Dear friends, Ve are back! Sorry for zis long delay. We got occupied with stuff for a bit… so… here’s the next instalment…
RASH
Getting hotter… we had 3 weeks or so at school and I carried on showing the kidlets maps of the world, and dancing, and playing that wink murder game which they love. Also hangman and pictionary and extreme shouting (and bits of English). Ana brought the teeny ones to fever pitch with the pi pi pi song which is now a Serampore favourite, she’s getting requests in the street. Also she got addicted to mishti doi, this lovely sweet brown yoghurt you get in big clay pots.
Our teachers have stopped trouncing the children with sticks which is good… Dr Auntie Sequeria and Uncle Robin who run the school are well impressed and have decided Ana has to come back and take over after the summer. She is brilliant with the kids and really catches their interest – the regular teachers have this monotonous repetitive way of teaching (“A for A-pple, B for Ball…”) that makes you want to pull your teeth out and sends half the children into catatonic fits. Ana on the other hand stomps around shouting and being weird in Spanish and they can’t take their eyes or ears off her. Videos to follow. The teachers have introduced a bit more variety now after watching her…
We went for a night out in Calcutta with some kool kids (Auntie Nupur’s son Lattoo and his gang) – dancing clubs and late bars and all-night street eating. Twas well funny. One club, Bed, was proper strobey with a strange and addictive mix of trance and bhangra. And a paan-seller outside. Them kids was well up for it, they go screeching round Cal (as they call it) all night, 8 packed in a car on laps, hopping from bar to bar and stopping off for roti and dal and butter paneer at 2 in the morning. Brilliant. Although we two are getting old… had to go to bed at 5.
And we roamed various small towns of west Bengal, went to this lady’s place in a tiny village over the river, Nilganj, where they were renovating the house. She had a HUGE vegetable garden with a pond and coconut palms and betel nut trees and eggplant and galangal and celery and herbs and spices and flowers and about a million other things growing there. Went to the mela (fair) in Sheoraphuli, my Auntie Leila’s place, there was a tiny pirate ship and ferris wheel, little rides and huge piles of snacks and cheap clothes (so Ana went mad shopping again) and gangs of boys ogling the girls. And we wore saris a few times. Our Monimala kids had their sports day and I won the prize for hitting the pot with the big stick blindfolded. Haha!
Then we got on the train and headed for north…
March the 1st we took the Uttarbango (!!!) Express from Sealdah station in Calcutta for a station called New Jalpaiguri from where you can jump on the Toy Train to Darjeeling, the tea place in north Bengal. Which was the original idea… but it was the overnight train and that was enough time to make friends with an excitable Bengali man called Partho Roy who was travelling in our compartment with his mother and sister back to his hometown of Cooch Behar. He was super-joyous to meet us and ended up inviting us to come back to his with him. Which happily we did and thus got completely waylaid in our plans but had a fantabulous adventure… involving staying with his family for 4 days and being fed huge piles of rice and fish, swimming in his river, and being taken into the jungle to his wife Sunita’s place, Aliporduar (a green forest place with rhinos and elephants and MANY lovely folk, close to the north-eastern borders of India), where Ana was the first whitey that had been seen in the village in living memory. Ahahaha. About 50 people gathered round to goggle at her when we walked the lane in the evening, I was in hysterics with Sunita’s cousin Chotu behind the crowd while the Spaniard obligingly answered a stream of questions about where she came from and what service she was occupied in at England.
We finally left Partho and Sunita and their little boy Babu and took the bus from his sister’s place, Jalpaiguri (we met pretty much every branch of his family, now I know how Ana must’ve felt when we went to my dad’s place in Moradabad).
And we went to the border town of Jaigon, very important place for me, it is bisected by a huge ornate gate that leads into Bhutan and the town of Phuentsholing on the other side. The mountains suddenly appeared and it became really grey and hazy and mysterious-looking. We got off the bus and were in the midst of way more westy-looking people - girls and boys in jeans - then Nepali and Tibetan-looking people, and also a fair amount of villainous types with slicked hair and jeeps trying to lure you their way.
Anyway our goal was Bhutan. We decided to forget all that stuff about borders and visas and extortionate foreigner fees to enter Bhutan and strolled up to the gate where loads of people were wandering through. A guard greeted us with “where is your visa?” and we were like, “visa? We need a visa?” then they sent out a man who spoke Hindi. He told me that I could go through, cos I was Indian, but Ana – where was she from? I neeeearly said she was Indian too but clearly that wouldn’t work (she just hasn’t caught the sun enough, still, the loser) so I tried “she’s half Indian, we’re living in Calcutta, can’t we come in?”
“Er, no. (you fools). Foreigners need visa. Visa from your own country. She not go in.”
We stood with the dudes for a while looking persuasive and saying we’d come all the way specially. But relent they would not. So in the end we decided that I would go in for the evening and Ana would wander on the inside. It was sad but I had to go now I was here…
So I went to Bhutan!!! Woohooo! It was beautiful and peaceful… hazy grey-green hills and prayer flags across a river and I visited a lady in a wooden hut who thought I was mad but fed me tea anyway. There was a Buddhist temple with these red and yellow painted prayer wheels and monks spinning them round, and shops full of wool of every colour. Didn’t see no yaks though. Next time.
