Mawlyngbna - No Typo

They say that a long time ago, when animals could still speak, they had a weekly trade place, where they could meet and chat and exchange goods brought by each of them at the market. This meeting spot, Ka Iew Luri-Lura is said to have been in the land of the Khasis, in Meghalaya, more precisely close to Mawlyngbna, a small village close to the Bangladeshi border.

It’s there that I got to twice, the first time just to have a wonderful swim across the little lake, and the second time to retrace the steps of the beasts to the market and to witness the animals’ passing through, as their footprints are seen all over this fantastic place. I like this account more than the other one, which says that the imprints left on this million-year old seabed are just unusually shaped and the fossilized sea-urchins embedded in the rocks are proof to that effect.

Regardless of its origin, the place is simply astonishing, so I’d better leave the photos to do some justice to the place:

Behdienkhlam - The Mud Dancing Festival

‘Go to Jowai. There is a festival there. I think you’ll like it. Jaintia tribes-people celebrate the sowing, trying to drive away plague and diseases and hoping for a good harvest. The men dance in the mud and carry huge chariots around and go from house to house carrying bamboo poles and beat the rooftops of the houses to symbolically drive away evil spirits.’

That’s what I’ve been told. And why not go and see men dancing in the mud in a pre-Christian sacred ceremony of a religion that also worships one major god and other lesser spirits?

Incidentally, another Romanian fellow is travelling around the area on a Royal Enfield bike, so we decided to go together. But Romanian customs work just as well even 10000 km away from the motherland and, although we started riding at around 11 AM, we managed to lose track of time and cover the 120 km from Cherrapunjee to Jowai in almost 5 hours. Of course the ceremonies will wait for us; we’re Romanians after all. At least that was what we’d hoped. But by the time we reached Jowai, the biggest city in the Jaintia Hills and the place where Behdienkhlam is held every year in July, the masses of people walking hurriedly through the streets meant that the mud dancing part was over. No matter, the weather was great and the people were in a celebrative mood, so we stayed around to see what else was going on. And, sure enough, our patience payed off: each year after the bad spirits have been chased away (through mud dancing, clearly), the locals have a football match between the upper part of the town and the lower part, making the winning team the agents of good crops on their side of the town.

Not only is this a very serious matter, kept every single year for generations, but it is also the perfect occasion for the townspeople to display their best clothes and accessories. We went along with remarkably well-dressed families (feeling very out of place with our own modest attires) and sat down on the side of the road in a large square lined with shops and masses of people to watch the football match.

The town’s elders, dressed in Sunday clothes bearing ceremonial canes arrived bringing along the traditional ball, the one used over and over again for every match. Something seemed out of place: why would the elders carry a coconut for a football game? But, as it was explained, this is a wooden ball, used so many times that the wear and tear of countless football games shrank it to the size of a fairly round grapefruit.

The players followed in this strange procession: different every year, these young men proudly engaged in what would turn out to be a fight that could have been easily mistaken for a mass kickbox match with a funny wooden ball misplaced amongst them. They would run around the square barefoot, hitting the wooden ball, trying to score for their side of town.

The game began. Kids, photographers, town elders, policemen, and bystanders all gathered as close as possible to the players, leaving only a small circle for the players to pass the ball. Whenever the ball rolled to a side, the circle would also move accordingly. I couldn’t distinguish any delimitation for this football field and it appeared that neither did the players, the referees or the onlookers; nor did they really care about that. Casualties were left to tend to themselves as the game went on while the spectators cheered for one team or another. The confusion climaxed in another part of the square, so it wasn’t clear for me who won. I was to find later that, as it mostly happens, the lower part of town won the game. I suspect that it’s also because the terrain is slightly inclined towards the lower part and, naturally, the ball would eventually find its way there.

The people quickly scattered after the elders proclaimed the end of the festivities, leaving everyone to enjoy the most important holiday of the Jaintias however they liked, mainly by carousing until the early hours of the morning, dancing happily to music played on cell phones, eating barbequed meat and rice, and simply enjoying themselves all night long. We were invited to join a family of no less than 100 relatives, who kept on coming and going, drinking rice beer, shaking various hands and taking countless pictures with us.

