WEST BENGAL
Immediately upon leaving the airport each family member had been processed by an official, who - ominously - wrote down the names and phone numbers of our 'next of kin'. That really made me wonder just what kind of trip we were about to undertake...pun intended.
Stress of a rather different variety rumbled through my gut
Our destination was the Victorian hill-station of Darjeeling, then a teaming city of 250,000 souls. But we had yet to finalize the last leg of our journey. We needed to climb from sea level, in the plains of Bengal, to the 8000 ft. contour in the Himalayan foothills.
Aging jeeps and land rovers filled the airport compound, their smiling drivers cheerily greeting each weary disembarking passenger. Determined that we should all travel in one vehicle for safety, my very tall Uncle and miniature Aunt negotiated a price with a rather too enthusiastic jeep driver, who proceeded to pile our luggage on top of and inside the vehicle.
Then, somehow, 6 adults, including the driver himself, squeezed into the 4 available seats. A dangerous looking man then clambered on top of our suitcases, that were stacked behind us. We were informed that he was our co-driver. Yet he faced the rear of the vehicle and carried a loaded Uzi, and extra ammunition.
The driver explained that this area of India was threatening civil war. Apparently radicals in West Bengal territory wanted to break away from centralized Indian government and become independent. To add teeth to their claims, some of those "bandits" laid traps on the mountain roads, attacking, robbing and sometimes killing any traveler from whom they could benefit.
Personally I think someone gave them the wrong definition of the term "Tourist Season"! Much as one might want to, it just doesn't make good economic sense to kill off one's tourists. Yet, that is precisely why there was a man, with extra ammunition for his loaded UZI, squatting in the back of our Jeep, prepared to defend all of us from bandits!!!
My pragmatic Mother made light of the situation, saying that one sect is always trying to annihilate another in this geographic region. And she should know. Mother had been a child of 7 when she had first attended boarding school at Kurseong, a town we'd pass through, en route to Darjeeling.
She had spent her formative years there, taught by Catholic nuns. In her teenage years, unbeknownst to the school care-taking staff, Mom would sneak out before dawn to meditate at the nearby Buddhist Monastery, surrounded by Tibetan Monks, exotic incense and the ever present prayer wheel. I guess it doesn't hurt to cover all religious bases when bandits occupy the hills behind your boarding school.
DIRE WARNING
But Mother was now crammed between my cousin and myself in the back seat of that overloaded Jeep, as we drove up Hill Cart Road towards our destination. My face was firmly pressed snugly against one closed window, and my cousin's face pressed snugly against the opposite window. Thus, at each hairpin bend, at break-neck speed on the ill-maintained road, one of us would experience sudden vertigo when the wheels on one side of the Jeep failed to connect with the road!
Because the road would often be washed away or destroyed by falling rocks, whoever was seated on the steep side would stare straight down the mountain - a terrifyingly sheer drop of 1000 ft. or more.
Adding to this adrenaline rush were the scary large signs, scrawled onto mountainside walls, beneath the fluttering, well-placed prayer flags. At each turn, they warned, in large capitals - and in English
It didn't surprise me that vehicles - and their passengers - had regularly 'gone missing' on this road. Those roadside grave markers I'd seen on some of the more hair-raising turns had had to belong to someone. But their warning came too late since I was already screaming!
In this atmosphere of terror, only an act of will made me appreciate the beauty of the plains of India spreading out below us, like an enormous, dusty Persian rug, as we ascended the mountain. So it was with a sinking feeling that I realized why our jeep was being driven by a speed demon. Nightfall would soon be upon us, even though we were still many miles from our destination.
Being able to see the drop, that lay beneath half of our jeep on most turns, was bad enough. But to contemplate that fateful drop, and the likelihood of an ignoble death far from home, was beyond horrific.
My mind began racing - and not in a good way!
MINOR MIRACLE
To calm myself, I asked for a sign that we were meant to survive this real life Disneyland E ticket ride up the Himalayas. And on the very next corner, was my unmistakable sign.
Now HOW did that happen?!!
Silently, I said a prayer of thanks for whomever and whatever had conspired to create our small, but perfectly timed and most reassuring, miracle.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
Photos by the kind courtesy of: www.tripadvisor.in
From Bagdogra to Darjeeling is only 70 miles, yet despite our driver's obvious skill, our trip still took several hours. The many switchbacks and a narrow road, filled with potholes and cracked by frost heaves, earthquakes and rockfalls, slowed our progress to a crawl.
