Tue 1st November, 2005 Arrived in
Siliguri after 24 hour train ride from Lucknow. Today is
Diwali, the Festival of Light, a bit like our Christmas and Guy
Fawkes night rolled into one. Checked into the West Bengal
Government run Mainak (no, not Maniac) Hotel, nice room for
Re467 including government taxes. I guess they would
have to charge them, wouldn't they. Back
to Itinerary Wed
2nd November, 2005 Spent the day
exploring the town of Siliguri, cycling around the back lanes of
the town and meeting some of the locals. This is the
second day of Diwali celebrations, and everyone is in a festive
mood. Managed to get tickets on the Toy Train
to Darjeeling for tomorrow, there were no second class tickets
left so we had to buy first, but they were only 230
Rupees. Had an excellent meal at
the Eminent Restaurant, in the Conclave Hotel. Chicken
Vindaloo! no less. Not a real Indian dish of
course, but one of my favourites, and the first time we've seen
it on a menu in India this time.
Thu 3rd to Mon 21st November, 2005 24 hour train ride to
Silaguri at the foothills of the Himalayas where we caught the famous toy train, of only four carriages on
narrow gauge line up to the town of Darjeeling. It was a fascinating journey, travelling from sea level up to 2000 meters
over 80ish kms of forested mountains and tea plantations punctuated with tiny
villages of tumble down shacks called houses!!
The journey is slow but comfortable in first class for 2.50 and a great
opportunity to view the country side and peoples of the foothills. At
stages you are one minute travelling forwards and the next in reverse as this is
the only way the little diesel engine can climb the steep hillsides in a zigzag
fashion. kids hang on the sides and jump on and off as we pass thro the
villages, it goes that slow!!! We arrived just b4 sunset to get a
spectacular view of the Kanchendzong( no doubt spelt wrong) at over 8000 meters the 3rd
highest peak in the Himalayas and in the world!
We find the place is very Britishy and cleaner and cooler than almost
everywhere we have so far been in India and we are presently staying in a
Chinese run hotel at 3.50 each per night which is about the going rate for a
decent clean place, although cheaper and dearer are of course available.
This one is clean (being Chinese run), water hot, view of mountains fantastic,
overlooking main thoroughfare, so a little noisy, incl sat tv, comfy chairs
and balcony.
It is a break to be here after all the extremely hot weather we have so far
run up against. The evenings are much cooler, and we have reinvested in
fleeces etc after sending some home while we were cycling in the
Ganges
flood plain towards Lucknow, both very flat and very hot.
The plains were dotted with many places of worship eg at Haridwar - a town
with ghats, bathing places, dense with statues of Hindu gods of
Lakshmi, Siva, Vishna, Ganesh to name just a few, jain temples of beautiful fine stonework
and Sikh and Buddhist places of worship too.
We have been fortunate to have been in various towns when festivals have
been going e.g. the festival of good over evil, Dussehra which was on in Dehra
Dun when we arrived there, the Hindu festival of Diwali last week, celebrated
with as much vigour as our Christmas and there is presently a carnival here in
Darjeeling.
Ganesh is the elephant headed god of good luck and prosperity and we carry
a miniature with us, (given as a gift to Paul and I on his birthday in Shimla
by a lovely couple we met on one of our other great train journeys from Kalka
near Chandigarh to Shimla, Vishal and Anju who live in Delhi) together with
Siva and Kev the Koala (not a real
one! Paul) our constant travelling companion!
I guess Ganesh is working well as Paul has had several premium bond wins, a
pools win and we are looking forward to winning on this weekends roll over Lotto (the British one, of course, bought tickets on internet) but have not yet had the email confirming!!!
Back
to Itinerary Tue
22nd November, 2005 Time to leave
Darjeeling. Having had a wonderfully refreshing break from
travelling for nearly 3 weeks, its time to move on. Today
we cycle back down to Siliguri, 80 km away and 2000metres lower
than Darjeeling. Some of you may now be spotting a pattern
(I have mentioned this before). Getting trains to tops of
big hills and cycling back down? Well, which way would you
rather do it? We're not stupid! Started
off with a climb up to Ghoum, 7km away and 200 metres higher
than Darjeeling, but that was the end of the hard work, it was
70 km of almost constant downhill from there. Not a
particularly good road surface, diabolical in places, and the
hundred or so level crossings were an additional hazard,
especially as they were not manned and barely even marked at
some places. Whiz around a corner and suddenly find you're
on the railway track. Nice. The Toy
Train, on its way to Siliguri as well, overtook us on the way up
the hill to Ghoum. We passed the "up" train just
before the halfway point, at around 35km, then overtook the
"down" train at about the 5okm mark. I thought
we were going slow! We had also stopped at a tea
plantation to sample some proper Darjeeling Tea. Arrived
in Siliguri at 4pm, returned to the Mainak Hotel, started with
the same argument/discussion about not leaving our bikes
outside, which we eventually won, again. Back
to Itinerary Wed
23rd and Thu 24th November, 2005 Made
plans for visiting Jaldapara National Park. Some people in
the WB Tourism Office were very helpful, but the woman who we
had to make hotel reservations through was not. The
helpful people told us we would be able to easily find somewhere
to stay on the outskirts of the park, so there is no need to
book. Good, we dont like to book in advance normally, but
we had hoped to get a room in the Forest Lodge, within the Park
itself, but that was fully booked. Also had a
fairly long shopping list of essentials to stock up on.
