all over the City of Darjeeling
I got up at around 6 a.m. in the night train. I talked with an Indian soldier sitting at the front seat. He was from Varanasi and working for military service in Assam, where I was going after Darjeeling. He said Assam and Meghalaya are nice and safe places. 
Meanwhile two young women tourists came down to join us: Hae-Jung and Ji-Young from Korea. They were also on the way to Darjeeling.
At 9:10 a.m we arrived at New Jaspaiguli, located in the narrow corridor connecting the main land India and the eastern district including Assam. To the south is Bangladesh while to the north are Darjeeling and Sikkim. From the platform, we walked over a long bridge to the main gate of the station. We rode an autoricksha for 30 minutes to the bus terminal of Siliguri.
We were surprised at the terminal. They said all the public transportations were never available to Darjeeling due to the general strike. I talked with other foreign tourists. They suggested us that buses could be used for Gangtok, the State of Sikkim. Then, we went to the office of Sikkim. As the bus office was closed at that time, we had a breakfast at an adjacent restaurant, where we met two German women who had also given up going to Darjeeling and got tickets to Gangtok. They told me they had had big problem of food poisoning at Bodh Gaya and stayed there for several days as I heard the same story yesterday there.
The bus office opened but tickets had already been sold out. Next, we tried to look for an omnibus to Gangtok. Then we found a omnibus to Darjeeling and decided to use this together with ten people. It started at 11:50 a.m.
For a while the car began to drive on mountainous roads full of bumps for Darjeeling located at 2,500 meters high from the sea level. Ji-Young, a Korean woman, suffered seriously from motion sickness. A young Bhutanese guy kindly exchanged his better seat with hers. I asked him about the strike in Darjeeling. Darjeeling is now belong to the State of West Bengar but people in Darjeeling want to make an independent province because they are different from the people in West Bengar ethnically and culturally. The strike was a political one and already continued for several days, he said. He added that there had been no big troubles or dangers. I still worried about accidents.
There were white peaks of the Himalayan Mountains, which excited me with expectations. At 3:10 p.m. the omnibus arrived at the bus terminal of Darjeeling in the dusk of the evening. The sunset was earlier here, in the eastern part, because India has only one time zone in spite of its large area. We followed an Indian guy, went up steps in the town and settled in Hotel Polynia, Rs. 550. No guests were here except us due to the strike. No restaurant and no store were open either. We went to the restaurant in a better hotel near by, Central Hotel, to have a dinner. The room in Hotel Polynia was very cold because there were gaps in the windows and chill air came in. I shivered terribly after showering. I went to bed at 8 p.m.
Today is Kumiko’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Kumiko! Sorry for not to be with you. I couldn’t send email message to you or couldn’t call you either due to the strike.
November 27, Tuesday
Peace Rally and Mt. Kanchenjunga. Moving to a Sweet Room.
I woke up at 8 p.m. I slept for twelve hours, still sleepy. After having a breakfast alone, walked around in the town. No store was open yet. Darjeeling is located along the ridge. It was hard to walk up and down on slopes and steep steps. Humble houses lined whereas beautiful buildings like a church built in 1804 showed the strength of the Empire of Great Britain in the past. 
Narrow passages and long steps were like a labyrinth. People were generally shorter and looked like a Nepali or a Tibetan. Most women did not wear a sali but a sweater. They were mostly so friendly to smile and make a pose when I pointed my camera to them. No kids begged.
I met six tourists from Nagaland, an Indian state located in the eastern border district (Up). They were apparently different from Hindus, looked East Asians.
Political posters were on walls saying, “We want separation of Darjeeling Dist. and Doars from Bengal”. I encountered a big demonstration parade. No voice or no violent gesture (Right). They showed a big banner of “Peace Rally” at the head of the parade. They also put up placards saying, “Don’t make town a battlefield.” or “Violence can’t solve anything.” Parade looked quiet but I felt slight concern about improper happenings.
When I returned to the hotel at 11:30 p.m. Hae-Jung came to the front and said that Ji-Young caught a cold and did not eat anything today. We went to the restaurant of Hotel Central and asked to cook rice porridge. When we had tee after lunch, the manager of this hotel appeared. He said no guest stayed here due to the general strike and offered us to stay by Rs1500 ($45) instead of the regular price of Rs 6500 ($195). 
We saw several rooms. There was a room having a bathtub, unusually in India. I willingly accepted his offer to move here and stay at a sweet room for two nights whereas the two Koreans did not move because it was still out of their price range. I gave up visiting Sikkim this time and decided to enjoy this luxurious room to refresh myself.
Kangchenjunga (8598m) and a range of mountains were seen in the room (Right)). Air was clear also unusually in India.
