Worth the walk. (Darjeeling, India)

I arrived today from my trek. It turned out longer than what was planned. We had originally thought 3 nights, 4 days; but ended up doing an extra night. I'm glad to be back in Darjeeling, I was able to actually take a shower today. Man, did I stink, my hair hasn't been that greasy since I was 8 years old. My brother used to call me greaseball. Not to mention I'm sore from a down hill walk yesterday.

It was absolutley amazing! I can't even describe lots of it but I'll try. I guess that I'll start from day one. I know that the names won't really mean much, but its more for my reference.

Day 1: Maneybhanjyang to Tonglu

The first day was a little trying. We had to wake up and meet our guide Buku at 7am. Of course we were a little late. We then had to take a very cramped jeep to Maneybhanjyang, which took a couple of hours. Once we got there, Buku, who does not have an official guide certificate had to plea with the checkpost officers to let him take us. We trusted him, he was highly reccomended by the tourist office, its just that he just moved back to Darjeeling and didn't need a certificate when he last lived here.

While we waited, he brought us to his relative's house. I think that all Indians (or Nepalese) are all related, just like Filippinos. Everyone is your cousin or aunt or uncle. This was his "Grandma's" house, but not his real Grandma, his cousin's, sister's husbands, mother. Something like that. Anyway, we had some tea while we waited and worried about Buku not being able to join us. The old lady was a beautiful woman, who you could tell that in her younger years was stunning. Everyone in the house thought that I was Nepalese.

Let me talk about this first...

Every country I've gone to so far, I've been able to pass as a local. It can be useful at times, but other times can be annoying. It bugs me when people come up to me and start talking in native tongue. I never know what to say! I don't know how to say back in their language that "I don't speak your language". So generally what happens is that I'll be like, "sorry?", and they'll say something again in native tongue, and I'll be like "sorry, I don't understand", and then they'll say something again! Finally, someone I'm travelling with will say, "Oh, he's not (insert nationality), he's from Canada." Then the person will then talk in English and say "Oh! Hahaha, you look like you're from here." Then they'll stare at me for a few minutes, while I just kinda smile back and pretend to laugh along with them because I'm some kinda freak show that's come out of Canada.

Nepal

I should explain this too before I go on. Although I said I was not going to Nepal, technically I lied because my whole trek was basically on the border of India and Nepal and we went into Nepal several times. Lots of the people in and around Darjeeling are Nepalese and the main language here is Nepali. Actually Buku is Nepalese so I'm glad that I was able to experience some kind of Nepal culture. I think that out of everywhere I've been, Nepalese would be the nationality that I best fit, looks wise. Although, lots of them say Mongolian as well.

Anyway

Once we got started, it went quite sour really quick. Emilie, who thought that she was remedied of her diarhhea, turned out be still quite ill. She was not able to walk very much because she was very weak. This day was to be the steepest one and we had to go 11km. About a third of the way through, Emilie and Melissa got a ride in a jeep to Megmha, a little village point where Buku and I met up with them a couple of hours later. It was nice to actually just be able to walk freely for a while and not have to worry about whether or not the girls are caught up with us. In this time Buku and I had a chance to talk and he told me about Hinduism, arranged marriages, Indian culture and Nepalese culture. He also smoke a couple of joints along the way too. That was the first of many for him. I didn't have any along the way, I wouldn't have been able to function if I had. Once we met up with the girls we walked for another couple of hours and made it to Tonglu where we had a really COLD night.

It was a Lodge and we had a room with 4 beds. Good for body heat. We were able to get extra blankets and loaded up on them. I had too many, the next morning I actually had a small fever because I was too hot! Oops. I've also been suffering from an extremely runny nose the last few days, what a pain. The staff also brought in an old tire rim that was full of hot coals to heat up the room, it didn't really help though. We then had drinks called "Tungba", they're served in Bamboo cups and is full of these wheats or some kind of grains and then hot water is added and then it becomes this alcoholic like beverage. It heats up the body. It was good for the first little bit, but then kinda gross.

For dinner, we sat in this little kitchen that you would think if from the 1800's. It had this cement wood burning stove. It was so neat. The place was covered with culdrons and metal glasses. We sat by the fire and watched this girl roll the dough for our chapati's and then she placed them in the coals and they expanded like balloons. How cool is that. Whenever you ask for food, everything is made from scratch and they put their blood and sweat into making it for you. Then you end up paying like $1.50 for it. You do the math.

