This was supposed to be an entry about how funny it was to find a sandstone Kama Sutra ringing a Hindu temple* in a land that forbids even touching in public one's besmitted, beloved, or betrothed. Still funny to see a sandstone dude railing a sandstone horse** while his sandstone friend punches his sandstone bishop, watching and (could it be? really!) cheering him on. But now there's a real story to tell, not just a story about bestiality and how many handmaidens it takes to hold their mistress on her head so's she can get the business upside-down. Anyhoo:We arrived in Darjeeling on Monday after a night train from Kolkata and a rick to the Sumo stand in Siliguri for a winding ride up the cloud-forest foothills of the Himalaya. We opted against the Toy Train, thinking it was actually our choice to take a shared Tata SUV instead of the more scenic, UNESCO World Heritage rail route. Didn't see a train for the whole length of the narrow-gauge rail, which abutted the road for much of the ride into town. Thought it might be early in the season, might be down for repairs, might just be a holiday for the railworkers. Not so, not so...
A long climb from the jeep stop in Darjeeling to Chowrasta, the main square at the top of town, gave us a room for the nights we planned to spend, one with a fireplace to ward off the wintry chill at 2500 meters in February. Walking the town, we found an overdue meal and Darjeeling tea and pastries and an aimless ramble about before the town's early closing time. That first night we stopped for momos in a Clubside Tibetan joint and ran into G, who stayed at the same hotel as us in Agra. He's not an easy dude to mistake, a 350-pound Washingtonian with a piratical gold hoop through his left ear and a thunderous voice that sounded very odd indeed supporting John McCain between slurps of thukpa. He starts the convo (politics aside) after introductions and recognition by asking us if we're going to Nepal, if we'd like his Lonely Planet. We say yes and we've got one, respectively, and he's surprised to hear we're still going.
"There's a general strike in Nepal through the elections next month," he tells us in his basso profundo. "The whole country's shut down."
This is news to us. We knew Nepal might be sketchy, knew that a walk in the woods might mean an extortion stop by the local Maoist insurgents, but 5000 Nepali rupees should have done the trick and the Maoists (gotta love 'em!) issue receipts and pose for pictures. Guns and red bandannas and all. We were okay with a hundred-dollar photo op with rebels and Kalashnikovs, but news of a strike entirely changed the complexion of our proposed visit.
In the West, a strike means your garbage stinks in the streets for a couple of weeks, that you walk to work instead of taking the subway, that the Golden Globes are canceled but the Oscars roll as promised. Not so over here, Jack. A general strike, known in these parts as a bandh, means that every shop in town--every restaurant, every provisions store, every travel agent, every internet joint, every everybody--is closed. It means buses, Sumos, taxis, and horsecarts are not allowed on the streets, and there are roadblocks to enforce such. It means a disruption of daily life, nominally voluntary but often enforced with pressure tactics that can mean violence for business owners and drivers and the like who disobey the bandh.
It means we weren't going to Nepal. Fuck a duck, spit in its ear. But it gets better:
G: "You know, the Nepalese in Darjeeling district have been in a limited strike since before I got here. The Toy Train's not running, the Himalayan Mountain Institute is closed, the Zoo is closed, et cetera, et cetera." He continued, but we had heard what we needed to hear.
Huh, we thought. So sooner back down the mountain, and still no Toy Train.
The next day we spent figuring out plans to replace Nepal in our itinerary. Should we bounce back to Kolkata and west through Varanasi, pick up some spots in north India we hadn't seen? Nah, we decided. The north has been more expensive, more of a hassle, and generally less inviting than the south. No Nepal meant we might as well get back into a neighborhood we enjoyed the first time through. Southside, beachside, Goa-side. A little digging online found us two cheap tickets leaving Kolkata and landing in Goa a mere five hours later--a trip across a subcontinent in less time that it's taken us to travel one hundred kilometers on surface roads. Amazing stuff, progress. Travel plans solidified, compromise reached that's amenable to both of us, we set off in search of a beer before dinner. Falling asleep that night to a spitting fire (wood wet from the hour-long hailstorm that afternoon), we figured we'd use our last two days in Darjeeling wisely, check out what sights we could, walk the town and its surrounds, visit a monastery or two, and enjoy the crisp mountain air.
