Settling In

Once Tamara and I left Pheuntsholing, we were no longer under the wing of any friends. No hot chai on hand (even when we didn't want it) and no-one heating our water or washing our clothes for us. We were dropped in Darjeeling by our last "trusted contact" and left to fend for ourselves.

It usually takes a couple of days to acclimatise to the brute reality of India, even though compared to other Indian cities, Darjeeling is asleep. The sheer volume of people in any direction at any time, the tremendous filth lining all streets which overcomes even the most hardened senses, and of course, the noise. The clamor of over a billion voices, horns, motors, taxis, bells, cellphones, workshops, grinders, hammers, dogs, pigs, chickens, cows, babies, music, hawkers, laughing, shouting, screaming...

So after 3 days with our feet on the ground, Tam and I felt that we were starting to get a feel for things. That's when we decided to hire a motorbike. We expected something like the stunted 125 cc scooters and road-bikes we saw buzzing around town, but our local friendly tourist-guide landed us a nice new shiny Royal Enfield motorcycle. Tam and I have ridden scooters in Indonesia and I even used to ride a Suzuki 185 cc dirt-bike growing up in the country, but the Royal Enfield "Bullet Machismo" is an entirely different kind of animal. With a lean-burn all-aluminium 500 cc engine giving maximum torque of 40.85Nm @ 3000 rpm, the "Bullet" is over 400 pounds of chrome noise and muscle. This brutish machine sounds like a stampede of rhinos.

After showing the locals I could handle such a monster by a solo practice run up the road and back, Tam and I took a ride through the country and then back through Darjeeling. By then I was already getting a phallic-complex and a serious boost to the ego, so booming along the streets of Darjeeling with my "mama" slung on behind, I felt like a real hard muthafucka. I'd just finished reading "Hell's Angels" by Hunter S. Thompson which didnt help my attitude any either.

We rode through Darjeeling to a nearby town called Ghum. When we reached Ghum, we were still 11 km from another small town named Sukhia and the fog was already rolling up the hill fast. However, once you are astride one of these beasts, the temptation is to push it as far as possible, ride until your fingers are stiff cold and your face turns numb. So we kept on, holding tight to the bends, and as soon as the road opened up, screwing it all the way over, blasting up to 60 km/h then leaning hard on the brake and horn before the next corner. The company's motto "made like a gun, goes like a bullet" is not tarnished by the five-speed gearbox, though we barely used three of them on the tightly wound roads which cling to hellishly steep hillsides. When the British engineering company dissolved, Royal Enfield of India, based in Chennai, carried on the name, making Royal Enfield the oldest motorcycle company in the world still in production and the "Bullet" the longest production run model.

For a little change of pace, the next day we wandered the sleepy hillside tea plantations while colourfully dressed women hacked at shrubs with curved iron machetes, filling huge sacks which they would shortly haul up the hill on their backs. At 4pm the sun was already about to drop behind a wall of cloud, which spanned the horizon like a palisade of cotton wool. When it finally did, the air quickly took on a sharp chill and any body part not covered by wool or fleece soon felt the effects of the plummeting temperatures. We wound our way back to town and did the only logical thing we could think of after perusing idyllic tea gardens at sunset; entered a tea house and indulged in a cup of the finest tea on offer - about 10,000 Rupees or A$240 per kg. As we sipped our amber nectar from cups of glass and looked out at the fogs rolling in to engulf Darjeeling, Bob Dylan wailed somewhere in the background, "In a world of steel-eyed death and men who are fighting to be warm, 'Come in,' she said, 'I'll give ya, shelter from the storm.'"

Gravellers and Demolitions

A couple of days ago, we left the capital of Thimphu and headed for Phuentsholing, a small Bhutanese border town adjacent to Jaigon in West Bengal, India. Like our other journey across the Himalayan terrain, this one took considerable time to travel a relatively short distance - 170 km in 6 hours. Our travelling companions were Bhutanese and Indians and without a constant stream of fresh air, we were overwhelmed with the smell of masala, betelnut and a coat of human grease that a cold bucket of washing water is ill-equiped to remove.

The roads were just as meandering and narrow as our first trip, except this time they were under considerably more construction and riddled wth rocks and pot-holes. The only direction available for widening a road which winds around a near-vertical cliff is in. This is done with dynamite, excavators, giant pneumatic drills, handpicks and shovels.

Roads are littered with huge piles of rubble, covered with dusty Indians pain-stakingly picking over and separating the debris into piles based on rock size. Gravel and rocks are moved by shovelling loads onto a tarp and then carting it to another area. Progress is molluscan-like with conditions harsh and resources limited. Without large excavation machinery, the time and effort it would have taken to initially construct these roads, which stretch hundreds of kilometres, is mind-bending.

