DARJEELING: APRIL 3
I don't care for gloom – even Historic, as in castles and Tudor manor houses. The Mayfair Hotel, Darjeeling, is a rare beast amongst Heritage buildings: rooms are light. It is also a hotel where guests talk to each other. The library boasts six-seater sofas and opulently comfortable armchairs. Barefoot diplomats from the US Embassy in Kathmandu share a beer with a couple of Brits. All four were up before dawn to witness sun rise from the peak of Tiger Hill – in company with a few hundred Indian tourists. What did they see? Cloud. How was the cloud? Damp and depressing. Ah, well...
Showing posts with label Darjeeling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darjeeling. Show all posts
Thursday, April 29, 2010
BUBBLY BLISS
DARJEELING: APRIL 3
I have transported my miseries to the Mayfair Hotel. The Mayfair does luxury. The manager throws wide the curtains on a close-up of cloud. No cloud and the view would stretch for a few hundred miles. When did the cloud last lift? February? Or was it January? Or December? I don't give a damn. Keep the view. Get rid of the manager (politely). Gush steaming water into the bath. Add a full bottle of Molton Brown hoarded from the Umaid Bavhan Palace. Hang the DON'T DISTURB sign on the door. Shush now...Don't even breathe. Grandpa is meditating in bubbly bliss...
I have transported my miseries to the Mayfair Hotel. The Mayfair does luxury. The manager throws wide the curtains on a close-up of cloud. No cloud and the view would stretch for a few hundred miles. When did the cloud last lift? February? Or was it January? Or December? I don't give a damn. Keep the view. Get rid of the manager (politely). Gush steaming water into the bath. Add a full bottle of Molton Brown hoarded from the Umaid Bavhan Palace. Hang the DON'T DISTURB sign on the door. Shush now...Don't even breathe. Grandpa is meditating in bubbly bliss...
MEDICATION WON'T SUFFICE
DARJEELING: APRIL 2
Bollywood is shooting a movie at the Hotel Swiss. A tall, slim, very Gay Thirties wears a woollie hat with a bobble. I'm unsure as to his title but he's the man who makes things happen. My camera is beyond him. I traipse from camera shop to camera shop. Darjeeling scores an A+ for vertical streets, an X- for camera technicians. The film crew eat packed lunches and packed dinners leaving me as the only guest in the dinning room. My head hurts. My shoulder hurts. My back hurts. My right knee hurts. These pains are to be expected in an old fool who falls off a bike (even riding zero Ks an hour). Medication won't suffice. I need laughter and a smidgen of five star luxury. The Swiss is a small charming Heritage building and I am not registering a complaint. However, dispelling my misery requires more. For instance a bubble bath...
Bollywood is shooting a movie at the Hotel Swiss. A tall, slim, very Gay Thirties wears a woollie hat with a bobble. I'm unsure as to his title but he's the man who makes things happen. My camera is beyond him. I traipse from camera shop to camera shop. Darjeeling scores an A+ for vertical streets, an X- for camera technicians. The film crew eat packed lunches and packed dinners leaving me as the only guest in the dinning room. My head hurts. My shoulder hurts. My back hurts. My right knee hurts. These pains are to be expected in an old fool who falls off a bike (even riding zero Ks an hour). Medication won't suffice. I need laughter and a smidgen of five star luxury. The Swiss is a small charming Heritage building and I am not registering a complaint. However, dispelling my misery requires more. For instance a bubble bath...
Thursday, April 22, 2010
ONE MORE FALL
DARJEELING: APRIL 1
A Swiss baker built the Hotel Swiss in the 1920s as a family home and place of work.
Now Help Tourism have the lease and run the hotel as a training ground for local employees. I follow the pick-up down a steep narrow road. The turn to the hotel is on a sharp corner and at an angle of 300 degrees. The gradient is even more acute. Three tour jeeps parked on the corner bar the pick-up from making the turn. The driver waves me on. I creep in first gear. An Indian tourist seated in one of the jeeps opens the door in my face. I can't hold the bike upright against the slope. Down I go, head in the ditch. A couple of drivers drag me and the bike upright. The Indian tourist continues chatting on his mobile.