Our plane arrived at the military airport of Bagdogra in a balmy outdoor temperature of 36C degrees, sixteen degrees cooler than the 'fragrant' steam-bath that was Calcutta. It had already been the longest Wednesday of my entire life, and now that we had arrived, we encountered yet more problems here.
Immediately upon leaving the airport each family member had been processed by an official, who - ominously - wrote down the names and phone numbers of our 'next of kin'. That really made me wonder just what kind of trip we were about to undertake...pun intended.
Stress of a rather different variety rumbled through my gut
Was it too late to turn back?
Our destination was the Victorian hill-station of Darjeeling, then a teaming city of 250,000 souls. But we had yet to finalize the last leg of our journey. We needed to climb from sea level, in the plains of Bengal, to the 8000 ft. contour in the Himalayan foothills.
Aging jeeps and land rovers filled the airport compound, their smiling drivers cheerily greeting each weary disembarking passenger. Determined that we should all travel in one vehicle for safety, my very tall Uncle and miniature Aunt negotiated a price with a rather too enthusiastic jeep driver, who proceeded to pile our luggage on top of and inside the vehicle.
Then, somehow, 6 adults, including the driver himself, squeezed into the 4 available seats. A dangerous looking man then clambered on top of our suitcases, that were stacked behind us. We were informed that he was our co-driver. Yet he faced the rear of the vehicle and carried a loaded Uzi, and extra ammunition.
Um...an UZI?!!....(gulp).....why was he carrying an Uzi?
TOURIST SEASON
My aunt also wanted to know why. So she conversed intently with our driver during the long run through farmlands of Bengal before the swiftly rising foothills carried us high up into the tea plantations of the Himalayan foothills.TOURIST SEASON
The driver explained that this area of India was threatening civil war. Apparently radicals in West Bengal territory wanted to break away from centralized Indian government and become independent. To add teeth to their claims, some of those "bandits" laid traps on the mountain roads, attacking, robbing and sometimes killing any traveler from whom they could benefit.
Personally I think someone gave them the wrong definition of the term "Tourist Season"! Much as one might want to, it just doesn't make good economic sense to kill off one's tourists. Yet, that is precisely why there was a man, with extra ammunition for his loaded UZI, squatting in the back of our Jeep, prepared to defend all of us from bandits!!!
Oh heck!
My pragmatic Mother made light of the situation, saying that one sect is always trying to annihilate another in this geographic region. And she should know. Mother had been a child of 7 when she had first attended boarding school at Kurseong, a town we'd pass through, en route to Darjeeling.
She had spent her formative years there, taught by Catholic nuns. In her teenage years, unbeknownst to the school care-taking staff, Mom would sneak out before dawn to meditate at the nearby Buddhist Monastery, surrounded by Tibetan Monks, exotic incense and the ever present prayer wheel. I guess it doesn't hurt to cover all religious bases when bandits occupy the hills behind your boarding school.
DIRE WARNING
But Mother was now crammed between my cousin and myself in the back seat of that overloaded Jeep, as we drove up Hill Cart Road towards our destination. My face was firmly pressed snugly against one closed window, and my cousin's face pressed snugly against the opposite window. Thus, at each hairpin bend, at break-neck speed on the ill-maintained road, one of us would experience sudden vertigo when the wheels on one side of the Jeep failed to connect with the road!
Because the road would often be washed away or destroyed by falling rocks, whoever was seated on the steep side would stare straight down the mountain - a terrifyingly sheer drop of 1000 ft. or more.
Adding to this adrenaline rush were the scary large signs, scrawled onto mountainside walls, beneath the fluttering, well-placed prayer flags. At each turn, they warned, in large capitals - and in English
"YOU SLEEP YOU SCREAM"
In this atmosphere of terror, only an act of will made me appreciate the beauty of the plains of India spreading out below us, like an enormous, dusty Persian rug, as we ascended the mountain. So it was with a sinking feeling that I realized why our jeep was being driven by a speed demon. Nightfall would soon be upon us, even though we were still many miles from our destination.
Being able to see the drop, that lay beneath half of our jeep on most turns, was bad enough. But to contemplate that fateful drop, and the likelihood of an ignoble death far from home, was beyond horrific.
My mind began racing - and not in a good way!
Didn't bears and huge man-eating Bengal tigers roam these hills at sunset? Were they already licking their chops, waiting patiently for the next batch of gullible tourists like us to literally drop in to be their supper?