The first, and most important, a new rear tyre for my
bike. The wall of the tyre had worn through where it meets
the rim, probably because I had not inflated it enough at some
time. I wasn't holding out too much hope of finding a 20
inch tyre here, although I had seen a few in India, almost every
bicycle you see here has at least a 27 inch wheel. So
imagine my surprise when the first bike shop I stopped at, had
exactly what I was looking for, and only Re70, less than a quid. The
rest of my shopping list ranged from an anti-mosquito tablet
"cooker" to sachets of instant coffee powder. I
tried one little stall that I though might have a few of the
item on my list, but was amazed when he managed to supply the
whole lot, including a box of wooden toothpicks. An amazing
little shop. Having cleaned and
serviced our bikes, and fitted the new tyre to mine, we're ready
to start cycling again tomorrow. Just one more thing, a
lovely chicken vindaloo at the Eminent Restaurant. Fan-tastic! Back
to Itinerary Fri
25th November, 2005
Said our goodbyes at the Mainak hotel, about
half a dozen staff came out to wave us off as we cycled down the
drive. Not quite sure why we're so popular here, it's not like
we're big tippers or anything like that.
We planned to cycle to a town called Maynaguri,
about 20km beyond Jalpaiguri, making it about halfway to
Jaldapara National Park. I'd been told by the friendly
people at the WB Tourism Office that we were sure to find a
hotel in Maynaguri, but whilst stopping for brunch at an
unusually clean and bright motel, we were told there was no such
beast in Maynaguri, and not much between there and
Madarihat. So, not wanting to brave the traffic for the
whole 120km in one day, we called it a day once we reached
Jalpaiguri after just over 40km. We looked for the Tourist
Lodge, but on the way came across a nice looking new hotel in
the centre of town called Hotel de l'Pretom. They were very keen
for us stay, and at Re450 for a reasonable room, we were quite
keen too. The service was a little over the top maybe, we
had eight members of staff accompany us to our room! I
think they were eager to impress. During the first half
hour in our room, we must have had 6 knocks at the door, asking
if everything was alright, or if we wanted the bed turning down,
or did we want a drink, etc, etc.
The town is fairly quiet, mainly due to it
having a bypass. I took a walk around a few of the roads
near the hotel, but apart from one interesting looking Hindu
temple, there seemed to be little to see in the
town.
There were two restaurants, one described also
as a bar but they didn't have any alcohol, no licence yet
apparently. The menu was one of the most extensive Indian
menus we've seen this time in India. We've seen bigger
menus, but they were packed out with non-Indian dishes.
Rita had a mixed vegetable curry, I had a chicken kalia -
described as "chicken, Indian gravy, spices" - and the
usual accompaniments of roti, dhal fry and pickle. It was
probably the best meal we've had in India this time around, a
real pleasure to eat. On our way back to our room, one of the
managers gave us a large envelope, addressed to us with a
computer printed label, which turned out to contain a load of
literature about the hotel the hotel, its facilities and the
tours available from its very own tourist office. I get it
now, they think we're hotel inspectors or guide book
investigators!
Saturday. About 80km to go today, so started
early to try and get there early afternoon. Again, the
staff came out onto the hotel balcony to wave us off.
Perhaps its because they're happy to see us go? Can't be because
we're incredibly nice, generous, handsome people, could
it? Thought not.
The road was busy with pedestrians and push
bikes for the first few kilometres, with only one careful bus
driver carefully negotiating his way daintily through the
crowds. Actually, he raced through at 40kmph blasting his
horn and scattering people everywhere. Nice chap.
Back on the main road, we were faced with more
trucks, buses and mad, bad car drivers. After several near
death experiences, one particular driver, overtaking a bus which
was overtaking something else, raced towards me on my side of
the road leaving me no room and only seconds to get off the road
onto the stony dirt track below the tarmac. For legal
reasons I wont go into detail about exactly what followed next,
but the policeman driving the said car, immediately turned
around and pulled us over to remonstrate with me. I
claimed self defence, after all, he was trying to kill me, there
could be no other possible explanation for someone driving
directly at you at speed. He said that was nonsense, he
was driving perfectly properly and had left me ample room as he
performed his perfect overtaking maneuver. Ample
room? My bike is almost three feet wide with the panniers
on it, he left me no more than an inch. Nothing I said
would persuade him he was anything but the epitome of the
perfect Indian driver. I would agree that he was the
epitome of an Indian driver, i.e.: selfish, arrogant, no road
sense and no respect for other road users. I apologise to
the one per cent of Indian drivers who don't fall into this
category. He wasn't a happy bunny when he drove off, but
neither was I. .I am really beginning to regret the
decision to come cycling in India, and I have only one piece of
advice for anyone contemplating something similar: DON'T
Rita says: (coming soon) (...I'm
still waiting as well!)
