Extra #5 - Festival Time

Festivals are big in India.  Just try googling Indian Festivals - there are days and days of them each month.  October seems to be the busiest month, with, amongst others, Durga Puja, which was happening when we arrived, then moving through a festival to celebrate dogs, and finally the big one - Diwali.

I can't quite get my head around all these Festivals.  The pop-up temples that are so elaborate that are built specifically for one, then dismantled, with the Goddesses immersed in the river, then more temples erected for the next Festival.  When we got back to Kolkata all evidence of Durga Puja had gone, and men were riding around on bicycles, motorbikes and rickshaws with mountains of bamboo to be used in the building of the new shrines.  It was an amazing feat of balance.
When we were first in Kolkata our guide took us into an area of the city where the art of building the statues for festivals had been handed down from generation to generation.  In each open fronted building people were meticulously carrying out the stages of construction.
The idea is that the statues will biodegrade in the water when immersed - they are made of straw and river mud, and painted with natural dyes.
Its a fantastic procedure.  Initially the base is made from tied straw, a bit like a scarecrow.  Then in the next set of buildings the men sculpt the clay onto the straw.

 When the clay is dry the skin colour is painted on, then the more detailed features are added.

 A mistake on any part means the whole thing needs to be started again - and the eyes are particularly intricate and important to get right.

Clothes are added, and with the addition of long, curly jet black hair she is done.

The statues are made in different sizes, with some for the temples and some for homes. The correct thing to do is to buy a new statue each year for your house, to ensure that you get good fortune.  I must admit I was tempted...

Extra #4 Sunday in Gangtok

Sunday in Gangtok

The day starts early in Sikkim.  Half past six and the first teams of children are already training in the football ground beneath our hotel.  They're dedicated, these boys - jogging around in team colours, goalies in green shirts practicing catching, penalties being taken over and over again.  Here, in the hills, they play football, not cricket.  That's a game for the plainsmen.  Each afternoon there's been a football match, which means hoards of taxis in the hotel road, stalls selling the inevitable crisps, a band just in tune enough to make hearing it an almost enjoyable experience, a loudspeaker announcer whose voice echoes over the valley and a rush of hotel staff across the lawn each time the crowds' conglomerate voice signals a pick up of pace on the pitch.

The football stadium entrance

And talking of crisps - the person who can design a biodegradable crisp packet would surely make a fortune here.  Gangtok is by far the cleanest place we've been - the streets are cleaned twice a day.  In Darjeeling I guess its once, and in Kolkata - probably never!  But everywhere we've been there's been a crisp shop every five paces and the resultant litter in phenomenal.  Even here the streams are choc-full of crisp packets, multicoloured symbol of a throwaway life.

By and large, Sikkim has got it right.  The roads are good (in the main), pedestrians protected by barriers, traffic-free shopping malls and a green policy.  But then, Sikkim is rich.  Since joining India in 1975, government money has come its way.  There's a border that you need a permit to get through, and if you don't have the permit you can't get in.  No negotiation.  If you don't have Sikkimese citizenship you can get a bank loan, but your rate of interest will be higher than if you were a citizen.
Darjeeling, with its rapidly growing population and lack of space, which, through its tea and tourism contributes far more to the state of West Bengal than it gets back, and suffers greatly for this disparity, must look on its neighbour with considerable envy.  After all, but for a series of bureaucratic lines drawn, Darjeeling would still be a part of her prosperous neighbour.

Today, two families asked if they could take my photograph with them - do they think I'm Judi Dench?

Extra #3 Tea Tasting

Tea Tasting

Long, long years ago there was tea in Assam, and this is still the tea that is grown in most of India - certainly in the Assam region.  But the British, keen to topple China's position as the top seller of tea back in the early19th Century, took seeds from the Chinese plants and introduced them in the area around Darjeeling and Sikkim.  For nearly a century India was indeed the top tea producer, but recently China has taken the lead again.