Well, the next day, a beautiful, peaceful Sunday, the bike refused to start. No pleading, persuading or cajoling could get the bike moving and no mechanic could be found awake and/or sober to take a look at the electric wiring, as all the people in Jowai were having their well-deserved rest after the celebration. A full day of waiting around resulted in the transport of the bike and us in a pick-up truck that came to our rescue from Shillong, where we spent the night.

To recap: the whole trip turned out to be a hell of a roller coaster ride – fun to be on and eager to look past the next turn – and my disappointment that we missed the actual ceremony of the festival was put aside because everything else was really great. Still, next time, I’ll try to be in time for the mud dancing.

The Road to Cherrapunjee

The ex-wettest place on Earth; the ex-rain capital of India; a side of India that not even India knows: Cherrapunjee. And that’s my destination.

But how much time does it take to get there? And how can I escape the hectic, tiring India that I know? And – last but surely not least – where can I smoke in airports?

These are the issues that concern me when I desolately wave my mum goodbye as the train leaves the Cluj railway station. It’s easy, I think to myself, it’s just an overnight train ride to Bucharest and from there on it’s just a bunch of flights to get to India… And, once in India, I’ll find a way…

But as I make myself comfortable in the train compartment, the elderly gentleman solving Sudoku starts talking… and so does the young guy sitting across from me. Their polished political discussion makes me cringe and I pray that they don’t include me. But wouldn’t you know it, they are too polite to leave me out of their animate discourse about communist Romania and I have to chip in, trying to look intellectual and attentive. The elderly ex-teacher remembers the outrages of the communist party and the younger one commiserates and contributes with personal stories (although he couldn’t have been more than 3 at the time of the revolution). I excuse myself and jump on the upper bed feeling confident that my counterattack will silence them. Indeed, they retire to their own beds and stillness settles in. Me – 1, train – 0.

As soon as I wake up, the gentlemen start talking again. I can sense that they have been waiting for me to get up so that they continue their war stories. But I interrupt, wondering why the window is badly cracked, in the form of a beautiful snowflake. They are surprised that I didn’t even budge at the loud strike that happened sometime around 3 AM, when some bored people decided that the best way to spend their time was to throw stones at a passing train. Well, I think, good thing I finally decided to take the advice of the older gentleman and not sleep with my head close to the window! Me – 2, train – 0.

Bucharest doesn’t seem such a bad place on a Sunday morning. Traffic is light and the way to the airport seems pretty straightforward. The next 3 ½ hours will pass somehow, if not by talking on the phone with the early birds, then by reading about the Hell’s Angels. But by the time I board the flight, I’m honestly wondering how I will take another 15 hours until I reach India.

Heathrow Terminal 4. Instructions: get to Terminal 5 and wait 5 ½ hours. No probs, I think. The terminal is just a bus ride away and if I get there soon, I can pass the security check, browse the stores and sip coffees and smoke cigarettes. As I discard all the loose change in the tray that is being x-rayed along with my handbag and laptop, I fiendishly plot the safe arrival of a refugee lighter to the other side. I succeed and for a minute I stop brooding over the plane seat I received (somewhere in the middle, crammed between many other people), which will become my home for the next 9 hours. I chase away the thought and look forward to some coffee and a relaxing cigarette. But the blonde untroubled lass at the information desk cheerfully informs me that Heathrow airport DOES NOT HAVE SMOKING AREAS AFTER SECURITY CHECK. It’s as if I’ve just won a race and now they tell me there isn’t any prize to win. Airport – 1, me – 0.

I can’t believe my ears. This can’t be. All these people sitting here, waiting for delayed flights, patience running out, nerves stretched thin… How is this possible?

‘Oh, but it is’, says a nice airport officer, who can see the pain in my eyes.

‘But… isn’t there a way?’ I ask, a spark of hope blooming timidly in my heart.

‘Well…’, she says.

The next thing I know is that I’m being escorted out of the airport through a labyrinth of corridors stretching for kilometres taking me outside to where the bus left me, a heaven-sent for smokers, with only a promise that I will come back, go through security check again and be in time on the other side to board my plane. My spirits are lifted, my cigarettes are puffed and my coffee is sipped lazily under a smoke-shrouded tree. Nothing could make me happier. Well, nothing except a nice shower or at least a change of clothes. But I take what I get. Airport – 1, me – 1 (ha!).

