Kolkata Kate and the Drive to Darjeeling

Every camp counselor has favorite campers. One of mine is Kate. Since she was in 9th grade, I knew she’d grow up to be a pretty rad lady and she hasn’t disappointed. After graduating from UW-La Crosse, she served in the Peace Corps for two years in Micronesia before leading Outward Bound programs in Florida and adjudicated youth programs in Northern Wisconsin. And after a few years of tireless work, she decided to treat herself with...a trip to India!

After a stop in Taiwan, she arrived in Hyderabad and took to liking the city and its craziness. While I worked, she made her first solo trip to Hampi, a great destination for that kinda adventure. After she got back, we finalized trip plans together.  While our original dream of a canoe (ish) trip down the Godavari River from Bhadrachalam to Rajamundry was scuttled, we had many good backup options and settled on Kolkata and Darjeeling.

After a two-day battled, we got foreigner tickets the day before departure. The night train from Hyderabad to Kolkata is almost 30 hours. It's a loooong haul across A.P. and Orissa, but the scenery's good and we met some interesting people on the train. (The real downside? Children. Non-quiet children. Children aren't counted in the seating assignments, so every train is packed full with as many children as people can find and/or produce.)

Kolkata's a great city to visit for a day and a night. The city's core is surprisingly small for a metropolis of so many people and so much ill-repute. The Floatel, right on the River Hoogley, made a great base camp for exploring the area at a decent price. We enjoyed walking through the flower market, the old bazaar streets and the government quarter. The city's dilapidation is photogenic and easy to enjoy, as were the Victoria Memorial, the planetarium, and Fire and Ice. The biggest spectacle, though, was the annual Durgapooja around Kalighat. We joined a million (?) revelers for a late night walk through a beautiful lit neighborhood.

The night bus to Siliguri was a less memorable 14 hours. At $16 a person, I'd even go so far as to recommend that each person buy two tickets, ensuring a whole sleeper compartment to themselves, rather than sharing. Especially if you're a solo traveller.

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railways toy train no longer connects to the plains, thanks to a landslide a few years ago, so the only option from Siliguri up to Darjeeling is shared jeep, a three hour ride for 150 rupees. The tea plantations and sharp slopes make for a beautiful drive, almost as nice as Darjeeling itself. The crest of the city is a nice promenade with nice shops, cafes and guesthouses. The temperature felt great, even if it felt like we were joined by a large percentage of India's population during the holiday weekend. Compared to the other hill stations i've been to, Darjeeling is much, much nicer than Kodaikanal and more scenic than Munnar. But i wouldn't trade ten visits to any of them for one trip to Leh. After an early morning sunrise and Kanchenjunga alpenglow, I didn't feel like there was too much i was missing out on in Darjeeling itself, aside from the missed opportunity to do some hiking in relatively uncharted Sikkim before having to rush back Wednesday, while Kate lingered a few days more. 

My Favorite Leh

Twenty months in, I have a new favorite spot in all of India...Leh!

Ladakh is a pretty special corner of India, the far extreme North, the mountainously beautiful and surprisingly peaceful part of Jammu and Kashmir. It's largely Buddhist, most closely related in culture, peoples, religion and architecture to Western Tibet.

Leh is the capital town of the region, a small burg of just 10,000 year round inhabitants, swelled with tourists four months out of the year (July-October) and blessed with the infrastructure (and airport) of a significant military base. Just ten years ago, India and Pakistan were fighting over the Kargil Glacier, hardly 100 miles to the west.

You can fly or bus into Leh. Flights from Delhi are convenient, if pricey, and they come with the added cost of immediate acclimation at 11,500 feet. I'd never done anything like that before, and it was more painful than I expected. The first night, especially, was miserable. Headache, loss of appetite, disorientation and insomnia. Almost bad enough to force me to get some non-prescription medication, but it passed before the end of the second day. The two day bus ride up from Manali or Srinigar help significantly with acclimation, but come at the price of a bone-jostling journey.

A 200 rupee taxi takes you to the city center, a wide-laned bazaar with great shops and restaurants. Every other storefront is a map store, outfitters or travel agency catering to visitors. From the small downtown, to the north, a 16th century Buddhist palace sits perched on a cliff. And to the west, a green valley pasture, criss-crossed with cobblestone walking paths and glacier-melt creeks, is speckled with more than a hundred different guesthouses, hotels and family stays. Glacier View Guest House gets a thumbs up, but you can't go wrong just walking the paths, finding one you like and inquiring about availability on the spot.

Leh offers many good day-hike options without even leaving the city: Shanti stupa, the palace, the donkey sanctuary. (The first two are better than the third.) The palace, in particular, is great. You can climb over, under and around the 9-story inward-leaning castle, modeled after more famous counterparts in Lhasa. It's easy to hire a car, too, for a full-day of monastary sightseeing along the Indus River.

Instead of sightseeing, though, I went rafting on my day outside of Leh. 1300 rupees will get you a three-hour raft down an amazing section of the Zanskar River, 45 minute drive from town, as it flows through beautiful canyon walls before dumping into the Indus River. It's pretty good whitewater and a great way to meet fellow travelers. Afterwards, you get a tasty lunch in the raft guides base camp.