No More Hills! No More Hills!!! We both staggered out of our overheating and undersuspended Suziki taxi at Kerseong in the West Bengal Hills promising each other we would never ever submit ourselves to such a journey again. It was a nightmare of broken road surface (like dry river beds), half the narrow road fallen away and drops to nowhere that left us both shaking. To cap it all Kurseong was not bathing in mountain light but was enveloped in a damp mountain mist, everything seemed damp and grubby. The hotel we hoped to stay in was full and in desperation to just stop moving we took a decidedly third rate place - which would have had a great view but for the mist.
There was one saving grace, incredibly the place is on the railway - well the Toy Train to Darjeeling so as Tess had said she would die in the place rather than go back down the road we at least had one of the world's great railway journeys as a means of escape. So we agreed - back down the hill by train the next day.
Next day dawned a lot brighter but strangely quiet. We got up and found the street full of people but every shop shut, so we walked through the town - one main street with the railway line on one side of it - to the tourist lodge place in the hope of breakfast, but it was also all closed up and eventually a guy told us they were on strike! We returned to the hotel to find that the whole town was on strike! Nothing would open, nothing would move, including the train. More to the immediate point - what were we going to eat. Well a word to the hotel guy and he promised us fried eggs, toast and tea and then led us to the shuttered cafe beneath the hotel where a door was quickly opened and shut behind us - and we ate a very good breakfast. It turned out that the government had banned the opposition parties from holding meetings so the whole place went on strike for the day - putting a complete end to our hopes of escape! The roads were full of people playing shuttlecock and cricket and wandering around, the police had nothing to do as everyone was treating it like a holiday, in place of the police traffic post stood the Gourkaland flag in a sack of sand. Any vehicle that did move had a sign on it announcing what it was doing 'Exam Duty' 'Water Supply' etc.
So we went for walks around the place - to the outskirts to view the hills in the morning and keeping awary eye on a tribe of monkeys that came our way and clambered over a block of flats, and in the afternoon up the hill behind the hotel (all the buildings cling to the steep sides of the hills by their fingernails!) and we even found a cottage where the poet Tagore lived in 1924. Everyone was very friendly, lots of hellos etc - this has to be the least touristy place we have landed in however.
So back to the cafe under the hotel, once more admitted through the shutters for a strike breaking cup of tea and a good chat with the hotel owner and cafe owner and back there for dinner, cooked to order in what looked like a very dirty kitchen but we were then joined by a businessman who poured his whiskey (three pegs in a small bottle and then a further peg) and got slightly less coherent as the evening went on!
In the end we at least liked Kurseong for the people we met - and we finally today got on that train and what a ride it proved to be, 4 hours down to Siliguri where we are now at a snails pace round sharp bend, loops and z bends (where the train backs down), incredible views of the landscape but also we passed shacks and houses where we could have reached in and shaken hands with the residents so close (and slowly) did we pass them.
Brian
Brian has kindly not said that once we had found a hotel room and I had put my bag down, I burst into tears, so terrifying was that drive. After our leisurly decent today I think we must have driven up the steeper, but shorter rout to Kurseong, the road that followed the railway didn't seem half so bad (but that could have been becuse I was in a nice, safe train).
I am glad we had the enforced day in Kurseong, because though it will never feature in my 10 favourite towns in India, but it did redeam its self by having really friendly people and a large number of English speakers with stunningly good acents and vocab. There are lots of schoos in the area, it has a long relationship with the Brits, summer reteat from the plains, tea and of course the Army, lots of Gurkas come from the area.
Tess
There was one saving grace, incredibly the place is on the railway - well the Toy Train to Darjeeling so as Tess had said she would die in the place rather than go back down the road we at least had one of the world's great railway journeys as a means of escape. So we agreed - back down the hill by train the next day.
Next day dawned a lot brighter but strangely quiet. We got up and found the street full of people but every shop shut, so we walked through the town - one main street with the railway line on one side of it - to the tourist lodge place in the hope of breakfast, but it was also all closed up and eventually a guy told us they were on strike! We returned to the hotel to find that the whole town was on strike! Nothing would open, nothing would move, including the train. More to the immediate point - what were we going to eat. Well a word to the hotel guy and he promised us fried eggs, toast and tea and then led us to the shuttered cafe beneath the hotel where a door was quickly opened and shut behind us - and we ate a very good breakfast. It turned out that the government had banned the opposition parties from holding meetings so the whole place went on strike for the day - putting a complete end to our hopes of escape! The roads were full of people playing shuttlecock and cricket and wandering around, the police had nothing to do as everyone was treating it like a holiday, in place of the police traffic post stood the Gourkaland flag in a sack of sand. Any vehicle that did move had a sign on it announcing what it was doing 'Exam Duty' 'Water Supply' etc.
So we went for walks around the place - to the outskirts to view the hills in the morning and keeping awary eye on a tribe of monkeys that came our way and clambered over a block of flats, and in the afternoon up the hill behind the hotel (all the buildings cling to the steep sides of the hills by their fingernails!) and we even found a cottage where the poet Tagore lived in 1924. Everyone was very friendly, lots of hellos etc - this has to be the least touristy place we have landed in however.
So back to the cafe under the hotel, once more admitted through the shutters for a strike breaking cup of tea and a good chat with the hotel owner and cafe owner and back there for dinner, cooked to order in what looked like a very dirty kitchen but we were then joined by a businessman who poured his whiskey (three pegs in a small bottle and then a further peg) and got slightly less coherent as the evening went on!
In the end we at least liked Kurseong for the people we met - and we finally today got on that train and what a ride it proved to be, 4 hours down to Siliguri where we are now at a snails pace round sharp bend, loops and z bends (where the train backs down), incredible views of the landscape but also we passed shacks and houses where we could have reached in and shaken hands with the residents so close (and slowly) did we pass them.
Brian
Brian has kindly not said that once we had found a hotel room and I had put my bag down, I burst into tears, so terrifying was that drive. After our leisurly decent today I think we must have driven up the steeper, but shorter rout to Kurseong, the road that followed the railway didn't seem half so bad (but that could have been becuse I was in a nice, safe train).
I am glad we had the enforced day in Kurseong, because though it will never feature in my 10 favourite towns in India, but it did redeam its self by having really friendly people and a large number of English speakers with stunningly good acents and vocab. There are lots of schoos in the area, it has a long relationship with the Brits, summer reteat from the plains, tea and of course the Army, lots of Gurkas come from the area.
Tess
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Our Amorphophallus 'flower' just opened yesterday. Too bad it won't last till next week.
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