Back inside again, sheltering the same lighter and a sense of victory over the higher airport forces. I board the plane, preparing for some 9 hours of:

-       polite conversation – forced,

-       kindly asking other people to let me out of my seat to use the toilet,

-       fairly new movies interrupted by the captain’s announcement (English and Hindi),

-       airplane food, distinguished for its lack of taste (but, in my case, vegetarian a.k.a. savoury),

-       swollen ankles.

New Delhi greets me with morning heat and angry co-passengers. As the flight was delayed, our arrival in Delhi meant that people lost their connection flights or were simply late to get somewhere and, let me tell you, patience isn’t one of India’s strong suits. But I wasn’t worried. I had about 4 hours to spend in the airport until my next flight to Guwahati. A quick smoke outside the airport under scrutinizing Indian eyes while declining taxi drivers made me retreat in the comfort of the airport. Coffee? Yes! And how well would that go with another smoke… But what do you know? Once you get inside the airport, you cannot go out and guess what? There is no smoking area before security check. Indian airport – 1, me – 0.

I cannot check my bag in for another hour so I gloomily drink my (very hot) coffee feeling very self-conscious about my appearance (and, probably, my body odour). Finally, the time comes when I can walk past security check and wander through the unknown insides of the airport. No points for me here because sipping coffee while smoking cigarettes isn’t any fun while using cash-less ATMs and guessing PIN codes (a story for another day).

The gig is the same: board flight, take seat (window seat – yay!), get food, sip coffee, sleep restlessly, watch ground getting closer… come 5:30 PM spring to attention next to the conveyor belt, wait for bag, get bag....

Well, folks, I know that there are some methods of covering the last 100 km from Guwahati to Shillong: shared jeeps, busses, shared taxis. But I also know that from Shillong there are still 50 km left to finally reach Cherrapunjee. Which means that the only possibilities are to a) either find a guesthouse in Guwahati and spend a night so that in the morning you can get to Shillong and, eventually, Cherrapunjee; or b) find a shared jeep that takes you to Shillong and start looking for a hotel there so that the next day you will be able to cover what’s left of the distance. There are no public means of transportation during late afternoon and/or night. Don’t be fooled! The remaining 150 km mean a long, winding series of bends meandering up more hills, which translates into a 4 ½ hours’ continuous ride.

Already having this information, I opted for the third option: hire a private taxi from Guwahati airport to Cherrapunjee. And this proved to be the right way to go, as at 10 PM I was already chatting with the great Khasi people in Cherrapunjee. Impossible Indian traffic – 0, me – 1 (ha! again!).

So, to sum up: It’s really not easy to get here, but once you have, you’ll hardly want to leave again. Why, you ask. Well…

Welcome Back!

Is there anything left to say?

Faith in Greek Tourism Restored

Is there really a difference between travellers and tourists? Yes, of course! Right now I’m touristing Greece along with a very special person and I’m savouring every moment of it. And even if you think 'touristing' is not a word, I'm still going to use it. Yes, it’s definitely touristing; with hotel rooms where you can sleep in with no fear of the ceiling falling apart or the rats falling upon you at any minute. You can really fall back on hot showers and travel-sized soap and shampoo bottles. The only anxiety is for some major Ancient Greek monument to fall through the cracks.

Everything falls into touristy place: internet hotel reservations, good meals, nice rental car (with effective braking system no less), GPS and proper maps. No more ‘hellowhereyoufroms’ smiles or potent haggling abilities needed. It’s touristing! It’s easy.

Even when I tried to do it the hard way, getting to a remote little touristy town in the South-eastern part of the Peloponnesian peninsula without a hotel reservation and trying to find some cheap accommodation on the spot, things turned out differently than I expected.

This is Tourist Country and, against all my expectation, everything seemed booked out. So, when we asked at a small guest house whether they had a room available, the lady there with her minute English knowledge told us – with the help of some particularly effective aerobics moves – that her place was full, but she somehow explained that she would check other places on the internet. Not only did she come up with some alternatives (booking.com really comes in handy at times like these), but she gave us a map and encircled the affordable places on it, and gave us her blessing to go look for the best deal. Which we eventually found.

