Christmas in Darjeeling

Darjeeling is an old British hill station (perched on a steep hill and ridge) famous for its teas, mountain views, and toy train (a miniature train originally built mainly for hauling produce). There are lots of old, European looking buildings here from the 1800’s when the British were occupying. So that is pretty cool and a bit of a change from the bland and terrible architecture of Nepal. It’s cold here, as it should be on Christmas Eve. I had a nice Christmas Eve breakfast with of course a hot cuppa the famous tea…and with some views of Kanchenjunga over the clouds. I am staying at a really nice homestay run by a super knowledgeable and helpful Tibetan guy named Wangchuk who keeps the hot teak coming all the time. He has 3 rooms in his apartment besides his: one is occupied by a Thai guy and the other by an apparently famous British photographer named Richard. Richard introduced me to two show musicians from London’s West End who are performing for the holidays at a very fancy resort here. The resort is unfortunately the only place having a special Christmas dinner, but it costs 45 bucks for the Christmas eve show and dinner and 85 bucks for the Christmas dinner and show and wine. I am willing to splurge a bit for Christmas, but not quite enough to spend a ski tickets worth on food that won’t be as good as the meal my mom will have for me when I get home anyways. So instead I had a nice meal of paneer tikka masala and momos for dinner. I also had various chocolate cakes and cookies from a nice bakery in town. I spent the day sort of chilling out around Darjeeling and exploring a bit. Went to a view point that had a Buddhist temple on it and some views of the mtns. I may be missing all the colorful Christmas lights, but the Tibetan flags on this hill more than made up for that! Also lots of monkeys playing around. I also spent some time finding a Church for the Christmas services. I found a Catholic church with a convent attached to it. I am in West Bengal, which is in the same state as Calcutta, so they had a nice memorial thing to Mother Theresa as well. The nun I talked to told me they weren’t having a midnight mass this year b/c of the curfew (there is a curfew here right now bc the Indian gov’t is concerned about the people here (known as Gorkhas) who want their independence and a new country called Gorkhaland, so instead I went to the 6pm caroling and then the 7pm mass. I was definitely the only white dude at the mass, but they did do some singing and the gospel in English, which was nice.

12-25 Merry Christmas!! Woke up at 4am to take a Jeep up to Tiger Hill. Went with Prateep from Thailand and Satoshi from Japan. Unfortunately it was a bit misty and cloudy so we couldn’t see Everest and the Everest Range and could just get a few glimpses of Kanchanjunga. After sunrise up on Tiger Hill, we went to the Batanga (?) loop where the toy train makes a loop around a war monument. Once back, Wangchuck made me breakfast. Satoshi and I went to the 10am Christmas Service at St. Andrew’s (Anglican). It was much different than the Catholic one—not in structure, but attendance. The Catholic one was all locals and packed to standing room only. It lasted 3 hours and was full of enthusiastic, though terribly off key (even tone deaf me could tell so I was able to belt it loudly with them) people. A very vibrant service. The Anglican one, which had been advertised in all the tourist places, was just ½ full and mostly tourists (quite the international crowd from slovenia to france to England to Canada to japan to Switzerland, etc) and quite subdued, though the carols were nice (one local guy did a beautiful rendition of Mary did you know, which made me really miss my mom since that is one of her faves). But like the Catholic mass, it ended with sweets and Darjeeling tea. I then went on a 12km walk in the hills around Darjeeling. I walked by the Himalayan mountaineering training association and Himalayan zoo, but didn’t feel like visiting. I then did a bit of climbing around Tenzing Rock which is named after Tenzing Norgay (if you don’t know who that is, shame on you!) who actually is from Darjeeling. The rock is now used to train aspiring mountaineers. I then visited the Tibetan Refugee camp and finished up at the Chitre Tea Garden Plantation where I drank plenty of tasty Darjeeling tea.
I met Satoshi at one of the nicer restaurants for our fancy Christmas dinner. I splurged ($7.50) on dinner with a mixed meat roast, tea, and chocolate icecream. Yum! Spent the evening watching movies with Prateep and Wangchuck at the homestay. Wangchuck also showed me some pictures on his computer of Camp Hale. Wow, how strange is that. Not as strange as you would think. Camp Hale (a winter/mountain army training camp between Leadville and Vail for those of you non-coloradoans) apparently was used by the CIA in the 50’s and 60’s to train Tibetans in guerilla mountain warfare to try and win their freedom and of course beat the Chinese. Wangchuk’s father had been one of those freedom fighters that was being honored at a Camp Hale thing. His father and 2 of his siblings now live in the states. I told him that in Boulder there is still a huge Free Tibet movement and he thought that was cool. We spent some time searching Tibet and Boulder on google and he loved looking at the menu (and prices…actually cheap for USA) of Tibet Kitchen on Arapahoe. We also found out that Boulder is the sister city to Lhasa and that there is a big freedom foundation sponsored by the Colorado Governor, Senator’s, Representatives, Coors family, and of course the true celebrity of Colorado, John Elway.
I just missed the Himalayas so much and missed the wild, that I have decided to do another trek. It will be 5 to 6 days and go out towards Kanchanjunga. So I leave early tomorrow for that. Wangchuck helped me organize it. He is so incredibly friendly and full of knowledge. He’s really a great guy! Oh and I forgot to mention that he gives you a boiling hot water bottle to take to bed to keep you warm at night. ALthought it is not the coldest temperatures by far I have ever had at Christmas, it is the coldest Christmas. This is b/c it gets below freezing at night and highs in the 40's, but they have no heat or anything here. At church you could see everyone's breaths as we sang and I really wished I could wear my hat in church. You sing extra loud to stay warm though