Buku

He's a really sweet guy, he's very kind and accomodating. No matter what the problem was, he always tried to help out in some way. We would be in the middle of dinner and he would always stop and get up for whatever we needed, like as if he was our server. He cut down bamboo sticks for Emilie and Melissa (by the way, this is the first time I've ever seen Bamboo growing in the forest), he would offer to carry stuff for us, or grab this, or arrange that. I guess that's what his job is (not the carrying stuff though, he's not a porter), but he was overwhelmingly helpful. He's 27 and loves nature and has really ambitious dreams to help the environment.

Day 2:Tonglu to Kali Pokhari 13km

Okay, this is getting way too long. I'm going to speed things up.

We woke up at 5:30am to Buku saying "hurry up! its fantastic!" The sunrise of course. From where we were, we were able to see the Kanchendzonga range of mountains. They actually form the shape of a sleeping buddha if you look at them a certain way. Just amazing.

November 24th was the one year death anniversary of Melissa's stepfather. We were able to have a heart to heart while watching the sun come up. Poor girl.

The day consisted of us trying to reach where we wanted to be by the 3rd day, so it would make us ahead schedule. It didn't happen. We ended up staying in a place called Kali Pokhari. It would have been nice to make it to our destination, but it was a little out of our reach. I was a little feverish for the first couple of hours until my advil kicked in (remember, too many blankets) and Emilie and Melissa were still a little slower than most trekkers.

On the way there, during one of our many, many breaks, we stopped in front of a temple and a Hindu priest came out, gave us a little flower each and blessed us with "dikats", you know, those red dots on your forehead. I then gave him a break from my kit kat bar! He stood there smiling and talked to me in Nepali (of course!), we then realized that he was not wanting a kit kat break, but some money. We gave him some spare change.

The evening was much the same as the first night.

Day 3: Kali Pokhari to Sandakphu 6km

This day, after a very, very steep last km, we ended up at Sandakphu. We woke up a little late and missed the sunrise. Emilie and I got up and went outside anyway, we found a frost covered field and sat on a bench where I wrote my name, drew a little mountain landscape and a "D+J" inside a heart. I kinda miss not being in Calgary for the winter. Afterwards, I went off on my own and while Buku still slept and tried to find a peak where I'd be able to see the mountains. I went up pretty high, while a dog accompanied me. We had slept in Nepal that night and when I got to the top I saw like a boundary rope and could not get to the top of where I wanted to be. I did not see any mountains, but was proud of myself for trying so hard in the early morning.

We arrived at Sandakphu at noon, after climbing a very steep last km. We did no more trekking for the day. Instead we just sat around on a rock overlooking the mountains and then watched the clouds get thicker and thicker throughout the afternoon. It got cold. We went inside and played cards instead until dinner time.

Day 4: Sandakphu to Rimbik 21km

The sunrise was worth every step we'd taken in the last 3 days. From the top of this peak, surrounded by Tibetan prayer flags, we watched the sun come out of the clouds. Its an awesome feeling to be above the clouds. The sun first hit Kanchendzonga and then a couple minutes later hit Mt. Everest way over to the west. We could only see maybe of quarter of Everest, but still it was a great feeling.

Melissa paid tribute to her Stepfather that morning and spread some of his ashes on the peak so that he would always have that view of the mountains. She still has some left and will be releasing them in the holy city of Varanasi.

Soon after, we were accompanied by some Austrians and Indian tourists. I was kind enough to lend one of them Melissa's binoculars and next thing you know, everyone wants to use them! I guess it was okay, how can I deny someone the beauty?

Unfortunatley, the rest of the day turned into a very negative one. Emilie began to get annoyed with Buku's estimatations of how much longer our destination was. It took a lot longer than expected and we were getting tired and anxious. However, the walk to Rimbik was a lot nicer than the previous days. It was on a cool walking path and we were surrounded by these old, bare trees, a river that had many waterfalls, and lots of bamboo trees.

Anyway, we got to Rimbik too late and could not make it back to Darjeeling by jeep as planned. To make a long story short, we had to stay the night and took a very crowded and bumpy bus ride home to Darjeeling the next day (today).