Dear kind, friendly and helpful guest house owner/manager from the guest house in Nafplio which I don’t remember the name of: this is me thanking you in the name of all travellers (and some of the tourists) for your wonderful and astounding gesture (and I don’t mean your funky calisthenics)! Flowers and/or candy coming soon… Touristing is easy!

Rip-Off Sri Lanka

Meditation can wait. Frustration cannot.

Even though I’m supposed to be calm and shanti after the meditation retreat, I decided that this is the place where I can enumerate my frustrations like on an extensive grocery list (better yet, a discarding list). Sri Lanka is the land that can fill up a whole tome of grocery lists of frustrations, frustrations that surface mostly when you’re spotted as being a foreigner, and trust me when I say that being anywhere over 1m50, with a non-dusky skin complexion, and with dreadlocks blending in might be considered somewhat extreme. And they’ll spot you faster than you can blink. When I say ‘they’ I mean everybody. You see, they’re not stupid, I’ll grant them that; they’re actually pretty smart and cunning and have been able to turn any remotely interesting thing on their island into a business opportunity (just like the Lonely Planet, but that will be the subject of a future post), attracting gullible tourists like a light bulb attracts moths. I’m not even going to enter the ‘hellotaximadam?’ on the list, even if it tends to get on my nerves when 10m away from my guesthouse not one, but all the taxi drivers on the road ask me if I want a ride; or that when I’m patiently waiting for the bus at the bus stand, two separate tuk tuk drivers offer their services or just simply say ‘come, I’ll take you’ (and they don’t even know where I want to be taken and probably don’t care)… I hold that it’s good to try your luck and, of course, business is business and there may well be credulous tourists around, so the better your people skills are, the greater the chances to get some work. I can deal with that and usually try the polite approach, amicably refusing their magnanimous offer (at some point I found out that sarcasm or derision have proven to go sky-high above their heads). No, these widespread Asian techniques cut no ice.

The seed of my revolt lies a lot deeper, implanted with the precision of a sharp dart in the bull’s-eye of the shattered tourist paradise that is Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful country. Trust me! And it’s a country where tourism is in bloom but not so much for backpackers and ramblers as for the classic tourists; people who leave their daily jobs and lives for 2 or 3 weeks and look forward to a nice relaxing time either visiting historical sites and experiencing cultural aspects, or chilling back on beaches and hilly tea plantations, or both. They’re looking for Services, Wi-Fi and swimming pools and they’re prepared to pay the price; the tourist price; the price that is being asked. The overpriced price. Which means that the rest of us have to struggle to find the backpacking scene, the underground scene, the authentic scene.

Cheap accommodation? It’s either $15 per person in a not really run down place (but usually painted in a baby-pink or Paris green shade), or the shabby, shady dorm room or YMCA, which is hard to find and can use a good sweeping (or, in some cases, a big barrel of petrol and a match). Cheap food is easier but as soon as a place makes it in the Lonely Planet or on TripAdvisor, the prices shoot up like fireworks in a Maltese factory. And that’s only the least bothersome of issues.

The bulk of the problem lies with the attractions and, as luck would have it, everything is considered an attraction. Also, every attraction has a price. An overpriced price.

Anuradhapura is one of three very old, very important historical cities in the cultural triangle of Sri Lanka. And it wasn’t really surprising that the entrance ticket to the ruins and temples of the old city had a price on its head that locals would surely never afford (they don’t have to, as they have their own ‘local’ prices, but still): $25. The other attractions in the triangle range from a measly $10 for a temple in Kandy to an obscene $30 for the Rock Fortress at Sigiriya. And even where there’s no entrance ticket, you’ll have to pay the friendly-looking elderly Sri Lankan who accompanied you for a while to make sure you don’t get lost when trying to get to Ella Rock (as business is better not to maintain a proper pathway and thus let the poor, ignorant Westerners lose their way and squeak for some assistance in mid-trek).

And then there’s the Dowa Temple, a low-key, highly religious site, the actual reason why I started this vicious rant.