After passing through Maynaguri, where we didn't
spot any hotels, the traffic thinned out a little, and became a
little more bearable. We started passing through more tea
plantations, spreading out as far as the eye could see from the
road side, interspersed with large arable areas with intensive
farming, mostly carried out by hand carried implements. It
looks like back braking work and I bet it is. We asked
directions at every junction, and were surprised by how few
people had heard of either Jaldapara or Madarihat, even allowing
for our bad pronunciation.
By the time we arrived at the entrance gate to
Jaldapara NP a little after 2pm, we were both feeling a little
saddle sore and tired. We asked about any vacancies at the
Forest Lodge, the government hotel within the park, but were
told that it could only be booked from Siliguri. So we
cycled on the half a kilometre to the small town of Madarihat
and soon located the Tourist Lodge, also government run,
which thankfully wasn't very busy at all and had plenty of
vacancies. The choice of rooms was a between small tin hut
affair behind the main buildings, with dim lighting and a pokey
bathroom stuck to the back, at Re650 a night, and a nice big,
airy room in a new block with two balconies and a satellite TV
for Re1000 a night. Not much competition really, we opted
for the comfortable room. Three meals a day were included
in both the room rates, so it made the price more
palatable. Forgive the pun
As I booked in, Rita was approached by a jeep
driver to see if we wanted to go on the afternoon jeep safari to
Jaldapara,
leaving in 10 minutes. Not wanting to miss out, we said
yes and rushed to our room, dropped of our bags and quickly
changed out of our cycling gear. But when we got back to
the jeep, the driver had negotiated a more lucrative deal with a
larger group, and there were no other vehicles available.
Ah well, it must be beer o'clock by now, time to repair to the
bar I'd spotted whilst checking in.
Dinner was quite interesting, with a choice of
veg or non-veg. I opted for the non-veg and Rita the
other. I had a couple of pieces of chicken in a curry
sauce, Rita had a mixed veg curry, and we shared an aloo dum
(potato curry) some roti and a large bowl of rice.
There were two options for safaris in the
morning, a one hour elephant ride. or a two hour jeep safari. We
wanted to try the elephant safari, as you are supposed to be
able to get closer to the animals on an elephant, but we had to
wait to see how many people staying at the Forest Lodge wanted
to go to see if there were any other places available. Of
course, everybody at the Forest Lodge opted for the elephant
ride and there was no room for us. So guess what, we booked on
the jeep safari. Get ready for a 6am start. We
booked tea and coffee for 530am to make sure we were awake.. Back
to Itinerary
Sun 27th to Mon 28th November, 2005
Up at the crack of a sparrows whats-it, our tea
and coffee arrived promptly at 5:30. It was quite cool as we
clambered into the back of our jeep, just before 6am, but
luckily it was only a 5 minute drive to the park. The
gates were still locked when we pulled up outside, meaning we
would be the first visitors of the day. Great, at least no one
has been scaring the animals already. We had paid last
night for the whole lot, but our guide and driver still had to
fill out paperwork in triplicate and sign their name in blood
(not really) before we could proceed any further.
Our guide seemed unusually quiet, for a guide. In fact, it was
the driver who was doing most of the talking, and it was the
driver who spotted our first wild animal of the day, a bison
deep in the jungle, 50 metres or more from the road. It
took us a minute or so to spot it, and the car was stationary,
so I dont know how the driver managed to see it while we were
traveling along at 25 miles an our.
On that point, he did seem to be going rather
fast for a safari. We've always thought that it's better
to drive slowly, and stop frequently to look for animals,
especially near rivers and watering holes where animals tend to
gather at dawn and dusk. I guess he was on a mission, our
"safari" was only for 2 hours, so he's got to get us
to the various viewing points in that time. We shot over
river bridges with barely a glimpse of the river banks, but I
suppose that if he does this trip every day, he probably knows
where we're going to see something. A short time after the
bison, the driver pointed out a spotted deer, staring back at us
through a gap in the bushes, obviously thinking 'they haven't
seen me, if I keep very still they'll just go away', which we
did.
We had been told that, apart from the rhinos,
there are supposed to be tigers, leopards and various other
dangerous animals, but we passed numerous locals who apparently
live within the park boundaries, riding along on bicycle or
walking, and they didn't look at all nervous. Perhaps they were
just really brave?
Anyway, after twenty minutes driving, we arrived
at the first viewing tower, also used by armed guards to keep an
eye out for poachers. We had a good clear view of the long
grassy terrain for several hundred metres all around the tower,
up to the tree line surrounding the large open area. But
we couldn't spot anything, and neither could our quiet guide or
driver. After 10 minutes of watching grass moving in the
breeze, we clambered back into the jeep and drove off at speed,
too fast again, to the text watch tower, about 20 minutes at a
decent slow pace. We were there in 10 minutes.
At this next tower, there was a large Indian
family already there, and they didn't seem that interested in
their surrounding, more interested in shouting at each other. So
after five minutes we gave up hope of them shutting up and left
that tower, heading back to the first tower again.