It was still pretty cold even in this luxurious sweet room with two lines of windows that had a flower bed between them
. This was because the hotel had no central-heating system. I went out for shopping for something anyway. Stores in bazar were gradually opened. I bought a sweater, pajamas and a big shawl to protect against the cold. I saw the guy who had taken us to the hotel yesterday, I asked him about the turing to the Tiger Hill to see the Himalayan Mountains. He took me to a turing car and I made a reservation by Rs500. It would start at 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. I returned to the hotel and talked with the Koreans, who would willingly join the tour.
At 5 p.m. two hotel staffs came to my room to light a fire in the fireplace. All the staffs in this hotel worked only for me. This was like the life of a nobleman. I would have a nice sleep tonight in the warm room.
November 28, Wednesday
Distant view of Mt. Everest. Calling Kumiko.
After 3 a.m. the telephone from the front woke me up. The car started at 4 a.m. and took us to the observatory of the Tiger Hill at 4:40 a.m. before daybreak. It began to dawn around 5:30 a.m. and the sun rose at 6:00 a.m. In spite of our expectation, Mt. Kangchenjunga did not appear due to clouds. Toward the left away, however, Mt. Everest and two other peaks showed their beauties clearly (Below, Mt. Everest is in the center). Thanks to our luck to see the world’s highest peak.
Ww drove down the Tiger Hill after 7 a.m. On the way to Darjeeling, stopped by at a Buddhist Monastery and the War Memorial Park: the war at the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. Young tourists from Bangladesh talked about the terrible disaster of the recent cyclone in their country. It was being settled down though, they added.
A hotel boy told me about the recovery of phone system. At once I went to an international phone shop to call Kumiko in NY. She said she had felt strange about my silence for two days and a half but understood the reason. She also said she was going to join me in India probably one week later.
I had an Indian breakfast. It was big and tasty. 
I felt a little bit out of shape probably because mountain sickness. After lunch I went out to town. Suddenly I flew in the air and sat down on steep stone stairs. I got a bang on the hip and on my Nikon as well. Fortunately both my body and Nikon seemed to work well. I walked down more and visited the botanical garden located below the bazar. There were various kinds of orchid such as Cymbidium, Dendrobium, Paphiopedilum, Eria, Calanthe and Masdavallic. The last one has an unusual shape of flower (Right).
On my way back it was hard to climb roads uphill and steep stairs. Inside the bazar I found a shop of beef meat for the first time in India (Below).
I climbed up to the top and had a rest at Chawster Park. In a moving mist, children were playing football with a small ball. I found an Internet shop open and sent emails and uploaded this travel sketch for the first time since three days ago.
It is still very cold even in the room. The luxury life as one guest in this hotel is just enough. I will leave here to the lower world tomorrow. I went to bed soon after dinner.
November 29, Thursday
Driving down from Darjeeling. The night train delayed six hours, incredibly!!!
A lot of taxies were lined in the corner near the hotel. They looked so slack because there were very few tourists. Negotiated with them to hire a car to New Jaspaiguli by way of Tiger Hill, I left Darjeeling at 10:30 together with Hae-Jung and Ji-Young. We stopped by at Tiger Hill to see and say bye to the Kanchenjunga range. My Nikon had some trouble to control aperture probably due to the shock when I slipped yesterday and then I gave up taking pictures of the beautiful view. The car drove on a narrow mountain road and through a lot of hairpin curves. There were tea fields extended on the side of mountains. 
It passed through a small train running (Right). This is the UNESCO World Heritage Toy Train, connecting Darjeeling and New Jaspaiguli, established in 1880 as the oldest mountain train in Asia. We thought about riding the train but gave up because of its too slow speed: it runs for seven hours and a half whereas a car for three hours and a half between the two stations.
My train to Guwahati of Assam, which was scheduled to departure at 6 p.m., was said to delay 3 hours in the first announcement but finally it delayed 6 hours!!! This is actually a typical case of “Incredible India”, the catchphrase by the Sightseeing Agency of the Indian Government. When I was reading a guidebook about Assam at a waiting room, an Indian talked to me. He said he was a government officer and had often had business trips to Assam. He recommended to visit Kajiranga National Park in Assam and Cherrapunjee in Meghalaya. Meghalaya is the Indian Stated located in the south of Assam. I had much interest in Cherrapunjee, which is famous for the world’s largest rain fall and views made of the climate according to him. He also talked about hotels in both the states and very kindly gave me his business card saying I would stay at the nice hotel in Meghalaya at a better price by showing the card.
At 0:55 a.m. in the midnight my train departed at New Jaspaiguli to Guwahati.
