 | |
| The strain is beginning to show* |
Kim enjoyed it. Whatever magic it held was lost on me. I had romantically expected tinkling temple bells, sitar strings, tiny tearooms lost in the morning mist.
High altitude, cold, grey, damp, with knackering winding roads where Google Maps feared to tread were the reality.
Frustratingly full of slow-moving traffic and slower Indian and Bangladeshi holidaymakers in a cramped tourist trap.
To get to the Tenzing Norgay Institute involved a walk up through the zoo (AKA conservation centre). A tiger, a leopard, a panther, a snow leopard, a clouded leopard - each beautiful animal alone and pacing its enclosure, perhaps waiting for a mate to arrive, more likely being 'conserved', resigned to being the last cat of its kind standing. Depressing.
 |
| Spot the mountains |
Tiger Hill at sunrise. A chance to glimpse the distant Kanchenjunga mountain range at dawn. Cloud stopped play. It was very cold.
A crowd the size of a local football match had turned up, streams of jeeps disgorging folk long after sun 'rise'. A woman repeatedly shouted "Coffee coffee, coffeeeee!". A small carboot sale of knitted woollies and hats was laid out for the badly-prepared. People kept arriving.
I mused about how saving 15 quid, having a good lie in, then checking the weather and ambling up here mid afternoon might have been a better option. Who says I'm unromantic?
 |
| Rory, a lone traveller, with whom we had some great drink and morale-building sessions |
The penultimate day was spent trudging up and down the length and breadth of the small town (only on the map, believe me. My lungs and legs testify otherwise), to sort our jeep tickets to Sikkim in the north, and a thing called the Inner Line Permit, needed to enter Sikkim in the first place. Lots of bureaucracy, form filling, stamping (forms and feet), but we got there in the end. Off and out to sunnier uplands.
*No idea why, but piles and anal fissure posters are everywhere in India.
No comments:
Post a Comment