If I had thought about it a bit more, I never would have decided to do it. One of the attractions of the Darjeeling area is a trip up to the top of Tiger Hill to watch the sunrise. And I let Vipro talk me into it before I really thought about it. I realized at 4 o'clock in the morning that, because sunrise is a set sort of time, and there is only one every day, that would mean that anyone who wanted to see it would be there at the same time. And Darjeeling was in the midst of a festival, so there were lots of people in the city at that time. And all of them would be heading up to the top of Tiger Hill at the same time to watch this amazing sunrise. But by the time I really thought about that, I was in the jeep on the way up and it was too late to do anything about it. But I was really, really right.
I realized that as I was in a jeep in a procession of jeeps heading up the hill. And then we had to stop a fair ways below the top of the hill because there was no more space at the top for more jeeps to get up there. Oh well. We walked up the rest of the way, about a kilometer. We bought our entrance tickets. Yes. There are even tickets to the tops of hills in India. The nickel and diming is taken to a ridiculous level here.
Then we trudged the rest of the way up to the viewing area. And there were thousands and thousands of people there. I had no chance of getting a good unobstructed view of the sunrise without standing on some ladder. But...
It just happened that that night and morning were a full moon. And everyone was waiting with baited breath for the sun to rise, while virtually ignoring the setting of the full moon. So I had a really clear view of the setting of the full moon. That was really nice.
Then I turned around to the other side and got to watch, through throngs of people all jostling for position, the sunrise. I wasn't sure when it would happen, as there were clouds at the horizon, but I needn't have worried. As the first edge of the disk of the sun appeared in the hazy clouds a great murmur of seeming amazement went through the crowd. It was like Elvis had been spotted or something. It was the sun, for Pete's sake.
It wasn't a spectacular sunrise or anything, but it was serviceable. And it had been special because of the moonset, so the trip up had turned out all right even though it was an ill-conceived notion because of the nature of it and having to enjoy it with my four thousand closest friends.
From Tiger Hill, the parade of jeeps proceeded down the hill to Batasia Loop. There are two parts to the spot that are interesting. First, it's a loop. A train track loop. There is a narrow guage train line that runs from Darjeeling down to the station at New Jalpaiguri. In actuality it only runs partway to the town of Kurseong. But in order to get down the steep mountain, the train has to loop and backtrack to maintain a safe grade of descent. One of the spots where this occurs is the Batasia Loop. The track makes one and a half loops as it descends 10 or 15 meters. Luckily, this train only goes once a day and so the market catering to the throngs of tourists who swarm over the loop every morning after witnessing a splendid sunrise can proceed unmolested and without danger of anyone being crushed by a speeding train. (It doesn't speed.)
And in the middle of the loop is the war memorial of Darjeeling, dedicated to those who gave their lives in the various conflicts in which India has been involved.
From there it was back to the hotel. After a short sleep, I thought I would be tired, but the activity had made me quite alert and so I decided to head out to see Khangchenjunga, the third tallest mountain in the world and that looms in the distance north of Darjeeling. On clear mornings, it can be seen from Tiger Hill, but this morning it had been too cloudy. By the time I got back to the hotel though, it was clearing off and the mountain could be clearly seen. Before it clouded over again, I decided to head over to the viewpoint and get a photo. It worked out well and shortly after that, the clouds moved in again and I realized that I had made the right decision not to go back to bed.
Then I sat down and started reading for a while, but another foreigner came by and sat down and we started chatting. His name was Peter and he was in Darjeeling recuperating from some cracked ribs. He had been in India many times and was a good source of information, particularly as I wished to go into an area north of Darjeeling called Sikkim. This required a permit, but I wasn't clear on how to get the permit. Peter told me where to find the office. Then he walked with me to the office and accompanied me as I got photocopies of my passport for the permit application. After that, he showed me where the jeeps were to get into Sikkim. He also told me where to go in Sikkim. I had been told by some Indian tourists where I should visit in Sikkim. But again, this was Indian tourists, going to places that might be of interest to view, but would in all likelihood create an experience much like the throngs viewing sunrise that morning. I wasn't excited about that prospect, and was much more interested in what Peter suggested, which were places of great beauty, but without specific things that had to be seen. They would simply be naturally beautiful places to visit. Now I was much more interested in visiting Sikkim and was looking forward to heading there the next day.
When he showed me the jeep place, I met another woman who was heading to the same place, Pelling. She was unclear on where to get her permit, so I passed the favour on and showed her. While we were getting her squared away, we met two more people who were heading to Pelling the next day. This was getting to where we would possibly be able to hire our own jeep to go there directly instead of the two stop process it was going to be to go using the public route. So the four of us agreed to meet the next morning at 7:30 and see if it could be arranged.
I left at that point to try and find a tea house where it would be possible to taste the famous area's tea. I also went to enjoy some of the final entertainment of the festival just over.
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