There apparently wasn't any other place that they would take us
to, not within the limited time of this safari, anyway. We
saw a fantastic kingfisher on a electricity wire over a river on
the way, and a bird of prey, an eagle we were told, not far away
as well. We also saw a wild pig and a spotted deer. .Back
at the first tower, we were the only people again, but aside
from a domesticated elephant with mahout, there was no sign of
any wildlife. We spent some time scanning the area around
the tower, but there was nothing out there that any of us could
see. So, as the end of our time neared, we left the
tower to go to the final stop of the safari, the Forest Lodge,
in front of which there is a large clearing when various animals
can often be seen.
On the way to the lodge, Rita got fed up with
them driving too fast to spot anything, especially passed
watering holes and rivers, so as we approached the last bridge
before the lodge, she asked them to stop for a minute so we
could see what we might see. And sure enough, there was a
rhino stood on the bank of the river, a hundred metres from the
bridge. OK, so it was only the rear half we could see, but
it was definitely a rhino. It seemed to be poised, waiting
for something, or perhaps catching his breath as he tried to
climb the steep bank of the river. Then the guide
spotted another rhino, about twenty yards from the
first. We could only just make out part of its back, but
it was in front of the first rhino, so was obviously the reason
the first rhino had hesitated on the bank, trying to avoid a
confrontation. We watched for a good ten minutes, taking
lots of photos of the backside of the rhino on the river bank,
but then he disappeared from view and all the excitement was
over.
At the lodge there were a few deer and some
peacocks, but nothing else. I think the guide and driver
felt a little embarrassed that we hadn't seen more, but hey,
like they say, there's no guarantee, and we did see bits of two
different rhino, dear, bison, pig (wild), and various birds, so
we didn't do too badly at all. Was it worth getting up at
5:30 for? Definitely.
Back at the lodge, we had breakfast of aloo dum
and roti, normally served with puris, but as they're deep fried,
we find them too oily for breakfast. We then booked the
same guide and driver to take use to the leopard reserve down
the road. They said we were sure to see some leopards,
they weren't in cages but were in a confined area. A
couple we had met in the restaurant last night, Jenny and
Fabian, arrived for breakfast at the same time as us and said
they were also interested in going, making it a lot cheaper as
the jeep hire was the most expensive element, so it cost us 450
rupees between the four of us.
The leopard park is 15 minute drive down the
main road, then another fifteen minutes on a dirt track.
We had been given the impression that we would be driven around
the leopard park in the jeep, but that turned out to be a clever
use of words. The leopard enclosure turned out to be a
large fenced off area, full of trees and bushes, that we could
walk around the outside of and peer through the netting at the
leopards wandering around inside. I guess it was not a
cage in the normal sense of the words, but we felt the
description we had been given didn't quite meet the reality of
what we saw. And as for being able to drive around the
enclosure, this was possible, but only in a special enclosed
electric car, at a cost of an extra 500 rupees each. No
thanks. There were apparerntly 12 leopards in the
enclosure, which covered an area of maybe 2 3 or 4 acres, not
much space for animals that are solitary in nature. We
could see the animosity between some of the leopards as they got
close to each other, they seemed to stick to their own little
patch within the enclosure. Shame, really.
There was also a new area being built for
some tigers, I think they had been saved from a circus, but I'm
not sure saved would be a good adjective. The new
compounds consisted of a large area of dirt and a couple of tree
stumps. The tigers weren't even allowed to use this meager
area, they were confined to small rooms at the end of the
compound with thick bars. All a bit disappointing, really.
Got back to the our hotel in time for
lunch. We'd both opted for the veggie version this time,
which turned out to be the same as what Rita had last night,
including a dum aloo not dissimilar from what we had for
breakfast.. Oh, the joys of a regular diet.
After so much excitement in the morning, we were
wiped out after lunch, so we chilled out in the afternoon and
didn't do much at all. I went off for a short walk in the
local woods, hoping to finds a snake or even two, but no such
luck. We've been in many countries where there are
supposed to be an abundance of snakes, and India is one of them,
but they are an elusive creature, you need to know where and
when to look. I guess I don't. I couldn't face the
same food for dinner as I'd already eaten for breakfast and
lunch, so passed on it. Rita went to the restaurant in the
hope of a surprise, but ended up with the same. I think
they cook a big batch of it every few days, then keep slopping
it out until they run out. A bit unfair perhaps, it was
quite edible, just a little boring to get it 3 times a
day.
After yesterdays early exertions, we had a bit
of a lie in today, Monday. For breakfast I thought I would
break the monotony and opted for an omelet, which actually
wasn't too bad, Rita, being a glutton for punishment, went
for the aloo puri, which tasted strangely like her last 4
meals. We booked on the afternoon safari trip in to the
Jaldapara park, it was the same format as the early morning one,
but finishing around dusk. Most animals in wildlife parks
are most active at these times, either early morning or late
afternoon/evening, so we hoped to see a bit more this time.
