Can you give us a lift?

As always when you you get out your city map, you underestimate the distances to travel. Despite the heat of the midday sun, and I have gained 20 degrees, from 7 to 27, we walk to India Gate, taking in the sights and sounds of street life along the way. At what seems a just round the corner extension to the walk to get to the Craft Village Museum we get chatting to some older policemen to check we are heading in the right direction. I cheekily ask if they will give us a lift, and we are then ushered into the police car, and duly dropped off at the museum, much to the wonderment of all passers by who saw us laughing and joking in the police car on the way. I was only kidding when I asked for the lift, so be careful what you wish for! Only in India! 

Farewell Again

Incredible India, thank you again for making me so welcome again, it was a dream trip to travel through such spectacular landscape and meet some amazing people. 

Is this hotel like India?

Back to Kolkatta for one last night and stay in a high end newly refurbished hotel. The rooms are spacious and modern, there's a TVs in the bathroom and the breakfast is great.  But outside the central streets have herds of goats, wonderful chai wallers and homeless sleeping in the pavements. The reception staff ask "is this hotel like India?" And I reply yes, you can shelter away from the harsh reality of the lives of the street people, you can buy grandeur but poverty is just s few steps away. 

Local gig

There's a famous band in town, putting on a concerts for the locals, we firstly hear them in the lodge, then head out to the temple in the village. We sit with the women and enjoy the music, the singer is great and her guitarist is fantastic, along with a flutist and the village band. There's a lot of present giving, as it's the end of Durga Puga. And then there's fabulous music, dancing and we're the only westerners there. Luckily the band do some translating for us, but it's an absolute privilege and highlight to be part of something that is so special. 

Super Sunderbans

Our eco-tour of the Sunderbans is just that. We snooze on the scenic three hour drive down, enjoying chai breaks along the way. We pass the Kolkata dump, which provides thousands of people with a living, sifting through the rubbish and recycling. This huge mound looks like a hill on the horizon, forever increasing in height as the rubbish increases. We then are treated to a flat landscape, which is a sheer novelty. On this trip we travel like locals, we take the local boats and auto rickshaws to get to our island, and then begin with a walking your of the village. 

This Eco-lodge has been well established with buy in from the local community, and it's fascinating to walk around. After watching a beautiful sunset we then go and listen to a local band, playing traditional music.  After dinner we take up the opportunity to walk guided by the moonlight to a locals home, where we sit and drink rice wine, talking of the devastation of the cyclone and tiger attacks. 

The next morning we are on the boat all day, spotting wildlife, walking in the fenced in section of the tiger reserve and enjoying the relaxing scenery, sitting on the top deck of the boat. The group of friends travelling from Kolkata have  peaked early and overdid the rice wine and rum and are sleeping it off in the deck below. Sadly the only tigers that we saw were those printed on a tourists shirt, but at the second and best tiger lookout all the Indian tourists were so loud, that they would have frightened away anything! 

No chance

 

So of course there's one more wait list challenge for our train travel. We have booked two trains to get us back down to Kolkata, but we are still on wait list for both! So expectantly we head to NJ P station and check online and we are on RAI cancellation for all for tickets on our best option for the return journey. So we head to the station masters office and he trawls through the paper print outs and we have two confirmed seats - brilliant news as it's still peak time on the trains with Durga Puga just finishing. So we wait patiently for the slightly delayed train, and are helped by some fellow passengers to leg it down the platform, as the direction of the train has changed from the previous one and our A1 carriage is at the opposite end. Then we squeeze all of our bags on and get comfortable on our two births, when the ticket inspector comes round and we ask if there's any spare births he replies "no chance" and we make the most of the space that we have, relieved that we have got a place on the train. 

Puke!

When I travelled in Tibet I went up to over 14,000 feet, so heading to the Yumtang Valley at a lower height I did not anticipate any problems. However despite the distracting beautiful vistas of snow capped mountains and Mount kunganjuna in a dizzy spell I puked and had to lay down. Altitude sickness had kicked in. On returning to the car I even turned down the offer of steamed momo's, so I must have been ill! In the afternoon we descended the mountains and crossed the Teeta River to stay in a fantastic homestay in Junga, surrounded by lush vegetation. Descending the steps from the road finished me off and I headed to bed, perhaps sleeping the same room as Prince of Noway, who brought his family here, to explore Sikkim.