Waking up Wednesday morning, it was cold and grey and misty like it had been the last two days. Kanchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world and a stone's throw (in Himalayan terms) from Darjeeling, was still invisible behind the ring of clouds that had enveloped the town since our arrival. So we scrubbed brushed dressed and D, looking down from our hotel room, pointed out that all the stores on the street seemed to still be shuttered at 10 AM. Oh well, we thought. Surely there's a restaurant open down the way. Downstairs, we see that it's not only the shitshops beneath our window, but every door on the Mall is locked. Oh well, we thought. It's early, maybe Wednesday's like Sunday here. Walking down the Mall, the prospect of an open restaurant gets less and less promising. The idea disappears from our minds entirely when we hear the chants coming up the hillside beneath the Planter's Club.
"We want Gorkhaland! We want Gorkhaland!"***
Looking down over the sidewalk's railing, we saw a long procession of locals marching uphill toward us, arms waving, signs unfurled, shovels and brooms and wheelbarrows being brandished and waved and pushed.
Guess what, kids? Limited strike went general that morning. We were the last suckers to find out.
Double-timing back up the hill to Chowrasta and our hotel ahead of the marchers, we wondered why nobody had mentioned anything about this inhospitable turn of events. Not a word from our hotel guys, no signs plastered to shopfronts, no mention of "Stock up on food today" when we left the general store on Tuesday with a disposable razor and a pack of batteries and the assumption we could shop for self-catering goods the next morning. Nothing. Arriving back at the hotel, one of the roomboys stood on the ramp to the main entrance with us, silently watching the parade of protesters snake its way past us to the top of Chowrasta.
"Many problem in Darjeeling," he informed us with an out-of-place smile. "Too many people angry."
Minds where our mouths would like to be, we asked the important question though we already knew the answer: "So this strike, no restaurant? No food? No eating?"
He just laughed like he didn't understand the question. Or he did, and simply didn't want to disappoint us by confirming our fears.
We managed to wrangle eggs and toast (and tea, natch) from the hotel's back supply while the head man assured us that the strike would only last the one day. Placated, we watched the chanting and shovel-waving and flag-flying on the square below our picture windows before the protest turned suddenly, unexpectedly janitorial. The assembled ring of marchers broke up into groups of five and six and methodically swept every inch of Chowrasta, from the statues to the benches, Fiesta to New Dish Chinese. Wheelbarrows followed shovels followed brooms and there was nary a stray paan masala pouch to be found afterwards. It was the oddest ending to any protest I've ever heard of:"Hell no, we won't go!
"Without sweeping!
"Thoroughly!"
We spent the rest of the day shuttered in our room, watching the rain fall intermittently and napping through the afternoon. As darkness drew in around the mountain we walked between the five-star hotels at the top of the Mall in search of a restaurant that might be open--after all, there must be somebody on the hill spending dollars or euros and unable to leave on such short notice. The folks at the Windamere hooked us up with 600-roop-a-plate dinners with Western and Indian menus, and we were enjoying our steamed string beans and looking forward to the pear and ginger crumble when the English gent at the head of the room piped up, fork tinking on his wineglass.
"So sorry," he began, addressing his group of thirty or so package tourists dining with two ragged backpackers, "but it appears we will not be visiting Kalimpong as planned. As it stands, the police have granted us a permit to leave the city tomorrow afternoon, so our flights to Delhi will not be disrupted." A smattering of sighs and relieved chuckles. "Do try to understand that there is no getting around this inconvenience, that we are in the hands of a political situation and at the mercies of the local authorities. Does anyone have any questions about the new shed-jewel?"