We are staying here with a friend and have already seen the highlights of Phuentsholing: a small temple, a vegetable market and a crocodile breeding farm. Tomorrow we are hoping to enter India, picnic in a park and do some boating.

Goodbye to the Land of the Thunder Dragon

Hello everyone. I imagine things are getting busy in the few days before Christmas. However, we are having a relaxing time, sipping darjeeling tea in darjeeling where we arrived today.

So following on from the last email, after we returned from Pobjika we spent another week in Thimphu. We spent one day on a hike to Taksang, the most famous of Bhutan's lakhangs. It is the 'Tiger's nest' monastery perched on the side of a cliff which is featured by a lot of books and postcards. It was quite a steep walk, taking us two hours to reach the monastery. We then spent a couple of hours there at the various shrines and Dylan crawled in the cave where Guru Rinpoche (the man that brought Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan in the 8th C) meditated. It took one hour to walk down. We then saw Drukoyel dzong, an old fortress where they fought against the Tibetan invaders. That night we went out on the town with our friend Lobsang to a karaoke bar.

On the 17th we joined in the celebrations for National Day. There were many colourful dances and the King attended and gave out awards to some citizens for their meritable activities. The King walked around the stadium mixing with the people. We were lucky enough to meet him! He talked to us and shook Dylan's hand. He is quite a popular figure because he is quite down-to-earth and charismatic, but not as popular as the 4th King (his father).

After National Day we caught a bus to Phuentsholing to stay with Dylan's friend Sonam. Phuentsholing is on the border with West Bengal, so it has quite a lot of Indian influence. We had a great time, seeing the local temple, crocodile and alligator park, going paddleboating and seeing tigers and leopards at a nature reserve, picnicking by the river, feeding catfish, meeting her family and drinking Bhutanese whiskey. We also dressed up in the national dress, for males the gho and women the khira, and took some photos. Because Sonam is a police officer we were able to stay a couple of extra days in Bhutan off-the-record.

Sadly we had to leave and we are now in the quintessential Indian hillstation of Darjeeling. There have recently been some strikes in West Bengal by Gorkhas fighting for an independent state, but we have been reassured there are no strikes planned for the next few days. We plan to stay here for 3 days and then move on to Bodgaya after Christmas.

Of Burning Lakes and Black-Necked Cranes

Tamara and I just returned yesterday from a trip to central Bhutan with some friends. We travelled to the district of Bumthang, 250 km from the capital of Thimphu. 250 km that took 10 hours! The roads were very windy and narrow, so whenever another car passed from the other direction, both cars had to slow to a crawl and drive on the dirt beside the asphalt

In Bumthang we took in the ubiquitous monasteries and temples, which were actually more sacred in Bumthang than other regions of Bhutan. In the 8th century, an Indian yogi called Padmasambhava brought Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan, so he is quite the celebrity here. There are countless myths surrounding his exploits and many are focused on the monasteries and areas in Bumthang. We also visited a waterhole to the side of a river, which Padmasambhava was said to bury teachings at the bottom of. These "treasures" were rediscovered later by a yogi who allegedly took a butterlamp to the bottom and when they resurfaced with the treasures, the lamp was still burning, hence the name "burning lake". Nearby the lake is a very narrow cave entrance, which then winds down and exits at the bottom of the hill. It is said that to pass through this entrance, one's "sins" (better translated as previous negative actions/wrongdoings, and therefore not associated with the christian birthright and perpetual guilt trip) are removed or cleansed. Anyway, I managed to squeeze myself through this hole with difficulty, and although my karma may have been clean when I emerged from the otherside, my clothes certainly were not.

On the way home, we got dropped off at a place called Phobjikha, also known as the Valley of the Black-neck Crane. We stayed at a local hotel and got up at 5:30 am to trek into the nearby marshes to catch a glimpse of the rare birds which migrate to this valley from Tibet every winter. We were not given very explicit directions, and as the sun slowly dispersed both darkness and heavy mist from the frosted earth and surrounding dark mountains, we found ourselves stuck up to our knees in icy cold mud in the middle of the marshlands. Lost and yet to get a close look at any cranes, we tried to find a safe way through the trecherous badlands (anyone recalling the scene in The Two Towers where Gollum leads Frodo through the Dead Marshes to the Black Gate will know what I'm talking about :-). We made slow progress by hopping from small shrub to shrub which rose just above the water, trying to avoid sinking into the frigid waters. By crawling along the ground on our bellies, commando stealth style, we managed to get quite close to the cranes and get some spectacular photos of them!