Whatever the facts and figures, there is no doubt that the area around Kurseong, Darjeeling and a large part of Sikkim is covered in tea gardens.  In some places it seems that tea is all you can see. It is beautiful, but don't be fooled - tea is big business.  And there's so much more to it than I knew.  Nothing like the bog-standard English Breakfast-type tea of which I am so fond, this tea comes in many guises.
On our last day in Kurseong, and with a spare hour or so before we left, our lovely guide, Sunil, whose father had been a manager of a tea garden near Darjeeling, took us to visit the Makaihari tea gardens.  Masked, booted and with hair covered in the most fetching caps, we saw the tea through all its stages before it was ready to be tasted.  Now, to properly taste tea, (which is served without milk or sugar), you must sniff its aroma, slurp it and roll it all around your mouth before finally swallowing.  Much like wine tasting, really.  We duly bought a couple of packets of tea to bring home.  That was our introduction.

Come Darjeeling and the real thing.  Sunil took us down the bustling Chowrasta to a very elegant tea-room.  I felt I should have been wearing a long Edwardian dress and wide brimmed hat, rather than the grubby t-shirt and skirt which was pretty much my uniform while in India.
Eight teas were duly selected and prepared.  Now, tea is picked at different stages, and the resultant tea is very different to taste.  There's first flush, which is picked after the spring rains, second flush is harvested in June, monsoon tea, and autumn flush.  On top of that there's green tea and  white tea - which is made from the buds of the plant.
Once the tea was made the cups were lined up before us, mildest first, through to strongest.  We had a little pyrex-type cup each, and a tiny ladle so we could serve ourselves.  We duly ladled, sniffed, slurped, swooshed and swallowed each tea, went back to one, re-tried another, discussed and tasted again.  Fortunately we agreed on the tea we liked and bought some to bring home.

I shall never look at a cup of tea in the same way again.

Extra #2

Graveyards and Leeches

Kurseong

There's a British Graveyard in Kurseong that hangs on the side of a hill and when the low cloud comes across it, as it does frequently, it looks like the spookiest place I've ever seen.  Imagine a gothic horror movie and you're somewhere near.  The gravestones are almost indecipherable, nothing lasts for long in the damp that pervades.  Creepers grow up and over the trees and fall down in curtains.

To get in, you go through a pedestrian gate with a rusty padlock.  The main gate is locked tight and looks like its not been opened in hundreds of years.  Above the graveyard, on the other side of the road, life goes on for the people of Kurseong.  In their tiny apartments meals are cooked, children sleep, families visit.  To enter the graveyard, as very few do, is to step back in time.
Here is James ... Somebody, who died aged 24.  I can't read how.  Next to him an elaborate memorial to a missionary priest, who at 26 can't have known much of life before succumbing to whatever tropical disease took him to meet his maker.  There are women and children buried here too, babies, infants, victims of the climate and the water.
We walked there several times, somehow it drew us back. Once I went in summer skirt and flip-flops - not a good idea.  Feeling something on my foot - an insect bite perhaps? - I looked down to see a leech gripped to my toe.  India certainly presented me with challenges...

Extra #1

"But its not Gandhi's birthday AGAIN is it?"

Friday 3rd October

One day was easy, or easy enough.  Gandhi's birthday on 2nd October (the day we arrived in India) is a dry day.  No alcohol.  That's it.  None.  In the whole of India it seems.  Restaurants serve 7Up or Coke, or lime soda with salt.  Bars put up their shutters.  Waiters are regretful but firm.  Today is Gandhi's birthday and we celebrate by not selling alcohol.  Ah well.  One dry day.  No problem.

Friday dawns.  The last day of Puja.  A spectacular festival has been taking place.  Amazingly elaborate temples have popped up to celebrate the triumph of the many armed Goddess Durga, wife of Shiva, who was transported on a lion and destroyed the evil Mahishasura who rose out of a buffalo.  For four days there's been Puja for her, and today most of the temples are taken down and the images of the Goddess are taken to the river Hooghli, which is a part of the Ganges, to be immersed there. And how is this amazing event celebrated?  You've guessed.  Today is, except between 1 and 4 pm ... a dry day.

Now, those in the know got their drinking done between 1 and 4, or bought in booze.  Andy managed, by sheer chance, to have a strong Kingfisher with lunch, but in the evening when we go out for a curry - what else - and ask for the bar, the doorman at the hotel informs us - no alcohol.  Today is a dry day.  Again, I say?   But it's not Gandhi's birthday again, I ask?  No, its the last day of Puja.  And its a Friday.

