India !! Check everything you know or believe to be true at the door and prepare to be gob-smacked. To say that India is chaotic is like saying that Canada is big: you know it's true, but unless you go and see it, it doesn't mean anything.
Our new, lumbering Korean War-looking Tata bus arrived after a leisurely breakfast, our last in Bhutan. It's a big, noisy beast driven by a non-nonsense driver. We left the relative calm, cleanliness and beauty of Phuntsholing, Bhutan, drove what seemed like 200 meters, passed under an arch and .... BANG! Into India, with its noise, garbage, people, cars, trucks, tuk-tuks, animals, colours, and smells. And I mean SMELLS! I have never experienced such a sudden, jarring, immediate transition from one country to the next.
Once inside, we had to clear immigration. God knows why, but our passports and visas needed to be stamped and another photo taken. A simple ten minute job, but computer crashes and 3 clerks jockeying for position turned it into close to two hours. No matter, we went with the flow, our Bhutan calm seeing us through. And all under the watchful and helpful eye of Subash. Then, into the bus, on our way and the Bhutan calm was lost forever.
The seven hour drive was an all-out assault on our senses. Driving through towns and villages was an exercise in mayhem as our tank, I mean bus, squeezed past or through the narrowest of holes. Horns honked everywhere. Diesel smoke and dust filled our eyes and noses. Then, at last, out into the countryside, past tea plantations and the most beautiful trees ever seen. The road surface varied from good quality flat asphalt to god-awful gravel-mud ruts in what should have been a cow path. And through it all, our driver maintained a stoic, almost intimidating bearing. God help anyone who dared challenge him.
Driving in India seems, at first, to be a demolition derby madness. But there's a method to it. The trick is to keep moving, to swerve rather than stop, to honk merely to pass or let people know you're coming. Establish position, like in basketball or lacrosse, and on-
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| Leaving Bhutan |
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| Himalayan foothills |
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| Tea pickers loading up the truck |
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| Small hillside farm near Darjeeling |
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| Our room at the Elgin Hotel, Darjeeling |
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| Elgin Hotel, Darjeeling |
comers must yield to you. It can be done, but a driver must be courageous: pedestrians, on the other hand, must be mad.
Then, we climbed into the Himalaya foothills from the Dooars valley. The valley we flat, sunny and intensely hot: many river beds had already dried up, even though monsoon season was bare weeks ago. The roads deteriorated, construction and dust was everywhere. And we climbed and climbed. The road improved a bit, but narrowed, the switchbacks more numerous, the landscape now a literal jungle, monkeys patrolling the roadside, and the cliff drops stunning. Through the town of Mungo, famous in the past for the cincola tree, used for quinine ( and gin and tonic! ) . Onward to the town of Darjeeling, a large city perched impossibly on cliff sides. Insane traffic, alongside the narrowest gage railway I've ever seen. Just when our heads were about to explode ... an oasis. The Elgin Hotel, a Victorian gem, a former summer home for a maharani. Silk scarf greeting, the best cup of tea I've ever had, and an unbelievably comfortable and elegant room. India promises to be a mind-blower.
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