We had some company on this trip, two Americans,
a father and son, who had just arrived at the hotel and booked
straight on to the safari. At least it meant we didn't
have to pay so much. We set off promptly at 3pm, following
the same route to the first tower. We saw a few birds on
the way, kingfisher and eagle again, might even have been the
same two, but not much sign of anything else. Without
going into the laborious details of our comings and going within
the park, we saw the following at some stage: a herd of
spotted dear, one with large antlers; a pair of barking dear;
several rhinos, one only 20 metres away; a wild pig; peacocks;
and various other species of birds All in all, quite a
successful trip.
Back at the hotel, we couldn't be bothered to make it to the
restaurant for dinner, but as we'd ordered it, we had it
delivered to our room. And guess what? It was the
same a last nights. Yummy. Back
to Itinerary
Tue
29th November, 2005
Time to leave Jaldapara. Can't face another day of
near death experiences on our bikes, so we're going to use one
of our arch enemies, the buses! It had taken us 9 hours over
two days to cycle to Jaldapara from Siliguri, so it was a
pleasant surprise to find that the 125km journey back by bus
would only take 5 hours and cost 175 rupees each, including
bike. It was a little disappointing to learn that by
cycling we had only saved 350 rupees, but we aren't cycling to
save money, more for the exercise and for the people and places
you get a better chance to see on the way.
The time passed quickly on the bus, even though
it was a bit cramped at times. We were sat on a three
seater bench, which would only be a two-seater in a western
country, but some of the time we had it too ourselves, sometimes
we had to squeeze a third person in. The seats are quite
hard and there is a lot of exposed metal, making any movement a
potentially painful experience. Other that that, it was
great!
We arrived back in Siliguri bus station in
mid-afternoon, then cycled up to our usual hotel, the Mainak
Tourist Lodge. They were pleased to see us again, although
they still wanted to see our passports and fill out all the same
paperwork again. They should know our details off by heart
by now. We opted for a cheaper room this time, we didn't
need air-con as it wasn't that hot and the air-con was too
noisy! 700 rupees a night, plus taxes, but we managed to wangle
a 10% discount. Not easy in these government run places.
Back
to Itinerary
Wed
30th November to Monday 5th December, 2005
We had run out of one of the two types of anti-malarial
drugs we had been taking. We had initially easily bought
some in Delhi, but only bought a months supply as they seemed
easy to get hold of, and we didn't need them in Ladakh or
Darjeeling, both places being above 2000 metres. But since
Delhi, we had not been able to find anywhere that sold this
particular drug, Paludrine. So last week, we had contacted
our friends Vishal and Anju in Delhi, and asked them to buy some
there and send them to us at the Mainak by courier. So our
plan now was to wait for the tablets to turn up, then move on to
the south of West Bengal.
We had various things to keep us occupied while
we waited for our parcel. Rita was still doing her
tefl course, and spent a lot of time on that. I had the
website to update, an ongoing job, but I'm getting the hang of
it now. I also had a lot of photos to sort out, backup and
select for the website. We've taken an awful lot of photos
since we arrived in India, about 7000 between us, and I've been
looking for a suitable program to allow me to update the
description embedded within the data of the jpeg format, known
as the EXIF data. But I have not been able to find a free
(I dont want to have to pay for it!) program that quickly and
easily lets you modify the EXIF description data. So I've
started to write a program in Visual Basic, a language I have
played briefly with in the past but am far from proficient
at. Give me a real computer like the AS/400 with manly
program languages like RPGLE any day.
There was also a big wedding in the offing at
the hotel. They had just started setting up the paraphernalia
in the garden in front of the hotel when we arrived on the
Tuesday, and during the rest of the week, they kept plugging
away at it so that by Saturday afternoon, all was ready.
On Saturday morning, and actually, most days before then,
I didn't think they were going to make it, but they brought in a
lot of extra people to set up all the wooden boarding for the
floors, lighting, "castle walls" effect around the
outside, carpets, tables, chairs, cooking equipment, flowers,
drinks stall (non-alcoholic, of course) and all the other
accoutrements for a successful Indian wedding. There were
two raised platforms at one end, one for the live band, the
other was where the happy couple would spend most of their time
during the wedding, having their photos taken with a constant
procession of guests, presenting gifts. They even cleaned
and painted the outside of the hotel, only with a light coat of
emulsion, but it did make things look a lot brighter. They
also installed a small fountain in the small pond in front of
the hotel entrance, which looked quite good, except they made no
attempt to hide the pump and the brightly coloured pipework,
which rather spoiled the effect of it all. Incredible India.
The wedding itself seemed to pass off very well,
although I'm no expert on weddings, that's Rita's department,
(she's gonna kill me for that!) We didn't quite manage to
get an invite, but we had a great view from the roof above the
reception area, easily accessed from the temporary dining room
we had to use because the wedding had taken over the usual
dining hall as well. And a good time was had by
all. Luckily for us, the music and dancing didn't go on
all night, as our room overlooked the garden where the wedding
was held.
We waited until the following Monday for our
tablets to turn up, but there seemed to be a problem with the
courier, and Vishal was away working and having problems with
his mobile, so we decided we couldn't wait any longer and would
set off again tomorrow.
