Thursday, 22 January 2009
Murphys Law, we woke up this morning to a relatively clear sky and much improved visilibility. SB quickly went back up to the Mall to view the eastern vista; unfortunately the hills in the distance were only just shadows in the mist, so no real improvement on previous days.
We finished packing and went downstairs in the hotel to enjoy another breakfast of aloo dum, puri and milk coffee. After finalising our bill, we walked through Darjeeling to the train station. The visibility was slowly improving allowing us a view of the distant mountains to the north west (we guessed it was some part of the Himalayas, but didn’t bother identifying any particular peaks). We boarded the diesel toy-train and awaited its departure.
Whilst we were waiting on the train, our decision to leave Darjeeling was becoming vindicated as the cloud and mist began to close in again.
The diesel toy-train left the station pretty much right on time and we began the long, slow and bumpy ride down the mountain. The road we came up and the train tracks basically run parallel and cross each other many times, so TH wasn’t seeing any new scenery (remember, she was in the front seat of the jeep on the way up), so SB was enjoying the new views. The train was painfully slow, covering the 82kms in about 7 hours. We were traveling “first class” meaning our seats were slightly better padded than those in second class, but for the most part, they were still uncomfortable as the train bumped, rocked and jerked all the way.
Eventually we arrived at Siliguri Junction station and walked to the Conclave Hotel, which wasn’t going to offer any discount and would only provide us with their most expensive room (it’s off season and very quiet everywhere, so we’re guessing we might have been their ony guests so they were going to try and screw us for every rupee). So we went next door to the Conclave Lodge and got a twin room for a reasonable price.
We dumped the bags and headed onto the streets in search of a place for an early dinner. Many shops and restaurants were closed (at 17:00 on a Thursday?) So we walked some distance before finding a nice Bengali cafe. We are three dishes we hadn’t tried before (getting experimental/adventureous) all were delicious and only cost AUD$6.
We wandered back to the Lodge along the main drag, which appeared to be more active now than before, although not as chaotic when we were here only a few days before.
The Lodge didn’t lie when they said we had hot water in our room, we just expected it to last more than 15 seconds. Cest la vie.
An early night with a couple of books was needed.