Our flight from Delhi to Bagdogra airport in Siliguri--in the neck of West Bengal--, is smooth and pleasant. The airport is small and dusty, and we quickly connect with the man who'll drive us the 3+ hours up to Darjeeling. We drive through a few moments of promising tea plantations before encountering the pandemonium that makes the 100 km drive take so long. Here motorbikes, bicycles and rickshaws weave through and around the people and animals lying and standing listlessly in and by the road. All this competes with hordes of communal taxis(a sort of jeep) that zip blindly down the road, incessantly honking, braking, accelerating loudly, while pedestrians float obliviously down the roadsides, glued to their cell-phones, randomly calling "hello, hello". The driver proudly points out the local air force base, and chit chats a bit with us as we slowly escape the huge traffic snarls in Siliguri and begin ascending the narrow roadway into the Himalayan foothills. It's a caravan of vehicles rising out of the steamy plains, passing one another in the most improbable spots, but as we enter more rural spots we see the beautiful tapestry of fresh tea bushes sprouting over rolling hillsides. Interspersed, however, is the haphazard and decaying, mostly unfinished construction of shops and hovels and towers that further narrow the pocked road as we reach Kurseong, where the road begins to accompany the narrow-gauge railway that goes up to Darjeeling. In its day, it must have been quite a lovely train ride, but today the train seems to take a lot of space away from the road, its tracks constantly cross the road, and run directly in front of shops and homes most of the tortuous way up the mountain.
Temperatures fall along with daylight as we reach Darjeeling. My notion of an idyllic ex-colonial backwater surrounded by tea plantations and the distant Himalayas is almost instantly extinguished. The noise and confusion in the ever narrower roadways--mostly two way, and always filled well beyond imaginable capacity--is unbelievable, particularly after what I've read about the area. We find our way to the hotel, head out into the damp chill and unsuccessfully procure some dinner, ending up with an inadequate sort of buttery rice and a bit of tea. From there to bed until we meet the day again.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/wMWrHUX9GK7MaSTa9
Temperatures fall along with daylight as we reach Darjeeling. My notion of an idyllic ex-colonial backwater surrounded by tea plantations and the distant Himalayas is almost instantly extinguished. The noise and confusion in the ever narrower roadways--mostly two way, and always filled well beyond imaginable capacity--is unbelievable, particularly after what I've read about the area. We find our way to the hotel, head out into the damp chill and unsuccessfully procure some dinner, ending up with an inadequate sort of buttery rice and a bit of tea. From there to bed until we meet the day again.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/wMWrHUX9GK7MaSTa9
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