Back
to Itinerary Tue 6th December to Thu 8th December
We tried to get seats on the train to Malda, in central West
Bengal, but no such luck. So we had to go for a bus, and
the only ones leaving in the morning were the state run
buses. Oh what joy. I had to put the bikes up on the
roof myself, which I prefer to do anyway so I can make sure
they're fastened down properly, and I normally lock them to the
roof rack as well. The bus wasn't too full as it
left the bus station, so we managed to get fairly good seats in
the middle of the bus, well forward of the rear axle.
Seats behind that are more prone to bouncing, we find, although
I'm not quite sure of the theory behind that.
It was only 250km to Malda, should be there in
no time, even allowing for the occasional stop. We seemed
to race along at times, felt like 40 to 50mph, but it was to
take up 7 hours before we rolled up in the Malda bus
station. That's less than 20 mph on average, and we only
had 2 longer stops of about 10 minutes each? Why does it
take so long? One place we lost a lot of time was at a
railway level crossing, a common place for hold ups. I've gone
into detail about the Indian drivers habits at level crossings,
and needles to say, this one was no exception to the general
rule, but deserves special mention.. The crossing was in
the middle of a small town, and the road through the town was
quite narrow, only just wide enough for two vehicles. We
pulled up behind a long line of vehicles, mostly trucks, and our
driver turned off his engine. At this point I thought this
could go well, if everyone keeps their cool and wait in line,
when the crossing opens, we'll soon be over. I spoke too
soon. After twenty seconds of waiting, and with nothing
coming the opposite way, our driver got impatient and took off
down the wrong side of the road. Of course, after 50
yards, several trucks came from the opposite direction, and we
then spent the next 15 minutes inching backwards and forwards,
not getting anywhere, but finally managed to pull back into the
left hand lane and the lorries passed. You'd think he'd
have learnt his lesson by now, but no, twice more we set off on
the wrong side, only to completely block the road twice more for
10 minutes or more. After an hour, we finally made it
across the railway line, and slowly picked up speed. If
everyone had queued up orderly, like we British like to do, we
could have been across in 15 minutes. I despair.
Found a nice hotel in Malda, on the edge of
town, the Royal Park. Quite a new place, it even had a
lift. We opted for a more expensive room, Re1000, mainly
because it was so much better than the cheaper option we were
offered, and Rita negotiated 20% discount because we're such
nice people. Well, we like to think so. We had
dinner in the "restaurant", I use the term with
caution as it was a room with tables and chairs. The thing
that clinched it was the table cloths, with the stains of a
hundred meals still on them. Nice. I went for a
veggie option, as Rita always does, not sure I fancy risking any
chicken here, although our fried noodles turned out to be quite
edible.
Why Malda, many people will ask. Actually,
most people would ask where the hell is Malda. Its not a
famous place, but it is quite well know in India for its
succulent mellons, but down the road a little ways in the
deserted city of Gaur. Gaur was an important local city
until it was sacked by Sher Shah Suri in 1537, and, as if that
wasn't enough, the local population was wiped out by the plaque
in 1575. What remains of the city today are a number of
ruins of temples, mosques and palaces, spread out over a large
area and now surrounded by farming and mango trees.
Gaur is about 15km south of Malda, 3 km on the
main road, then a pleasant, if slightly bumpy cycle to the old
city. We saw many different types of water birds in the
water lakes, streams and fields alongside the road, and we
stopped so often to watch and photograph them and the local
people, that it took us almost 2 hours to reach the first of the
ruins, the 15th century Tantapara mosque. The first thing
that struck us was how nicely the gardens around the ruin were
maintained, neatly mown grass with edged with nicely trimmed
hedges. I'm not sure I've seen anything quite like it for
neatness anywhere else in India. Perhaps its because this
place doesn't get very many visitors? The mosque itself is
built of small red bricks, with some fine carvings in the
brickwork above the arches, and a domed roof, also made of
brick. There was no one else there as we walked around,
not even a guard or someone offering their services as a
guide. Again, I suppose there are so few visitors its not
worth somebody's time to wait around on the off chance.
The next important building was the Lattan
(Painted) Mosque, where we found a number of people at work
rebuilding some parts of the building, and doing it very
well. It's called the Painted Mosque because it used to be
covered in green, white, yellow and blue glazed tiles, some of
which were still in place, but it was difficult to imagine how
it would have looked in its hey-day. One of the
workers, one of the bosses I'd say, took it upon himself to
guide us around the building, even opening a locked gate so we
could have a look inside. Of course, this brought forth a
request for baksheesh, so I gave him 20 rupees.
We cycled further south, thinking we would come
across the main group of buildings, but I had miss-read our
position on our little map, and we soon came across a long queue
of trucks. At the head of the queue was an armed guard, it
was only when we tried to go pass him to have a look at the huge
old gateway just beyond that we found out we were trying to
cross the border into Bangladesh. We didn't realise we
were so close to it. This was not an official entry
point for tourists, so even if we had a Bangladesh visa, we
would not have been allowed to cross. Shame, really, it
was an interesting looking gateway.
