These dogs are sick of the monsoons too...
If you haven't already guessed, today has been a rainy day. I still tried to make the most of it, though with limited success. I started the day early, taking a drive to Sandakphu, a nearby peak (the highest in West Bengal) that provides 360 degree views of the Himalayas, including Everest and three of the next four highest peaks in the world. Sounds amazing, right? Unfortunately we aren't able to go all the way up to the peak after June 15 because the "animal breeding season" has begun and we're not supposed to interrupt them? We are allowed to go halfway up the mountain, but I am promised the views from there are spectacular as well.
We leave at 630 am because the day is supposed to get cloudier in the late morning. My driver makes sure I have my passport with me before we leave - apparently this drive involves going back to Nepal. This is the same driver who picked me up from Bhadrapur on Friday - today we were jammin' to Backstreet Boys and Adele. While I really love his taste in music, our soundtrack seemed a bit anachronous with the surroundings. Oh well :)
Our first stop is ManeyBanjang at the base of the mountain. We stop there for a cup of tea (of course) and then - to my surprise - we switch vehicles to a tank-like Land Rover. My driver stays behind while the new driver continues our trek up the mountain. I ride in the front seat, and in the back (which is open with benches parallel to the road, similar to a military vehicle. We have two additional passengers riding in the back, though their presence is never explained to me. My best guess is that we were giving them a ride up the mountain. I have to show my passport at ManeyBanjang - though it doesn't seem to be an official immigration site but more like a checkpoint. Then, we head up the mountain. At first it doesn't seem like a bad ride, but very quickly the paved roads gave way to a road pieced together with uneven rocks. From then on the rid was VERY bumpy - to the point where I had to hold on tight and brace myself every moment for fear of being knocked into the car door, ceiling or dashboard (oh yeah, there were no seat belts). It still happened a couple times anyway, so I expect I'll be sore tomorrow.
We made a few stops on our way up the mountain. First we stopped at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. It is situated right on the border of India and Nepal so that one side of the road leading to the monastery is in Nepal and the other side is India. This whole mountain is on the border, so we crossed back and forth between the countries several times throughout the trip. The monastery was small, quiet and peaceful - everything you would expect from a Tibetan monastery, really. They let us into the temple for a look around - the enter monastery had even built in 1910. The temple had three Buddha statues gifted by the king of Burma as thanks for miraculous healing acts done for him by the founder of the monastery. Interesting stuff.
Next we stopped at a house/restaurant for a cup of tea. My driver seemed to know everyone on the mountain and welcomed the opportunity to catch up with them. I was a little confused about where to sit when I entered the building - I basically had to walk through the owners' living quarters to get to the commercial dining area. My driver and fellow passengers were chilling with the family, so I wasn't sure if I was expected to do the same. Thankfully the owner ended my awkward hesitation by directing me to sit in the dining area. I took a seat across from a momma cat and her kitten. The mother was bathing her kitten as he drank her milk - it was sweet, actually. I had a delicious cup of tea and watched the clouds move around the foothills below me. 
Our next stop was at another security checkpoint, where I had to show my passport. Then back on the bumpiest road in the world for another 8 km or so, which took over an hour (!). We finally reach the highest point we are allowed to travel to, and I am rewarded with a magnificent view of...clouds. We are in the middle of a rain cloud so visibility is just terrible. I had been hoping the rain would clear or we would rise above the clouds. Nope.
This is the view I was supposed to have (from a photo on the wall of the hostel):
And this is the view I actually did have:
Doh.
We stopped and had another cup of tea at a hostel on the mountain - might as well do something while we're up there, right? Then it was time to head back down the mountain. The ride down was no smoother than the ascent. The main difference was that the driver would sometimes put the car into neutral and just let gravity take us down as far as we could go without him having to hit the gas. On the way up, by comparison, the engine had been working so hard that we had to stop and pour water over it at one point to cool it down. On the way down we did get stuck once - but it was only for about 10 minutes and was right next to this scenic Buddhist temple that had one of the cyndrilical prayer things powered by a stream do that it was always spinning in prayer.
As we stop at the mountain security checkpoint on the way down, the soldiers start loading big burlap sacks of potatoes and cabbage into the back of our truck. Hm, weird. Then they climb in as well! My driver - in broken English, mind you - tells me that we're giving them a ride. I'm in no position to say no, since there are a lot of them, only one of me, and they're the ones with rifles. So that's how I came to drive down a mountain riding shotgun in a truck filled with cabbage and Indian military personnel. How many girls from Michigan do you know that can say they've traveled around India with an armed military escort - not once, but twice in their lives? I'd bet not many. Side note: for those of you don't know the story of my 2005 passport incident that resulted in me being treated to a 4 am guided tour of Delhi international airport, accompanied by an entourage of heavily armed soldiers, remind me to tell you sometime...it's a doozy.
We get back to ManeyBanjang and meet up with my original driver. On the drive back to Darjeeling I ask him to take me to a tea garden so that I can do some more tasting. This effort proves to be futile, since I end up getting soaked in the rain trying to find the entrance to the place and it ends up being closed because it's Sunday. Tired, wet and hungry, I return back to Darjeeling to relax a little and hang out around town. I grab lunch at a Tibetan place near my hotel. I see a menu item I don't recognize - veg wai wai - and decide to give it a shot after being told it's a noodle soup. Turns out its just ramen. Awesome.
On a separate note, my travel plans have changed for tomorrow. I was originally planning on going to Varanasi for 2 days, but the city has been out on high alert following the Buddhust temple bombings last week. Apparently the holy sites in Varanasi are favorite targets for bombings and have been attacked as recently as 2010. These are the exact sites I was headed to Varanasi to see, so I've decided to skip that leg of my trip and return to Bombay a couple days early. I'm disappointed to not see Varanasi, but am trying to stay on the right side of the line between adventurous and stupid. Plus there's still plenty of stuff for me to do in Bombay before I leave and people to see as well. I'm still going to be making the most of my last couple days :)
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