As hands went up around the room and questions were asked and answered, D and I felt our stomachs drop and tighten around the swank food at the mention of "permit to leave." What was happening around us? We asked at our hotel and they informed us that the one-day strike had indeed been extended indefinitely, that the town would continue to be in lockdown except for pharmacies and the local (very British) boarding schools. So how do we get out of town? It's Wednesday night, we've got a flight from Kolkata on Saturday morning and that's thirteen hours by bus or train from Siliguri, which is four hours down a mountain studded with roadblocks like warts on a toad.
Our boy tells us there's another guest who's arranged a Sumo to make the Siliguri run under cover of darkness, he's leaving at 2 AM, he's got the whole jeep booked for himself at the cost of 2000 roops, roughly 50 dollars. For a moment we think we'll pack and run until he continues the story, that the jeep doesn't have permission from the political party that's arranged the bandh and that they're banking against getting stopped by its supporters, which will require a hefty additional baksheesh, or bribe, if they let them pass at all.
Sounds like just about the worst possible scenario, we think. Running lights-out in the inky Himalayan dark down 77 clicks of switchbacked, single-lane road, paved only in stretches, asphalt Band-Aids connecting a lacework of potholes and washouts. And without permission, to boot. We pass and spend a sleepless night wondering just how the shit we're gonna get out of Darjeeling.
Up early, we march down to the police station to ask how we go about securing a permit. Worst case, we're planning to throw ourselves on the mercy of the package-tour Brits staying at the Windamere, see if they can't smuggle us out on the roof of their permitted vehicles. Arriving at the old bus stand, site of the new cop stop, we see a rank of foreigners and Indians with suitcases and expectant faces, tourists awaiting transport out of the deepening political muck in the region. Speaking with the curt, distracted supervising officer, who greets me with "Any problem?" like I'd just asked him directions to the loo and returned in less time than it takes to piss, I find out that the assembled throng is waiting for a bus that will arrive at 9 AM. It's 9:20 and I ask if there's only one bus, if we've got time to get our backpacks and get back before the bus rolls, and he responds simply, "Hurry."
Cursing our lack of preparedness and thanking the gods for Indian Stretchable Time, we hustle back to Chowrasta, throw our bags together, and convince our boy at the hotel to take US twenties as more-than-sufficient payment for our stay (the bandh meant no ATMs, no moneychangers, no way for us to supplement the dwindling supply of rupees we hadn't been warned wouldn't be enough to get us through a strike). Booking it back down the hill and huffingpuffing in the thin mountain air, we arrive to see the same crowd, only bigger, waiting for the same bus. We drop our packs and find a modicum of relief from seeing the same faces as before eyeing us with the wolflike scorn one reserves for competitors at the food dish--"We might look like brothers, but motherfucker I will kill yo' ass if you're between me and that sliding door." We wait.
After thirty minutes or so, a Chevy SUV rolls to a stop just past our bags and a pack of kids speaking French barrels past us with their luggage, including an upright bass in a zippered nylon case. We wait on the situation's periphery, bags shouldered, jockeying for position with the others and watching a bunch of musicians with creative hair secure their instruments and luggage on the roofrack. Four guys, four girls, all speaking French and choosing seats, and then one of the girls says that the driver has told her there's room for two more. New arrival apparently, unaware that Indian private transport can fit a minimum of twenty schoolchildren or ten broad white Western asses. Without hesitation I hoist my bag up to Dreadlock on the roof and grab D's to do the same. The tying-down continues and we all pile in for the wait, watching flatbeds roll in through the police checkpoint with Gorkhalanders arriving for the day's protest (and window-washing?) who don't stop chanting even while they're being frisked.
