Darjeeeeeeling!

Greetings from the land of tea in India, Darjeeling! It's in the foothills of the Himalayas and a nice change of pace (and weather) from our previous travels in Rajastan.

After relaxing at a guest house outside of Udaipur with amazing views and food, we headed to Ranthambore, a tiger reserve. The claim is that there are thirty something tigers at the park so we figured we would be able to see one. Tigers actually are most active at daybreak and dusk. People come to the town strictly to visit the reserve and there are tons of jeeps and 16 person open roof canters that get assigned to one of 5 different zones on morning and afternoon tours. All these jeeps and canters follow along the same paths with their loud diesel engines searching for tigers in the brush. We would randomly stop the car and be quiet to listen for the tigers, and then drive to another spot and do the same thing. During our sunrise tour our guide heard a monkey warning call signifying tigers could be near and he ended up driving so fast trying to get there first that he got a flat tire. So we had to get out of our jeep in a supposedly "Tiger Infested Wilderness" during the fifteen minutes it took to change the tire. In the end it turned out that the tiger crossed out of our zone anyways. From talking to other people, we weren't the only ones to leave not seeing any tigers.

Needless to say we were glad to move on to something different. It took us 3 flights and a 3 hour drive up the steep, bumpy, one and a half lane road to get to Darjeeling but certainly worth it! We arrived on Rudy's birthday and had dinner at a colonial restaurant that had Chinese food and fried pork! In Rajastan the only meat was chicken, so it's been good to have some pork again and reconfirm that Rudy and I are not vegetarians.

Darjeeling has beautiful mountain views and cooler temperatures that allow us to break out our fleeces and warm up with some tea. We have done a lot of walking around in the fresh air. We went to the highest zoo in the world which had tigers, leopards, bears and a black panther! This was really awesome to see since we were just at a Tiger Reserve and didn't see any tigers. There was also the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute that trained missions to Mt Everest and had a really cool museum with all the actual equipment from the different missions, including the first group to reach the summit! The sherpa that got to the top with Sir Edmund Hilary founded the Institute.

On a clear day they say you can see Everest from here. It's been cloudy for the most part and actually HAILED the last two days! We were able to observe the hail from the inside of a heritage hotel having the traditional English high tea. In the different places it's been interesting to see remnants of British colonialism. Converted colonial buildings into hotels, riding a " Toy Train" the British built in the late nineteenth century to reduce the time to get to Darjeeling from five days to one, and a Brit was the first person to plant tea in Darjeeling.

There is one tea plantation near town. It produces specifically for the luxury department store Harrod's in the UK. The way we walked to get there was no so luxurious. Trying to follow the map, and asking different people directions we ended up in a neighborhood literally carved out of the side of a mountain with steep walkways, sewer lines running into the water canals that were also full of trash. Miraculously we made it through the chaos and into a see of tea bushes.

Women do the picking here which was something I saw with the wheat harvest in Rajastan as well. In the peak heat and sun these woman are working in the fields while it seems that there are 4 men to do the job of one. In a country of one billion people, employment is an issue and there are fewer women than men. The one real industry we have been able to observe is the tourism India, one of India's largest, and it still appears to be male dominated.

After our cool days in the refreshing, mountain air we head to South on the coast of the Arabian Sea to do some beach hopping. Our access to Internet at each place we stay is always varied but we hope to post more pics soon and write again soon.

Three weeks in and loving it! - Lisa