And continued to do so, throughout the night. First to bed, + last up. We arrived at the terminus at about 11, + had to waste half an hour or so in the station having all of our permits checked, + then having our particulars entered laboriously into a ledger. Outside, the next task was to catch a rickshaw to the town of Siliguri, from where one catches a bus up to Darjeeling. Normally, we would all have taken the toy train up there, but unhappily the track has recently been washed out, + isn’t likely to be repaired for some weeks. It seemed to us that everyone was dithering outside, the problem with a large group, so we decided to take unilateral action + found a rickshaw driver to take us – we had already discovered the price, so it was not a difficult negotiation. At the other end, straight on to a bus. The others finally got themselves together, + were on the next bus. They did rather better than we did, however, for the bus caught ours up at a hold-up when stones had to be cleared off the road, + overtook us shortly after. It hardly mattered however. A bearable journey, finishing with a good view of misty Darjeeling sprinkled down the hill.
We decided to try to find accommodation at the Youth Hostel, but nearly regretted our decision when we discovered that the Hostel was at the top of the hill, one hell of a climb. It was a disappointing however, cold + bare. It was clear that once it had been well-provisioned, but that for some reason interest had been lost, + now it was really not much more than a shell. We had been about to leave, when most of the rest of our fellow-travellers walked in the door, + appeared ready to check in, so rather than be anti-social, we did the same. We put our things into the dorms, + prepared to leave. I at least passed up on the notion of a shower – the hostel has hot water only occasionally, + it is far too cold in Darjeeling for me to contemplate an ice-cold shower.
Val, Annabel + I went out together to look for a particularly recommended restaurant, the Himalaya Café. The food was good, + the place too was a good meeting-place for travellers at any rate. We ran into Chas + Dave there, as well as Dave + Suzanne, arrived direct, but after many difficulties, from Bangladesh. Chas entertained the waiter, as well as the rest of us, hugely, by a party-trick involving attaching a thin piece of cotton to a coffee spoon, + hauling it around invisibly. Great stuff.
Which only goes to show how easily pleased we were. But the start of another mini-adventure with our arrival in Darjeeling, even if I was scarcely in the mood or condition for such right then.