Yesterday was marked in the Sri Lankan calendar as Binara Full Moon Puya Day, an official Buddhist holiday, when people go to temples to pray and give offerings to Buddha. The monks chant (through speakers, no less) and pray and there’s a festive atmosphere all around, with parents guiding their barefooted toddlers to and fro the temple grounds, offering flowers, lighting oil candles and sitting in prayer all over the place. I walked through the temple grounds feeling quite peaceful, smiling to amused Sri Lankans and taking photos of the 4m high unfinished Buddha statue carved into the rock face. And as soon as I entered the temple, an elderly caretaker surrounded by pre-teen monks greeted me with ‘’Scuse me, madam, ticket here.’ I was more than willing to offer a small donation for the conservation of the temple and I even had my 20 rupees handy (it’s the usual amount I’ve seen locals donate), but the guy beckoned me to his desk and extracted a bunch of colourful tickets to hand one over to me. His mistake: after saying ‘ticket’ he also said ‘h’ndrd rupees’ so I took a closer look at the alleged ticket and even upside down I managed to read the bold black letters on the paper: DONATION. My 20 rupee’d hand stopped in mid-air and the guy and I locked stares and for a second there didn’t move, like two tomcats preparing to jump at each other’s jugular.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘Donation, no?’

‘H’ndrd rupees…’

But he probably realised his tiny tactical error and stared intently at the ticket stubs lying flawlessly in his hands. He then ignored my 20 rupees and waved me inside so I went in and looked around. Five minutes later when I emerged he suddenly found something else to do and hurriedly left his station, leaving the kid monks to negotiate a donation, which didn’t miraculously increase because of any sudden enlightenment on my part.

It's A Jungle Out There

There’s only one word you can hold high in a cartoon-like bubble above your head, just like you’d hold a big flaming torch in the darkest cave: awesome! This place is awesome! This should be used for the times you return from the speechless bewilderment when confronted with the scenery of Cherrapunjee. No wonder you stumble on every little pebble in your path: this isn’t a time to be looking at your feet; time well spent here is having your eyes wide open, looking over the plateau stretching all around, speckled with valleys so deep that the foaming rivers seem mere brush strokes somewhere far below. You can argue that the place is even more awe-inspiring when the rainy season strikes head-on and the plains turn to a surreal green full of the strangest creatures that walked the earth: butterflies the size of a large cabbage leaf, centipedes with Mohawks, and slugs that cause all your hairs to stand to attention. Anywhere you turn you can see waterfalls, big or small, but each as impressive as the next one. And you’d think that such a rainy place would have you clattering your teeth because of the cold but you’d be wrong. Well, mostly.

There’s the nasty little feeling when, waking up in the morning, after a good night’s sleep thanks to the humdrum sound of raindrops falling on the roof, and to the makeshift wind chime clatter coming from the television tower across the road… that’s when you get that unmistakable feeling that, in spite of all of Mother Nature's beauty, which you can observe all day long, you still need to use the toilet. Right this minute. And, as there’s only an outhouse 30m away, you sigh, give up the warm embrace of your bed, step outside and start running. And then you stop, return, hastily grab the umbrella and make a run for it again.

When you feel you have admired and awsome’d enough (which will probably never happen), you can tackle the 3500 steps down to the jungle strategically hidden in one of the valleys. The 1000m elevation difference allows for a new type of scenery to unfold magnificently, so that you don’t need to discard your bubble of awesomeness just yet: it’s a real jungle out there, where climbers and creepers rule even over the people, who seem to have vines instead of veins blending perfectly into the background. You’ll soon feel like a modern age Alice who has stepped into never-never land and will have the urge to have a pleasant conversation with everything surrounding you, flowers and insects alike. There’s no end to the hours you can spend watching the spiders spin their cobwebs and there’s no explanation as to why these creatures deliberately place their traps at a human head level, so that wherever you walk, adopting the same looking-everywhere-around-you-except-where-you-step pace, you’ll inevitably end up with strands of webs across your face.

And once you reach the root bridges, you’ll never want to see concrete again!

Awesome!

Shillong

You’d think you’d get used to it. Or at least bear it head held high. If not, at least you’d be able to endure it with not more than a surrendering shrug, just like you’d accept a daily, painful shot that you know would make you feel better. But the Asian heat is still a treacherous, ruthless enemy that will make your skin prickle and your eyelids grow heavier. Your body takes twice the amount of time to get from point A to point B, and requires more rest than usual, so your energy level goes down quicker than a stone in a pond. And there’s no need to go to a remote desert in order to experience this; it’s enough to be somewhere in India. Almost anywhere…

Well, this time the heat attacked while we were in Guwahati, the biggest city in the North-Eastern states of India, a less visited area, but with a great many natural attractions, one of them possibly being this unreasonable weather. Talk about monsoon… hmm, must be wreaking havoc... somewhere else because it obviously never heard of this place.