A Swiss baker built the Hotel Swiss in the 1920s as a family home and place of work.
Now Help Tourism have the lease and run the hotel as a training ground for local employees. I follow the pick-up down a steep narrow road. The turn to the hotel is on a sharp corner and at an angle of 300 degrees. The gradient is even more acute. Three tour jeeps parked on the corner bar the pick-up from making the turn. The driver waves me on. I creep in first gear. An Indian tourist seated in one of the jeeps opens the door in my face. I can't hold the bike upright against the slope. Down I go, head in the ditch. A couple of drivers drag me and the bike upright. The Indian tourist continues chatting on his mobile.
UP AND DOWN THE MOUNTAINS
TO DARJEELING: APRIL 1
The road winds all the way down through broad leaf forest and all the way up to clipped tea gardens part hidden in layers of mist or low-lying cloud, hairpin turn after hairpin turn, harsh chill down to soggy sweat and back to chill. In Europe the road would be considered single track. Here jeeps squeeze by each other. No busses. Meet a truck and one or other driver pulls to the narrow verge. The drop is only a few hundred feet and is seldom sheer. Imagine rolling down through emerald tea bushes. Not fun but interesting - and probably not fatal. Tin-roof cottages are little bigger than a normal living-room back home. Village shops are smaller. Shiny packets of crisps hang above a tiny counter, open sacks of rice and millet, cigarettes, biscuits, a few bottles of soft drinks. The wind is less than yesterday. The nagging pain in my chest is the same as are the women carrying huge baskets supported on a head band. They respond to my Hi or Namaste with such open smiles, so un-Indian. Old men in wool hats salute with raised hands and flash pink gums. Old? I am probably older. It promises to be a good day...
The road winds all the way down through broad leaf forest and all the way up to clipped tea gardens part hidden in layers of mist or low-lying cloud, hairpin turn after hairpin turn, harsh chill down to soggy sweat and back to chill. In Europe the road would be considered single track. Here jeeps squeeze by each other. No busses. Meet a truck and one or other driver pulls to the narrow verge. The drop is only a few hundred feet and is seldom sheer. Imagine rolling down through emerald tea bushes. Not fun but interesting - and probably not fatal. Tin-roof cottages are little bigger than a normal living-room back home. Village shops are smaller. Shiny packets of crisps hang above a tiny counter, open sacks of rice and millet, cigarettes, biscuits, a few bottles of soft drinks. The wind is less than yesterday. The nagging pain in my chest is the same as are the women carrying huge baskets supported on a head band. They respond to my Hi or Namaste with such open smiles, so un-Indian. Old men in wool hats salute with raised hands and flash pink gums. Old? I am probably older. It promises to be a good day...
Friday, April 16, 2010
TWO ROADS TO DARJEELING
NEORA VALLEY: MARCH 31
Two roads lead from Siliguri to Darjeeling. The direct route passes through Kurseong. We take the westerly road that climbs close to the Nepalese border. The beginnings are a gentle climb through almost flat tea gardens. Women pickers wade waist-deep amongst the deep emerald bushes. Shade trees guard the lanes to tea factories and manager's bungalows. We cross and recross the narrow gauge railway that takes Darjeeling's toy train north from Siliguri. Then up and up and up...
Two roads lead from Siliguri to Darjeeling. The direct route passes through Kurseong. We take the westerly road that climbs close to the Nepalese border. The beginnings are a gentle climb through almost flat tea gardens. Women pickers wade waist-deep amongst the deep emerald bushes. Shade trees guard the lanes to tea factories and manager's bungalows. We cross and recross the narrow gauge railway that takes Darjeeling's toy train north from Siliguri. Then up and up and up...
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