After thirty minutes or so another dozen jeeps have pulled in behind us, each packing up with tourist-refugees and their belongings. Our procession assembled, a West Bengal police jeep pulls up in front of our lead car and it's Chello, let's go. Barely a click down the road our convoy pulls over for the police to top their tank, and one of the guys in the back of our ride points to the five peaks of Kanchenjunga over the right side of the road, so close you could scoop snowcones from its white tips. We tumble out of the vehicle, oohingahhing, all having arrived recently enough that this is our first glimpse of the mountain, awash in golden late-morning light and fading into mist where the sun hadn't yet ventured. Dreadlock points to another, more distant mountain, a triangle of white barely visible behind the floodlit Kanchenjunga, with a one-word question for our driver: "Everest?" Driver nods his assent and we stand there on the side of the road marveling at how close it seems, yet knowing how many miles and political movements lie in the gulf between.Back on the road, our Quebecois jeepmates break out everything that's not an upright bass and serenade our group with American bluegrass on mandolin and two guitars. Turns out they've been traveling through southeast Asia busking for their morning chai with hopes of hitting Kathmandu and playing for the backpackers and expats in Thamel. One song, improvised and in French but for the refrain, earned a call-and-response from the whole car:
"We want Gorkhaland! We want Gorkhaland!"
"We want whis-key! We want whis-key!"
Repeat.
So down the mountain we sped, our police escort rotating in each hillside village, our driver laughing at D's comment that it was a "tag-team" operation the WB police were running. In one nameless encampment of a dozen homes and a few hundred demonstrators, our jeep was stopped and the cops ahead of us squealed to a halt and poured out the back of their transport, rifles leveled, lathis poised. Just in case. They let us pass, but there lurked a possibility of a repeat in every one of a dozen or more assembled citizenries around each successive roadblock.
The ride down was alternatingly tense and lighthearted, the protesters outside our windows running to the first extreme; our traveling band, the other. Four hours later we were a short distance from Siliguri and I breathed a sigh of relief seeing storefronts proudly displaying their Technicolor assortments of chips sodas sweets, suddenly aware that the eeriest thing about Darjeeling shutting down was the absence of the rainbow of goods for sale. Having traded that riot of color on every street for the monochrome of steel shutters and padlocks, the little tea town at the top of the hill seemed the least inviting place on earth. "Gorkhaland for Gorkhas," they say. They can have Gorkhaland. It was nice being back in India.
And just as quickly as we arrived "back in India" we left again for Goa, that parallel universe on the Arabian Sea. Writing these words, we've been on the beach in Arambol for a week and will stay here for the remainder of our time in India, barring a few days in Delhi before our flight to Istanbul. It's a brief respite from traveling every day, a chance to chill out away from the problems that plagued our last few stops, to unpack and collect ourselves, to enjoy each other's company. As D said in Darjeeling, "Fuck this shit. I'm goin' to Goa." Eloquent and succinct, it's our mantra of late. This stop is also an opportunity to catch up on the entries I've been meaning to write, stories I haven't yet shared about places not yet mentioned here. Later. Now it's back to the beach. Still a few hours before sunset, you know? Peace.
*: At a place called Khajuraho which, phonetically, sounds a lot like "Cause you're a ho."
**: Incidentally, this is exactly how they got Mr. Ed to talk.
***: The history of the Gorkha (and I defer to the local spelling in this piece instead of the British "Gurkha" or "Ghurka") independence movement is a long one. They've been fighting in Darjeeling district to have their own state carved from West Bengal for almost thirty years, and it was a violent battle for many of those. The beheadings and shootings have abated in the years since an understanding was reached between the Gorkha party chiefs and the Indian government, but the tensions are still high in the region and bandhs in WB number in the ballpark of 50 per annum. For a detailed BBC account of our little fiasco, click here. For more information and history that I can possibly provide, look online and follow links about Nepal's Maoist insurgency to further illuminate the shadowy intricacies of the region's politics. There's also a great book touching on the Gorkha statehood movement by Kiran Desai called The Inheritance of Loss which, coincidentally, D just finished and I'm now reading.