Eventually we return to our corner of eccentricity (The Fairlawn Hotel), and by a series of complex and still not fully understood conversations, negotiate two beers that we may have in our room.  Alone we employ the raised eyebrows and slight shrug that means - well, I never, or something like - and go to our room.  And lo and behold, two Kingfisher beers are brought to us.  The fans are turned on, we settle down.  The Gods are content - until the next dry day.

A pop-up temple

The Goddess Durga

Nearly Home

Ok, so I'm cheating now.  We are back in Kolkata, and I could say loads about that, and probably will, but ...
What I'm hoping is that I can go back to this when I'm home, and fill in some gaps.  But just in case I can't - this was yesterday, in Pelling...

Wednesday

To be honest, I didn't really care about coming to Pelling - we had a spare day or two after Gangtok and this was the suggestion, so we came.
And am I ever glad we did!
I'm sitting here in the last of the day's sunshine, with the most spectacular view I've ever seen in my life not just in front of me, or beside me, or behind me, but all around me!  As we drove up here I kept thinking we couldn't get any higher, but we did.  When we visited the ancient capital of Sikkim I felt like I was on the very top of the world, but today - I looked down on it!

In front of me is a town, incredibly perched on a hill that must be as high as Ben Nevis, and behind that is a higher hill, and behind that...
To my left are the lower foothills, behind me they start stretching up and out, and to my right - oh my word!!

There's a river snaking along the valley floor and all the lower hills are tree covered.  Every tiny patch of flatfish land has paddy fields, bright lime green.  Some of the ridges of the hills have houses along them, some a monastery on top, still others are shrouded in trees and cloud.

And to my right there's an ever-changing view of the Himalayas.  Even the lower peaks have snow on them now.  The clouds shift across them, revealing glimpses of impossibly high peaks, then cover them again and reveal more, higher peaks further along the range.  At midday the clouds cleared almost completely and each look towards them revealed mountain after mountain, changing their shape and pattern as crags were obscured and revealed: Pandim, Siva, Norsingo, Kachenjunga.

And now they are hidden, as the sky begins to darken and rain threatens.  But I know they are there.

And this tells you nothing of the fabulous monasteries; the claret robed young monks playing; the trek up higher than Yostemite's Half Dome; the young monk  who had spent two stretches of three years, three months and three days in solitary meditation, with only his books for company and meals delivered unseen, who made us spiced cardamom tea and chanted us good luck and long life.

Its getting cold now, and almost time to go in.  And tomorrow we head back to the chaos that is Kolkata, before going home.

No words.  I'm going to sit here as long as I can, and soak it all in.  (And I did).

Gangtok - a Governor and a Palace

                                  The place where three rivers meet from the road to Sikkim

Today has been the most amazing day - I don't know I can do it justice,  but I'll try.  First there was the visit to the Raj
Pavan, where we met some government officials and security officers, all of whom were fascinated by the photos and
the tour diary of my Grandfather that we had taken along to hand over.  Finally the Hon. Governor came in, and we were
presented with ceremonial shawls and gifts and had our photos taken several times.  Very impressive!!  Having handed everything over to him, we went outside and had more photos taken! The best thing - he said that if we wanted to see the Palace he would send a driver to take us there!  Would we ever!!

Visit done, we went up to The Ridge, where we thought the photo of my father on the lake was taken - the giveaway is a bandstand -  and sure enough - there it was!  The lake itself is no longer - an orchid house sits on the flat land that was the base of the lake, but everything fitted!  Again, we found such interest in our quest, and handed out photos of the lake to the young men who worked in the orchid house.  I cant get over the enjoyment and enthusiasm of people.

And then, in the afternoon, the car arrived to take us to the Palace.  Its ruined now, nobody lives there, and it had been renovated in the past, so it doesn't look exactly the same, but it is the Palace, nonetheless.  So much history, so many connections have been made on this trip, I feel immensely privileged to have made it.   

photographs!