One look at the map showed that the heat would at least interrupt its violent spasms in the North-Eastern state of Meghalaya, just a few hours away but – hopefully – at a higher altitude and, therefore, closer to some colder weather (if this logical statement seems flawed and doesn’t make any sense, it’s because it is and it doesn’t; but there’s more than one way to reassure myself of something and this one was the handiest one available for my overloaded brain).

And that’s how this new overcrowded jeep took us to Shillong. And the sunny weather suddenly changed, becoming a massive vertical sea, so much so that even when we stopped for lunch, no one wanted to get out in the heaving rain. That made it difficult to get out, as we were surrounded by reluctant Indians who didn’t want to get wet and who certainly didn’t even consider getting out, even just for a moment, so that we could sprint towards the sheltering roof of the restaurant.

Onwards then, with damp clothes and armpits raised, so that the jeep soon became too small a place to inhabit along 10 other people (11, if you count the kid stretched on his mother’s and my lap). When confronted with heavy rain, all the windows are closed shut and the air inside the vehicle becomes sparser, thinner, and with a slight tinge to it that can make the weaker ones wish they better had walked barefoot all the way to their destination. On burning coals.

Pretty, posh Shillong had a great vibe to it and we were quite excited to find a nice place to stay and explore the busy streets filled with tourists, underpants sellers and balloon inflators – yes, a nice variety of goods are sold on the streets of Shillong, the items listed above being the most common I’ve seen. Alas, Shillong cannot pride itself with a wide choice of affordable guest houses and, asking around, we were pointed towards another area of the city, on another hill, not really within walking distance, especially when burdened by an assortment of backpacks and bags (between the two of us, we were carrying 4 backpacks and a handbag; also, some bags with fruit and a bottle of water). We took the local bus to this new, unpronounceable area only to discover that we were pointed towards the top end of available accommodations, so we ended up going back to where we started some 3 hours earlier.

By night-time we settled for a lovely cockroach-infested matchbox-sized room somewhere in an underground crypt and we decided we’d better go for a nice, really long stroll, so that the time spend in the cellar would be as short as possible.

The main thing about irony is that it always strikes when you least expect it and in this case, it struck about 10 minutes after we filled in all the check-in papers: a mere 15m further down the street another subsurface hotel would have offered us a room with a smaller number of permanent inhabitants of the cockroach persuasion, a bigger surface (to accommodate the guests alongside the bugs), and at a better price. We ended up finding the local bar…

Alexander

An unfulfilled request dangled over my head like a hatchet about to drop: when in Darjeeling, visit the monument of the great Körösi Csoma Sandor, a Transylvanian scholar, one of the first to ever research the vast domain of Tibetology and to bring to light Tibetan teachings of immense import, mainly by authoring the first Tibetan-English dictionary and grammar book. He died in Darjeeling following – what else? – fever from the Malaria he contracted during his travels in the Terai.

My pledge of sending photos from places my friends found particularly interesting sent me on a wild goose chase around this city perched high upon numerous hills, making any such endeavour a sort of heaving treasure hunt trek up and down the steep hills of Darjeeling.

In all honesty, Körösi Csoma Sandor was not much more than the tongue-twisting name of the street where my uncle resides and his fame was as familiar to me as the spatial positioning of quarks in mesons and baryons. But I had to do it, not only as a fulfilled wish to my friend, but also for the benefit of my own intellectual (and physical) development. This is what brought me in front of the tourist officer whom I casually asked about the Christian cemetery in town:         

‘Why you want to go there?’

‘Well, you see there’s this Romanian scholar who expired in Darjeeling and I want to visit his grave…’

‘What his name? He is famous?’

‘Well, his name is a tad complicated, Körösi Csoma Sandor. And yes, for my country he was quite famous. I don’t know if he was famous here as well…’

‘When he died?’

‘’Bout a hundred fifty years ago.’

‘I don’t know this name. Can you write it down?’

…

‘Hmm, no, so sorry. I don’t know. There’s a cemetery here [points to a place on the badly photocopied map] but the only famous person there is Alexander…’

‘Okay, I’ll check it out anyway. Thanks for the help.’