MINOR MIRACLE
To calm myself, I asked for a sign that we were meant to survive this real life Disneyland E ticket ride up the Himalayas. And on the very next corner, was my unmistakable sign.
The bare white wall of a ramshackle, roadside home had been lovingly stencilled with a rose trellis and several pink roses.
Nothing man-made lasts long in India's brutal mountain climate, so old paint would surely have faded, obliterating that delicate art work within a few months. I thus reasoned that those roses could only recently have been stencilled there.
Nothing man-made lasts long in India's brutal mountain climate, so old paint would surely have faded, obliterating that delicate art work within a few months. I thus reasoned that those roses could only recently have been stencilled there.
It felt like those roses had appeared in that place, just to comfort my cousin and me!
I felt, rather than saw, my cousin's relief as he exhaled deeply upon seeing those pink roses too. I wonder if he realized how incongruous they were in this setting, where most painted flowers decorate not houses but trucks. And almost 100% of those trucks sport lotus blossoms, not roses. Yet there they were, for all the world to see - full blown pink roses stencilled onto a most unlikely trellis in these treacherous foothills of the Himalayas Now HOW did that happen?!!
Silently, I said a prayer of thanks for whomever and whatever had conspired to create our small, but perfectly timed and most reassuring, miracle.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
Photos by the kind courtesy of: www.tripadvisor.in
From Bagdogra to Darjeeling is only 70 miles, yet despite our driver's obvious skill, our trip still took several hours. The many switchbacks and a narrow road, filled with potholes and cracked by frost heaves, earthquakes and rockfalls, slowed our progress to a crawl.
The air temperature grew perceptibly cooler as we ascended into the mountains via a cat's cradle of hairpin bends. And, as the air became thinner, I was thankful that I'd remembered to pack my asthma inhaler. It was in my suitcase behind us. And, just as soon as I could convince the man with the Uzi to move his body off my suitcase, I would immediately access it and all would be well again.
Only one problem presented itself....in rural India, unless you speak the language, it is very difficult to explain an urgent medical need to a very nervous chap who is 'on guard' and carrying a loaded weapon.
Not only was I suffering from a lamentable lack of oxygen, but I did not understand our stalwart defender's language, and I certainly did not want to risk upsetting him. So I quickly conveyed my distress to my Mother and cousin, and after a much heated debate between the driver, my Aunt, Uncle and Mother, it was decided that our vehicle would make a pit-stop on my behalf, eventually!
In retrospect, the driver had been wise to deny my frantic request to stop at the side of the road. With "bandits" lurking in the hills ready to pounce on travellers, stopping would almost certainly invite a deadly attack. So onward we travelled, my lips turning blue, my fingers tingling and my brain hallucinating wildly until serendipity helped me to save my life. Unfortunately, it did not also help me to save face!
DARJEELING HIMALAYAN RAILWAY
This small blue marvel of engineering had faithfully transported paying customers to the hill stations for several decades. My Mother, herself, rode this train when she returned to her private school for term time. And I heard my first stories about the Toy Train as a small child upon my Mother's lap. More about this amazing mode of transportation at www.darjnet.com/darjeeling/darjeeling/travel/train/train.htm
TINDHARIA STATION
We finally arrived at Tindharia Station - a now defunct rest stop, where during the British occupation, travellers paused for a most welcome cup of tea. By coincidence - or design? - the blue toy train, had also stopped there, to take on water before ascending a further 5000 feet into Darjeeling.
Today Tindharia station boasts no impressive tearoom, and, more importantly, no restroom facilities whatsoever. So all the passengers took advantage of the train's water-stop to refresh and relieve themselves. But where to go? There was only one small snack shack available for refreshments and it provided no bathrooms at all.
In my haste to connect with my asthma inhaler and put on some warmer clothes, I had not noticed my surroundings and was thus oblivious to the plight of the train passengers. Therefore, I was totally unprepared for what happened next.
Feeling warmer, breathing more easily, and duly cautioned by Mother not to venture too far, I decided to stretch my legs by taking a short walk along the narrow strip of road. Butted up against the mountain were the train tracks and, between the tracks and the roadside, a narrow ditch which collected the run off from the frequent and copious mountain rains. It was a miracle how anyone could have built a roadway through these steep mountains, much less laid and maintained tracks upon which a small train could traverse.
In my haste to connect with my asthma inhaler and put on some warmer clothes, I had not noticed my surroundings and was thus oblivious to the plight of the train passengers. Therefore, I was totally unprepared for what happened next.
