Day 48 : Friday 9th November: Darjeeling

We awoke with some difficulty still very tired from the night journey up the foothills. Breakfast was served late and was a treat with cornflakes and cold milk, nan breads with a very tasty, mild, vegetable curry, scrambled eggs and to finish off a banana. Instead of coffee, which I have favoured mainly because of the milky, sweat and sickly tea they serve in India, I had tea. I couldn't sit in the heart of Darjeeling and not have tea. In fact it was so good I had a second cup.

After breakfast we set off to the market which was spread out all around our hotel and the area we were staying in. Unfortunately it was raining, the streets were muddy and the whole place was rundown. We set off to explore with JaenPol who very quickly went off to find a bar selling cold beer. We finished up in the local museum which was very run down and old fashioned but interesting in a strange antique type of way. All the exhibits were falling to bits and faded but nevertheless had a quaint appeal.

An hour later we bumped into JaenPol walking down the hillside and who had found a pleasant little bar overlooking the tea plantations. He was content to take us back to the bar and we spent a very pleasant hour talking to the waiter about the views down the hillside to the refugee camp, monastery and signed wall photos of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, BB King and Janis Joplin. According to the waiter all had visited Darjeeling at sometime but had not signed the photos.

We left JaenPol, who went back to the hotel to sleep, and made our way down the hillside to visit the refugee Camp, tea plantation and the Tibetan Refugee Camp. We somehow failed to find the tea plantation which gave us more time at the refugee camp. The refugees had fled Tibet when China took over and were made welcome by the Indian Govt who gave them the piece of land below Darjeeling. The camp consists of a nursery, school and workshops providing the inhabitants with education, skills and self respect.

On leaving the camp and making our way back up the hillside to Darjeeling we met a group of women from Australia, New Zealand and Scotland making their way slowly back up the very steep hillside. The woman from Scotland was in her 60s and teaching for three months in the town. It had cost her a lot of money to get there and pay for her own accommodation and she even told me she had gone out last week and bought new chairs for the kids to sit on in the classroom because the facilities were so bad. She admitted the young kids were very antagonistic but as they got older they recognised the importance of education and were a pleasure to work with.

Once back in the town our walking partners showed us to a jewellery shop in the square with the most amazing collection of stock. This was a cross between an antique shop and a specialist jewellers. The shop which wasn't that big was a sea of hanging bracelets, necklaces, cases full of rings, brooches, lucky charms, all made of silver or gold and all unusual, different, novel as the lady from Scotland said. We spent a good £60 - 70 once again on our daughters. As we left the night was drawing in and preparations seemed to be a foot for Davali the Festival of Light. I asked the owner of the jewellery shop what would taking place later and he replied nothing it is only the first night and he was right.

We had a meal in the hotel and very good it was just like the breakfast. As the meal finished Ozbus members slowly made their way outside into the street where young kids were setting off fireworks. They were lighting and dancing round Catherine Wheels like Scots performing reels. The kids were amazing setting of cherry bombs, Catherine wheels and various fountains and all the time enticing the younger element of the bus into the antics. The whole series of events culminated in Marcus asking one of the youngsters if he had a firework he could handle and the lad gave him a cherry bomb which exploded seriously burning his hand. The rest of the evening was spent trying to quell the pain in Marcus's hand which puffed up in great blisters under the called water tap in the hotel. This was abandoned when the the hotel staff complained about the amount of water which was being used. It seems that Darjeeling are constantly suffering from a water shortage.

We made our way upstairs back to our room. Once again we had been given a room that did not really endear itself to us. It smelt fusty and was damp. It did have plenty of room with an anti room consisting of a sofa, telly and chairs but was not very warm or inviting and was in an annex section two doors up the street from the main hotel which had good reviews from those staying in it and the Lonely Planet guide.