After this deep heart-to-heart I started walking downhill looking around for some nice gravestones where I imagined myself an astute archaeologist in search for some long-lost treasure. I mostly found tea plantations stretching as far as the eye can see, especially since the eye has some difficulty seeing past a thick blanket of low clouds in a city propped on the highest, steepest hills around, where for some reason the British decided that they should inspire the locals and force them to grow tea plants so that they – the British – would feel more at home. 2400m is Darjeeling’s mean altitude (pun intended), give or take 100m here and there, where nature was stubborn enough to erect yet another mound with a 70 degrees slope.

This being said, I walked on, dreading the way back as the city rose menacingly over my head. And that’s when I saw it: I stopped in the middle of the road, oblivious to the persistent stream of honking pouring from every jeep that passed me by; I stared, transfixed by the shiny 50cm letters that composed the message on the opposite wall; and I started laughing again. So hard in fact that my face turned redder than an overripe tomato and my cheeks started hurting:

As soon as he saw me (and probably a little confused by my overly joyful appearance), the caretaker of the cemetery shuffled closer and introduced me to the tomes of greetings and notes that had been left by faithful admirers of Alexander. He approached the matter by asking me if I was from Hungary and I was hurt by this blunt lack of knowledge of obscure east-European history. I remarked that Alex, as well as myself, came from Transylvania and withstood the urge of explaining the whole political and historical situation, which I myself am not entirely clear with. He said he knew all about it but still insisted on showing me all the Hungarian memos safely stored inside his notebooks and encouraged me to leave a meaningful, deep commendation about the great man, of course not failing to remind me that he was the one who took such good care of the monument and any financial acknowledgement of his efforts would be welcomed.     

That’s how Alexander turned out not to be the Great (although he will always be great in my heart – a 50cm high great etching, that is) as much as he turned out to be good old Sandor, the one I looked for and thus excavated, and, if still on that subject, the only famous person Darjeeling prides itself with.      

Rainy Days

Well, it appears I've been lying low for the last couple of weeks, which is not even remotely true. And it appears that I've been stranded between countries for a long time, which can also prove to be completely wrong.

What happened in fact is that I've been internet-less for a long time and, even if there are millions of things to recount, blogging tends to be borderline impossible when there's no internet connection available and your personal computer decided to take an extended break just to spite you. Yup, that's right! My trusty sidekick (i.e. netbook) refuses to cooperate and is now blinking a sad little blue LED at me, all the while not doing anything else. 

The upside: the ex-wettest place on Earth - while being probably the wettest place on Earth right now - is indeed a lovely (rainy!) place.

What Happened Afterwards

As the bike was handed back to its rightful owner – in perfect condition, mind you (although there has been a short pit stop along one hilly road, where the bike underwent a small session of acquiring a footrest that had miraculously gone missing) – I had to resort to old ways of travelling: by bus. And it would be the first night bus I’d be riding in. I had reasoned that a night bus would offer the fuggy comfort of a bed in which you can snuggle boundlessly because Nepalese sleeping hours stretch from somewhere around 9PM to almost 7AM.

But, as is often the case these days, I was wrong. The endless hours waiting for the night bus to come culminated in a rainy instant when my luggage was mercilessly shoved in a trunk that was already too full and wouldn’t possibly contain it, and me being gently jostled into a grubby compact seat where my knees and the seat in front instantly merged into one bruise-inflicting body. At least I had the presence of mind to coax the ticket seller into giving me a window seat for the times when my head would fall off the back rest and wobble softly onto the cold, hard metal frame of the window (as opposed to nestling lightly on the shoulders of the person next to me – like I’ve seen it done so many times. And the good-natured Nepali would never dream of pushing away a total stranger who’s serenely snoring like an enraged bumblebee on their shoulder).

And off we went into the night. I could tell this was a deluxe bus by the fact that we were offered water bottles (I lost mine somewhere under the seats) and, after a short musical intro, they turned the TV on and we were treated to the finest Nepali (or Hindi) action movie. The rocking and swaying was soothing at first but it promptly stopped as the bus also came to a deathly halt. Because the movie captured the attention of most passengers, people didn’t seem to mind much but as the hours dripped by, this protracted pee-break turned into a nerve-breaking over-nighter. But after only two hours, the bus started slowly ambling away and its continuous humdrum soon put me to sleep.