Feeling warmer, breathing more easily, and duly cautioned by Mother not to venture too far, I decided to stretch my legs by taking a short walk along the narrow strip of road. Butted up against the mountain were the train tracks and, between the tracks and the roadside, a narrow ditch which collected the run off from the frequent and copious mountain rains. It was a miracle how anyone could have built a roadway through these steep mountains, much less laid and maintained tracks upon which a small train could traverse.
COMIC RELIEF
Suddenly I noticed that all the men from the train seemed to have gathered, shoulder to shoulder, on the roadside, facing the tracks. I did try to peek between two of them, to see what they were doing. But those two men gruffly elbowed me away and were decidedly unhappy about being interrupted. So I thought perhaps that women were not welcomed at this particular ritual.
Never daunted, I decided to walk to the end of their line-up, where I would squat and take a long-view photograph of the ditch ceremony from an unparalleled vantage point. Only when I got there, camera poised to photograph the event for posterity, did I realize that what I had expected to be a "religious" ceremony was in fact a mass male potty break. Meekly, I rose to my full height, put away my camera and bid a hasty retreat, to the soft chuckles of the few dozen assembled men.
I turned to see my family trying to control themselves, helpless with laughter as they watched me making a complete idiot of myself.
I stumbled, red-faced, towards the ladies who had gathered on a tiny strip of unfenced land which dropped off sharply to the valley beneath, after only 20 feet or so. Mesmerized by their colourful saris, I soon noticed that these ladies had formed outward-facing circles, holding the drop of their saris at shoulder height.
Delighted that I was witnessing a dance that would make a beautiful impromptu photograph, I moved in closer, squatting once more, to get a better angle for my shot. Only then did I realize that the ladies and their saris were shielding from view another lady who had needed to relieve herself.
My awe at these ladies' simple, elegant and creative solution to a common problem, was tinged with disbelief and horror at my own sheer idiocy. Needless to say, I didn't take that photo either.
In less than 10 minutes, I'd twice succeeded in embarrassing several dozen strangers as well as myself! Though many of the ladies giggled fitfully as I slunk away and quietly resumed my seat in the jeep, head bowed in shame, they had also looked at me as if I was insane. And who can blame them?!
Maybe my brain had been more starved of oxygen than anyone had realized. For I can assure you, I do not make a habit of interrupting strangers who are discretely attending to their biological functions.
Those travellers who had noticed my antics had not taken offence, but had laughed and laughed till tears ran down their faces. And eventually, even I had to laugh at my own stupidity. Indeed, no harm was done, except to my ego.
I turned to see my family trying to control themselves, helpless with laughter as they watched me making a complete idiot of myself.
Oh but there was more!!
My embarrassment had only just begun...
I stumbled, red-faced, towards the ladies who had gathered on a tiny strip of unfenced land which dropped off sharply to the valley beneath, after only 20 feet or so. Mesmerized by their colourful saris, I soon noticed that these ladies had formed outward-facing circles, holding the drop of their saris at shoulder height.
Delighted that I was witnessing a dance that would make a beautiful impromptu photograph, I moved in closer, squatting once more, to get a better angle for my shot. Only then did I realize that the ladies and their saris were shielding from view another lady who had needed to relieve herself.
My awe at these ladies' simple, elegant and creative solution to a common problem, was tinged with disbelief and horror at my own sheer idiocy. Needless to say, I didn't take that photo either.
Maybe my brain had been more starved of oxygen than anyone had realized. For I can assure you, I do not make a habit of interrupting strangers who are discretely attending to their biological functions.
Those travellers who had noticed my antics had not taken offence, but had laughed and laughed till tears ran down their faces. And eventually, even I had to laugh at my own stupidity. Indeed, no harm was done, except to my ego.
Our laughter had filled our lungs with much needed oxygen and raised our spirits for the remainder of our long journey. It was a sure and simple way for all of us to break the tension of travelling through Taliban country with an armed guard perched upon our luggage. And in the grand scheme of things, what did it matter that my role was to be a clown providing others with a way to forget their troubles for a little while?
I surely did wonder about the power of this land of my birth, this magical India, that had provided a spiritual lesson of some kind, at every juncture of our journey so far. From pink roses at the airport and on the trellis en route from Bagdogra, to lightening everyone's spirits through my antics as the court jester, our angels had delivered humour along with each test of faith.
We were planning to spend a week in Darjeeling.
What further surprises would this mysterious Bengal have in store for us?
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SECTION 1 Chapter 4 Trip to Darjeeling, India where 19th British in India went to escape the summer heat: East meets West here
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