The toy                                             

The toy train en route for Darjeeling

Kachenjunga in the early light

Kachenjunga at dawn

Darjeeling - tea, tea, tea

Or should the title read traffic, traffic, traffic, people, people, people? This place is bustling, people and vehicles mixing on the narrow roads - how no one gets run over I haven't a clue! But I guess traffic and people, car horns and smells are what I'm expecting now. And Darjeeling us much, much less smelly than Kolkata, and also much less litter strewn. There's a campaign, just started, to make India litter free by 2018. Here they'll do it, in Kolkata they haven't a hope! Here, too, vendors leave you alone to browse - and the Oxford Bookshop is a joy!
We did the toy train from Kurseong almost to here, before bailing and taking the car, we've done Tiger Hill at dawn (3am start!!) - such an experience - the new sun lighting first Katchenjunga, then The Three Sisters, and finally Everest itself. We visited the zoo, and the mountaineering museum,  the Tibetan Refugee Centre, and tasted more different teas than I thought existed - think wine tasting with tea and you've got the idea.
The festival is not yet over - puja for Durga - it goes on seemingly forever - yesterday there was a concert just below the Hotel, and I watched the little girls perform first Nepalese dancing, then a more Bollywood style - great fun.
Off to Sikkim tomorrow - looking forward to it, especially now we've conquered Delhi belly!
I'd put on photos but the web isn't co-operating! Will post separately when I work out how!

Kurseong

Kurseong is lovely. Crowded, bustling, noisy, smelly and just full of people who smile and smile and smile. Music blares, wind chimes - well, chime - people shout and children compete to be the first to shout "hello" to the English people walking by.
There are butterflies almost as big as the hummingbirds in my sister's garden in Los Gatos; occasionally the clouds shift and the hills appear, and this morning the peaks of the Himalayas showed themselves for the first time.
And today - today I stood at the gates of a bungalow where my father lived for a time in 1928. As the lovely Mr Shixit talked to neighbours, and Andrew took photographs, I stood and imagined an 11 year old boy walking up with path, accompanied by a bearer carrying his bags from school and his mother coming out of the cottage to greet her son, home for the three month long holidays.
We have met such kindness here, and such a genuine interest in our quest and such a wish to help.  I cannot imagine a better place to grow.

Above - Lakshmi Cottage on the far right in 1928. Below - Lakshmi Cottage now.

Kolkata - city of many faces

Today is our second day in Kolkata - having travelled through the night (and eating curry for breakfast at something like midnight somewhere in the air over the Persian Gulf), we arrived here yesterday morning and promptly fell asleep for about three hours.
Driving through the city from the airport was an eye-opener... three lanes of traffic squashed into a space that look only room enough for two vehicles, add rickshaws, tuk-tuks, motorcycles crammed with the whole family plus a hen, and pedestrians everywhere - waiting to cross, crossing, eating, washing - the dishes and themselves - I've never seen anything like it!

The hotel is also crazy - a place from the past for sure, rickety and crammed to the gunnels with nick-nacks and photographs of celebrities, cuttings from newspapers, statues of gods and goddesses... but the room is clean and the airconditioning works - thank heaven.  Did I mention the heat?  Probably best if I don't.

I expected poverty, I expected beggars.  I expected the continual accompaniment of car horns and a crush of people.  I expected the smell of strong, stale urine that has you reaching for the hanky to cover your nose, combined with the smell of strong aftershave and perfume, which has the same effect.  All this I got, and more - there's no way to walk down a street without someone 'adopting' you, telling you his life story (its always a him, of course), and then finally inviting you to buy from his shop.  Its hard to ignore, and ignoring doesn't work anyway.  They stick with you. We almost ended up inviting one young man in for coffee in the hotel, he was so reluctant to leave us!  I hadn't expected that.

But those a just some of the faces of Kolkata.  There are others.  Today we had a whistle-stop tour around the city with Suvendu (who knows everything there is to know about the city) and the most amazing driver in the world.  Trust me, he is - heaven only knows how he got us around - and he just wades out into the maelstrom of traffic and stops it dead so we can cross.  I got a vision of the parting of the Red Sea!

We're off tomorrow to Kurseong, and the story will unfold from there.