Note/moan on Bhutan and Indian tourism policies:
Apparently Indians can go into Bhutan freely for up to 10km and then they need a pass as well. It’s terrible this discrimination thing – all foreigners who LOOK foreign in India are charged high entry fees for places like Taj Mahal – e.g. me and my sister paid 20 rupees and Ana had to pay 750 – that is, 10 dollars. Not that you wouldn’t, and it’s still not that expensive – it’s just it’s such a big difference. Same system with Bhutan evidently – because I looked Indian, I could go in. The gate guys didn’t ask to look at my (British) passport, which was brilliant lucky as it meant I could achieve my going to Bhutan aim (at least for 3 hours!) – but I guess a bit unfair.
Next day we took the bus in the morning back to Siliguri (a horrid place full of pushy men all trying to get you to take their rickshaw/jeep/temple tour) and stayed the night (in a hotel belonging to seemingly the only nice man in the city). It’s the second largest city in Bengal after Calcutta, a big travel hub with train and bus stations and millions of tour operators organising trips to Sikkim and various other places.
And so finally a week after we left Serampore we got on our Toy Train to Darjeeling. It really lived up to its name and never really went faster than walking speed so took 8 hours to go up around the mountains (88km) – but was a great journey. We met a retired Indian couple who had just come back from America and then sat with an English pair of dudes, Barrie and Tor, who were ace. It got cooler and greyer and we wound through many tea gardens and steep hillsides and tiny villages before getting to Darjeeling about 5 in the evening. MMMMmm tea! And cold…
[to be continued]
meanwhile, QUICK FLASH UPDATE:
It’s the 24th of March, steamy hot, and we are leaving Serampore finally this evening, until next time… we have said sorry goodbyes to Monimala School and all the people we have met and made friends with. It has been an awesome, affecting, brilliant time here. We will return!
We’re getting the overnight train from Howrah tonight, to a place further down, on the coast in Orissa – Puri. Then we’ll head on from there to more southern places. We fly to South Africa on 9th April, from Mumbai – Frank, I will be visiting Comet Media there!
Just been packing out rucksacks… errrg terrifying. Stuff has doubled, against our wills. Vamos! Chelo! We’re off to the seaside! See you there!
aNa
Bueno, bueno……what can I say….? it’s been weeks since last time!!! so many adventures we’ve had!!!!!! Rash has explained it perfectly so I’m just gonna add a few bits and bobs, “TIKEY???”
Firstly………… Serampore what a place!!!! Specially the school where I’ve completely fallen in love with the kids, so much fun and so many things I‘ve learnt from them! that definitely I want to come back but that’s a different story that will be talked about, “PORE” which means later, you see guys? At the same time that you are having fun reading about us you are learning Hindi without even realising! ;o)
(you mean Bengali dude – Rash)
Anyway…. Our trip to the north was amazing and crazy, as Rash has said we ended up going to this family’s house that we just met in the train I know that might sound a bit crazy……….and yes!!!!!! you are right it was!!!!! We had such a good time, an unforgettable experience, it is really amazing that the whole family welcomed us so nicely and treated us as princesses, didn’t allow us to help them with anything not even picking up the table and that’s without mentioning the fact that they paid for everything! even for my mineral water!!!!! It seemed that they were delighted that we were hanging out with them and we were even more so, because they gave us the opportunity to experience things like having a bath in the river, fully clothed (our pyjamas), listening to some live folk music that they played for us and what can I say about having the privilege of being the first White stepping in Aliporduar village!!!!! don’t tell me that is not uber cool!!!!!
Now moving on and changing the subject what can I say about my frustrated intention of entering Bhutan without a visa???? Yes I must admit that we had high expectations about ourselves providing that Bhutan is one of the most strict places to get into, as they also asked you to pay $200 per day, don’t you think that is a bit too much? Us too, so basically we didn’t….. therefore the consequences were that I was a bit.……… what can I say…? Discriminated, and had to stay at the other side of the gate watching how my dearest Rash crossed the border to this mysterious country!!!!!! So yes we did separate for a few hours and in the meantime while she was exploring the long-awaited country she managed to bring me some spices and 2 beers de contrabando! check her out!!! Well amigos don’t think I wasted my time, while I was on the other side I went for a wander and ended up coming across with this weird market, surprise… surprise, it was full of second-hand western clothes!!!!! Thousands and thousands of piles of t-shirts, trousers, etc…. just had a look, as nothing caught my eye I decided to carry on walking, as I was feeling a bit lonely I decided to join this group of kids who were playing with marbles in the street!!! luckily and please don’t ask why, I had a marble myself so I took it out of my rucksack and showing it to them, said in my perfect Hindi, “auntie want to play, Tikey”? they looked at me a bit surprised but they accepted me in their gang so we played for a good 15 minutes but then we had to interrupt our game as we found ourselves surrounded by 50 people staring at me like crazy (I got photos to prove), still don‘t know why though, they might have thought that I was cheating or something………… anyway more or less that was my experience in Jaigon, at the other side of the border………..
El tren de juguete & Darjeeling, funny and long that’s the best way that I can think of to describe the journey!!!! The train was cute and small I think it’s been one of the few times in my life where I was happy to so small!!!!!! This time we made friends with the first white backpackers that we had seen, and they were………..English!!!!! bloody hell guys you’re worse than the Spaniards, you are everywhere ;0)!!!!! He he after 8 hours of chatting and laughs we became good buddies so we decided not just to share the Hotel but the room!!! The next morning or I should say night….? we had to wake up at 3 to go to Tiger Hill!!!! That’s the place to go to see the amazing views of the Himalayas!!!!
TO BE CONTINUED...
Hope all are superduper well everywhere, Lizzy BELATED HAPPY BIRTHDAY! did you have a fabulus one... also happy birthday to Sally and Lou and all the other birthdayers of the month of celebraaation woowoo!!!
xxx
