Babes in Tealand: A Day as Colonialists

We awoke the next morning to a rain shower and a giant spider friend who had crawled through the hole in the wall under the sink which a lot of low budget Indian places use as a drain, for shelter. After checking in at the miniature train station that runs the Toy Train to see if we could buy tickets from New Jalpaiguri station (we couldn't) we stopped in at the Dhirdham Temple, which was built as a replica of the great Shiva Temple of Pashupatinath near Kathmandu. We met a toddler running a toy race-car along the walls of the temple garden who coyly posed for pictures, and a father with his young daughter all dressed up in a lacy yellow dress, stopping in for late morning prayers.

We lunched at Glenarry's, very easily the nicest restaurant in Darjeeling, and enjoyed excellent service, white table-cloths and a silver tea-set. Later we realized that the middle-aged man seated at the table next to us is a well-known film director, Arjun Something, but I have yet to figure out who he is.

In the afternoon we visited the zoo, famous for its Red Panda and Snow Leopard Breeding Centers. What can you say about a zoo? A zoo is a zoo, good or bad, in Darjeeling or Washington, DC. But we did finally snap some shots (and some mojo) from that elusive beast, the Red Panda! (Photos to come)

Have I mentioned the phenomenon of many Asians taking photos of western tourists? Those of you who have traveled in Asia are familiar with this, and I got a taste of it myself while traveling for work two years ago, but India has taken this to a whole new level. In the best situation, the person asks politely to pose with you for a picture; in the worst, they just snap a shot of you on the street with their phone and act like nothing happened. Up until this point in the journey, I had had many unwilling shots taken and had posed with a young lady at Rabdantse, with a three year old girl and her mother at Hanuman Tok and now, with four biochemists from Bangladesh at the Darjeeling Zoo. I posed with some other, unknown men, later when the Bear forced me to pay 30 rupees to dress in the traditional Darjeeling teapicker costume and pose with a tea basket on my head.

In place of dinner we splurged on high tea at The Elgin Hotel. For 375 rupees each we enjoyed two pots of Darjeeling's finest, scones with butter and jam, cucumber sandwiches, vegetable pakora and shortbread.  The hotel is truly exquisite-potted palms, velvet brocade loveseats, mahogany armoires with Buddha statutes, and, all over, black and white photos of old Darjeeling and colonial life, as though the decor and service were not enough to remind you of the Raj that was. For those two hours, maybe for that entire day, maybe we had a taste of what the colonialists saw in that land that they bought and conquered, maybe, but probably not. As we left the hotel we asked how much a room for one night would cost and had to lift our jaws off the floor when met with the response of 6800 rupees per night.