Walking the 7 Points of Interest Tour

The morning after arriving in Darjeeling, I decided to go out and have a look around the area. I had seen a map of the points of interest in the city and I thought I would go out and find some of them. Vipro, the manager of the hotel where I was staying, gave me a brochure that told of the various tours in the city. He never suggested that I take one of them. He instead told me that I could go and walk one of them. He told me that the 7 points tour would be a good one. It was more or less what I thought to do, so I set off. I walked down the Mall Road in search of the first spot, the zoo and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute.

I'm generally not that impressed by zoos, and the smaller the place I'm in, the less impressive and the more closed in and depressing the zoos tend to be. But people told me this one was okay. I was hopeful. It was another one of those tourist spots that advertises its persecution of foreigners. Indians got in for 40 rupees. Foreigners got in for 100. And there was a ten rupee fee to take a camera in. It's something that I will never understand, this extra fee for a camera. Either include it in the price, or disallow cameras. Don't charge extra for a camera. It's annoying. I got to the window and gave my two one hundred rupee bills, since the price for me was going to come to 110 rupees. The guy looked at me and asked if I had a ten rupee note. I did, but I said no, I didn't. I had gotten to the point where I wasn't helping tourist spots to be stupid and annoying. If you are going to charge me a small amount extra for my camera, you can make change. He obviously didn't really want to make the change, so he just waved me through without charging me for the camera. But then the people checking tickets at the gate wanted to see my camera ticket as well. In the end, I got in without paying for the camera. I guess I will have to be ornery about things like camera charges more often. Maybe I will just make them make change like that more often and see what happens.

Inside the zoo it was all right. They did have some animals in fairly small cages, but there were also a bunch of larger and more open habitats as well. And there were a bunch of less common sorts of animals for zoos. There were asiatic bears, Himalayan wolves, various leopards, red pandas and a rather entertaining monkey among their animals. The zoo is working very hard at breeding some of the animals to restore their populations in the wild, and they are having a good deal of success. Sadly, the numbers of animals they quote for the wild populations are still depressingly low.

In another part of the zoo's grounds stands the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. Tenzing Norgay, of the first team to climb Mount Everest fame, made his home in Darjeeling towards the end of his life. He was instrumental in the formation of the institute, where climbers come to learn how to climb mountains and work in the high peaks of the Himalaya. Many of the famous Himalaya climbers have studied at this institute. Inside the museum are a bunch of exhibits showing equipment and photos of various expeditions to some of the mountains, including the Mt. Everest expeditions. There is loads of information about the various personalities involved and the history of the final assault on the peak.

Outside the museum is a statue of Tenzing Norgay with glowing tributes to the man and how he was the first man to scale the mountain. Additionally his grave is also there. Interestingly, the information there makes a great deal of Tenzing Norgay's feats and achievements, but very little of Edmund Hillary, who was referred to as more or less “the other guy.” That isn't how it was put, but it really feels that way to look at it all. Now, of course, in Hillary's native New Zealand, it's the other way around and Norgay is “the other guy” who was there. Revisionist history is such fun.

Following the visit to the museum, I finished my visit to the zoo and headed down the road and around the bend of the mountain to see more of the sights on the 7 points of interest tour. Unfortunately, there was precious little else on the tour that I found to be of particular interest. There was the ropeway, which was a gondola of some sort. But it didn't seem to be in operation.

There was Tenzing Rock, where prospective climbers can practice and gain skill.

There were tea fields where the famous brands of Darjeeling tea are grown. Interestingly, there was no place associated with the tea fields to actually sit down and drink some of it.

There was the sorry looking Ghorka Stadium. I don't know if it is ever more festive or if it always looks this decrepit, but I wouldn't be bragging about it on a tour of the interesting spots of Darjeeling if I were in charge.

From the stadium, I continued around the side of the mountain and back up to the city proper. In getting to the stadium though, I had gone down in altitude quite a ways, probably two hundred meters or more. This meant a rather strenuous climb back up to the top. So I was resting a lot along the way and looking out at the view, which was very nice.

Then there were scenes of people doing interesting things, such as praying at a roadside temple.

And as I was closing in on the city again, I met some children who wanted me to take their photos. They were cute.

And one was a pretty good photographer. She even made me look all right.