I awoke right before the dinner break, sometime around 2AM and, dreamily following the bevy, I started munching at the dal bhat placed in front of my face.

Dal bhat is an all-in-one all-you-can-eat traditional meal that usually consists of a small mountain of rice, dal (lentil) soup, vegetable curry, tomato chutney or some pickled vegetables, some unidentified boiled greens, one papad (a thin crisp lentil-flour pancake), a slice of cucumber and a slice of radish. And whenever any of the items listed above disappears from the plate, there will be someone replacing the missing item until you are either full or literally on the verge of bursting. I’ve only ever asked for seconds and even that with some reluctance, but there’s no saying as to how many servings there can be. The sure thing is that even a physically well-developed grown man can’t possibly have more than two servings of the thing.

After nibbling at it for a while (and not even thinking about seconds), I asked for the bill and was thankful that I was still sitting down when they told me the price: the equivalent of two and a half dollars was joyfully asked of me, which is what I call highway robbery (and, in fact, we were on a highway)! Even with this hearty amount of food, it would still be almost as much as I would pay for a room at night, but nevertheless, I handed the money in the hope that I was still dreaming and this never actually happened. I intended to have a nice smoke after this potentially ruinous meal but the staff didn’t have change and I had to wait around, my dream of a rewarding cigarette destroyed and my bus on its way onward without me. It took some time for the restaurant staff to:

• stop the bus and get it turned around
• find my change in the recesses of some dingy waistcloth
• reverently escort me to the bus and, thus, away.

All in all, it only took 15 hours to get to Janakpur, where at 10 in the morning, fully bridled and equipped with a backpack that inexplicably becomes heavier and grittier I was sweating my way to town.

I’ll spare you the details of how it is indeed possible to sweat as much as a fountain without moving a single muscle; how it is possible to not be able to tell which drops covering your body are water from the refreshing shower you’ve just had seconds ago, and which are the treacherous drops of sweat already turning into a flowing torrent; how it’s possible to instantly have sticky, wet clothes that have been clean and dry moments before; how it’s possible that even the air you breathe has the consistency of boiled butter… I’ll spare you all that.

And just tell you about the latest biblical flood that erupted in Janakpur late in the afternoon. I had been walking through steady light rain for a while and stopped for a nice beer refill when the rain doubled its forces and turned into the wrath of gods, pouring water like there would be no tomorrow. And people felt that tomorrow would be out of the questions for them, as most Nepali can’t swim and the weather conditions implied that swimming would be required even for a short hop to the toilet. I watched as the whole restaurant filled with water and people started stacking important-looking boxes to the walls. A stray dog wandered in seeking refuge somewhere where it thought it would find a dry spot to quietly curl up. But the water had already claimed the entire floor so the only logical thing for a dog to do was to try and shake the water off its fur, thus splattering all the customers.

Owner and staff started putting the fridge on top of a table and handed out bricks for the customers to put their feet on. A small boy started shovelling water out of the bar with his flip-flop; bottles were minding their own business, floating peacefully among the tables, slaloming around a forgotten bike helmet; my new-found friend, a Nepali with whom I was sharing my beers (there were more than one now, as there was nowhere to go and nothing better to do) asked for a plastic bag and ceremoniously took off his posh leather boots and socks, stored them safely inside the plastic bag – which was thoroughly checked for any holes – rolled up his pants and proceeded to explain how, if the rain doesn’t subside, he will surely perish, either from his inability to swim or from the snakes that would surely welcome this forlorn weather and prepare for the hunt…

As we watched the apocalyptic deluge, the kids outside abandoned all worries and started dancing and squealing in the waist-high waters while the motorcycle drivers morosely pushed their water-filled engines around. Night was falling and the rainfall was not subsiding. Eventually, my Nepali friend and I decided to face death and defy the mighty forces. It was easy for me, as the hotel I was staying at was but a few dozen metres away. But my friend had to face a lots perils on his way home, clutching protectively at his boots in the plastic bag. I still don’t know if he made it home…

Bonus: really low-quality phone photos

If you look closely, you can see that
the owner's feet are under water

This is just the beginning...

If you squint really hard, you can see a motorcycle floating somewhere in there