It was, quite
literally, a walk in the clouds that day. Once we stepped out from the jeep,
that is.
Cold and
foggy, our vision limited to a few metres in front of us, the uphill drive towards
Darjeeling became an experience that I thought bordered on suicidal. Our driver
skillfully maneuvered the vehicle through narrow paths that were only slightly
wider than the jeep itself, one side dropping sharply into the valley. It took
a while before we joined a broader, smoother road, where I felt encouraged to
breathe again.
This is the
view from the windshield. (A bad picture, but hopefully, worth a thousand
words, nonetheless.)
We stopped at
Ghum (or Ghoom) Station to take the toy train to Darjeeling. It was small
and quaint, reminiscent of a much earlier time. At a little over 7,400 ft.,
Ghum Station is, apparently, the highest station in India.
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| Ghum Station |
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| Ghum Station - Front View |
The Darjeeling
Himalayan Railway, which we know better as the Toy Train, is listed as a
Mountain Railways of India World Heritage Site - only the second of its kind to
be bestowed this honour.
The train
chugs slowly, but noisily and merrily through the town alongside the road for
almost the entire route, even crossing it at places.
At one
particular point in its route, the train makes a spiral loop, crossing its own
path through a tunnel. This is the picturesque Batasia Loop, with the
Darjeeling War Memorial rising in its centre.
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| Darjeeling War Memorial |
As the train followed
this loop, we got a breathtaking view of Darjeeling town when the mist thinned
momentarily.
The train ride
was enjoyable, traveling within inches of houses and shops in places, giving us a closer
glimpse of life in the mountains.
We drew up into Darjeeling Station around half-an-hour later. The jeep had driven on from
Ghum and was already waiting for us at Darjeeling when we arrived. So we hopped
in and continued the drive into the heart of this pleasant little town. It was
unpredictably foggy one minute, and clear the next. On observing aloud, Ranjan,
our guide, revealed a common saying around town - 'In Darjeeling, never trust
the weather, or a woman.' (Aww, seriously?!)
We chose to
walk down the Mall Road, a busy street crowded by mostly tourists, like
ourselves, and lined with shops on either side, selling pashminas, woolens, local
crafts and antiques.
We halted at
Glenary's for lunch, a place highly recommended by people back home. However, we
weren't impressed by the restaurant menu, which offered Indian, Chinese and
Continental cuisines, mostly because we were hoping for a taste of the local
stuff. We ordered fish and chips anyway, because we'd already settled down at a
table. The fish was bland and the chips were soggy and tasted like wet cardboard.
The verdict - fail!
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| Glenary's |
Our lunch
incomplete by far, we asked Ranjan if he knew of any local places that served
authentic Nepali food. And of course he did! He led us to a tiny
hole-in-the-wall Nepali restaurant called 'Hotel Penang', a short walk away, where
they serve a Tibetan thali among
other Tibetan specialties. Left to ourselves, we'd never have found the place,
and even if we had, we might not have ventured in. It was dark and dingy and
airless, but we were hungry and just went with it.
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| Entrance to Hotel Penang |
The chicken
momos, served with sauce and a hot, very tasty broth, made the impossible
number of narrow, steep steps we had to climb down to get to Hotel Penang,
completely worth it. We learned that the broth is prepared by simmering chicken
stock over a low flame for the better part of the day. We also ordered the
Tibetan thali meal. It looked like any other thali meal I've seen, with a generous
mound of steamed rice surrounded by numerous little bowls containing meat and
vegetable preparations. The taste was definitely unfamiliar and over-the-top unusual.
Our guide
pointed out the dishes and named them for us, giving us an insight into its
ingredients as well. The little green veggies served over the rice is called niguru, and made from the leaves and
tendrils of an edible fern. The
dull green broth-like preparation contains fermented beans. Or spinach. I
forget. I think it was called gundruk. There was mutton curry or paku in the second dish. The third had
crispy-fried potatoes and next one contained pickles of some sort. And I'm
unable remember what was served in that last bowl.
After lunch,
we walked further down Mall Road to Chaurasta. It's a large open square,
really, filled with a floating population.
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| Chaurasta |
We didn't
linger here, though, and walked on to St Andrews church, before trudging back the
same way we came to the Glenary's café for a hot cuppa. The café is way better
than the restaurant, and I liked it as quite much as I'd disliked the
restaurant. It offers a wide selection of cakes, pastry, and hot beverages, as
well as free Wi-Fi. The ambience is pleasing too, with warm lighting and a very
red, very antique telephone booth in the corner. After coffee and cake, we started
back for Glenburn.
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| Glenary's Café |
We passed Ghum
once again, and stopped at the Yiga Choeling Monastery, more popularly know as
the Ghoom Monastery. This stands at an elevation of 8000 ft., and is said to
belong to the Gelukpa or the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism. When we reached
the monastery, it was drizzling and the heavy fog made it impossible to see the
surrounding area. The monastery itself seemed to loom in front of us like some
ghostly apparition. As we drew closer to the monastery, we observed these
prayer wheels on the outside.
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| Ghoom Monastery |
The monastery
is small, but peaceful. We stepped into a narrow waiting area of sorts, with
small wooden benches. Large prayer wheels stood on both sides of the room. We
had to take off our shoes here, before entering the main sanctum.
An impressive,
15-foot statue of Maitreya Buddha (future Buddha) stood before us when we
entered. This is one of the biggest statues of the Buddha, in the Darjeeling
area. There are oil lamps placed in front of it that are kept burning all
through the year. The walls are filled with colourful paintings of stories from
the Buddhist scriptures. There is a 10 Rs charge for each photograph that you
click within the monastery, and 50 Rs for shooting a video.
The ride back
was foggy and bumpy and scary as before, but Glenburn arrived before nightfall,
and we lived to tell the tale - over a divine spread of cucumber sandwiches, banana
bread and chocolate cookies, served with a very welcome cup of tea.