Turning back north, we soon took a side road to
try and locate the main palace, it must be up here
somewhere. After 20 minutes of cycling along winding
lanes, we hadn't seen anything but a lot of paddy fields and
mango trees. We came across a small village and tried to
ask where the palace and mosques were, but they kept on pointing
back the way we had come. We didn't have time to go back,
so we headed back in the Malda direction. The road we were
following petered out into a dirt track, but it was mostly dry
and we passed several other people on bikes so we pressed
on. After crossing a few narrow bridges across a river and
negotiating the narrow paths around a paddy field, we came
across the palace we had been looking for. Of course, I
knew where it was all along!
The palace had been a huge wooden building, and
nothing now remained of it except for the extensive stone and
brick foundations, which were in the process of being
excavated. The whole area was surrounded by an enormous
brick wall, apparently 22 yards in height. Most of it is still
there, quite an impressive sight. Now we had relocated
ourselves on the map, it was quite easy to find the other
interesting building to visit. At one mosque, we came across a
group of Indian tourists, the first group of visitors in the
area we had seen all day. They were being driven around in
a land cruiser, and they had a guide. Time was getting on
though, and we still had about 15km to go to get back to Malda
before the sun went down just before 5pm, so we had to crack
on. We stopped at a couple more ruins on the way, and
passed through several small interesting villages, one of which
had a small scale silk worm farm on the go. We could see
the various stages of the silk worm, from it roaming around free
as a....a .. silk worm, to them cocooning themselves in little
yellow ball, then finally being murdered in boiling water so
that they dont turn into moths and break out of their cocoon,
thus breaking the precious silk thread.
We got back to the hotel a dusk, couldn't face
the dirty tablecloths in the restaurant so we dined in our
room. A suitable end to a really quite special day,
probably one of most enjoyable days in India this
time. .
Back
to Itinerary
Fri 9th to Sun 11th December, 2005
Problem with the buses. There are strikes
going on in the private bus sector, so only the government buses
were running. We wanted to go to the university town of
Santiniketan, supposed to be a nice place to visit by all accounts, where
the philosopher Tagore set up a uni there, but we
spent an age trying to find a route by bus and were told so many
different options and nobody really seemed to know, so we gave
up and got the 9am Kolkata bus instead. Sorry,
Santiniketan, not this time.
Its a little over 300km from Malda to Kolkata,
so based on our experience the other day, that's about 8 hours,
allowing for the fact that the road we're travelling on is one
of the main roads in West Bengal, the back bone of the
state. Well, it is supposed to be, but I've seen mud
tracks in other countries which are better maintained than this
one! Calling it a road would be an exaggeration, its more
a sequence of potholes connected by infrequent patches of
something that might have been, at some stage, tarmac. I'm sure
I saw a family of rhinos living in one of the pot-holes as we
drove around it! After about 6 hours of jostling and
bumping along, at around 3pm, we hoped we wouldn't have
too much more to do, so we tentatively asked the conductor what
time we would be arriving. He held up five fingers. Great
we'll be there at 5pm, we though. How wrong we were.
He meant another 5 hours, we realised some time later, after we
passed a sign saying Kolkata was 125km away. Oh well,
there's nothing we can do but grin and bear it.
At 8:15pm, we arrived at the Esplanade in the
centre of Kolkata. I unloaded the bikes from the roof rack,
lowering them down to Rita on the road below as she also tried
to keep a watchful eye on our luggage. Luckily, t'was
fairly quiet in the area at that time. Actually, we were
quite surprised by how quiet the roads seemed, relatively at
least. We both thought that Kolkata was jam packed solid
all the time, but we managed to cross the road with our bikes
with little effort, and cycled easily down the road to the
backpackers area of the City, around Sudder Street. We
found a nice room at the fairly new Presidency Hotel, after
checking out several other on Sudder Street itself which were
too expensive, grubby and/ or small. It was getting late,
we were hungry, and we could always look for somewhere
tomorrow. Re1200 for a night was a little on the expensive
side for our budget, but this place seems quite expensive.
Had a late dinner at a busy bar/restaurant on
Sudder Street, not too dingy for an Indian bar, perhaps they've
learning the errors of there ways!
(Rita writes)
Kolkata, or Calcutta as it used to be
called if you are as old as me. We arrived there at around 8pm
after yet another hideous 11 hour bus journey from Malda - half
way between Calcutta and Siliguri.
We got off on the main drag and Paul
unloaded bikes much to the amusement of the locals. A lad of
about 16 with no legs and fingers, sat near us in a home
constructed elaborate wheel chair and I asked him the way to
Sudder Street, back packer area of the city. It wasn't far and
we made off up the road. We passed the wonderful OBEROI Grand
hotel en route and we were tempted but then we can live in India
for 2 months for one breakfast there, ( perhaps not quite) - so
we moved on.
The street was a seething mass of
rickshaws, trucks, buses, beggars cows, goats, crows and kids in
rags, peddlers and "with a complete absence of toilets -
people carrying out their bodily needs in the street". We arrived
near a hotel called the presidency and other places round about
looked dire - so I thought lets try our luck and barter hard.
Bear in mind if you have a shit journey you also need somewhere
a bit easy on your sensitivities and this place turned out to be
just the ticket. Bikes in our room and on the fourth floor but
at £7.00 each per night we booked in expecting to move on the
following day. That didn't happen and we remained there for the
duration of our stay in Calcutta.
We were up late next morning and ate in
the small and scrubby hotel cafe, a pretty nice fruit salad and Paul
ate omelette - OK!!!!
We stepped outside at around midday to
be met with stinky open drains, kids begging, plastic makeshift
tents strung up along the pavement railings, rabid, scabby dogs,
touts pushing tours, rickshaw cyclists, disabled beggars on
platforms with wheels, cattle, crows, goats and kids, monkeys,
marigold vendors and tiny shrines.
We have had serious thoughts of buying,
renting or stealing a vehicle for the rest of our stay here
since we had already almost met our master on the roads on
cycles several time. Today we looked into the possibilities with
Tata and Maruti, two big companies over here. After a stressy
exercise we came to the conclusion the Indian market is not yet
ready for this type of entrepreneurial spirit in their tourists
and resolved to let the train take the strain.
I had thought we would visit mother
Theresa's home when we were reminded of her as we walked down
the famous Park Street, where all the posh restaurants and
gathering places and theatres used to be in the days of the
British Raj. Her bust on one of the junctions, with a banner
displayed behind for Pioneer was a clever shot. But poverty
meets you here at every turn and we didn't somehow feel the need
to see any more than our fair share.
We ate in the Lotus 33 restaurant where
we had a fine Indian meal but rather pricey at around a fiver
each (by Indian standards) - However I was pissed off with the
attitude of the restaurant manager. I thought the waiter was one
of the best and intended to tip accordingly but could see the
manager was hanging around to grab whatever we left. In the end
we left nothing on the table and the Manager had the audacity as
we were leaving to say "Nothing for me?" He was mean
and calculating. The waiter I gave a tip as we walked
downstairs, the manager spitefully was watching incase I did
this - so I made a big show of it. Who says the class system doesn't
still exist?
Following day we walked over the Maidan
towards the famous Fort William, now an army barracks and
towards the racecourse. The Maidan is a huge park with mango and
banyan trees where all and sundry can be found flying kites,
playing cricket, flogging samosas, pakoras, juices, pan, and
even candy floss, and punters operating horse rides and
carousels for kids.
The horse racing takes place quite
early in the day, because of the heat and we thought better of
losing our money on the last race, but it was interesting to see
the Indian champagne set enjoying their wealth in the members
enclosure quite a contrast with the other extreme that we have
witnessed elsewhere.
The fabulous Victoria memorial building
in brilliant white marble stands impressively behind the Maidan
and dominates the whole area. ( We also came across the almost
equally impressive St Paul's cathedral where a xmas pageant was
being rehearsed). The Victoria memorial was built to commemorate
her sixty three year reign and erected with funds given by the
Indian people!
Our friends Vishal and Anju recommended
the book "City of Joy" by Dominique Lapierre to us and
now half way through it I would also recommend it for exactly
capturing the flavour of this phenomenal city.
We visited the colonial and famous
Fairlawn hotel in our Sudder street area -it's quaint and
expensive and we had a couple of beers there. The meal times are
formal and one is attended by waiters in turbans!! Its the ideal
place for rich English women travelling alone!!!!!
The following day I visited the huge
museum. Well worth it for the great exhibits of stuffed wild
life of the country, the varieties of insects and the variety of
statues of the Hindu gods, but also for the marvellous building
itself which has been kept in fine order.
We contacted our Calcuttan friends and
they recommended Lindsays roof top restaurant for a meal.
Surprsiingly Indians have not yet grasped the sensuous luxury of
open air roof top restaurants and we have found very few as we
have travelled. This one was small and even so offered a covered
and dark alternative nearby (why so dark and dingy I ask
myself). The food there was Indian, Thai, Chinese and
continental and very good.
Thinking ahead we booked our ticket out
and the following day we cycled off early in the morning over
the winding Hooghly river to the very famous HOWRAH station,
passing again the Maidan and the Stadium where the first cricket
match was played in 1804.
Howrah station is am amazingly modern
place relatively and I was impressed. A station of the Victorian
style much like the feel of Paddington. It was of course
swarming with yellow taxis (probably over 100 within my view)
and "coolies" and thousands rushing here there and
everywhere on their commute to work.
Paul dived straight into a cafe and
bought a masala dosa - impressing the locals by eating with his
bare hands not using knife and fork!!!
I took a couple of veggie burgers and
some fruit (readily available) and we got on board our train for
the 8 hour trip to the town of Bhubaneshwar. We could feel the
change in the countryside as we travelled towards the coast. We
were entertained by a host of food vendors on the train, Orissan
dancers and transvestites who simply wanted to embarrass us into
giving them money - my they were good looking!!! We had a really
enjoyable journey, pleased to get out of the masses of the state
of West Bengal heading towards the beautiful state of Orissa.
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