Darjeeling

After spending one last unexpected night in Kolkata to retrieve our passports, I flew back to Silguri and hopped in taxi to take me up to Darjeeling and meet up with Kiersten. The ride up was surprisingly long, steep, and narrow with filled with switchbacks. I knew that Darjeeling was a "hill station" but I was still surprised at how long it took to get there from the plains. Another thing that struck me was that I was now in tea country. Pretty much everywhere I looked on the ride up there was tea plantation.

Darjeeling itself is actually quite big, with multistory buildings perched high on the hillsides overlooking the Kanchendzonga range. Unfortunately for us it was unseasonably foggy and we would end up leaving Darjeeling without getting a glimpse of the world's 3rd highest mountain.

Kiersten was at the hotel when I arrived and was knowledgeable enough of the of the layout of the city to direct us to a nice place to eat. The next morning we met up with Kiersten's friend Amber, who she had met on the shared taxi the day before, and went to the Darjeeling zoo. It was a pretty cool zoo with all manner of Himalaya fauna on display, including snow leopard. Right next to the zoo was the Himalayan mountain institute where, among other things, we saw where Tenznig Norgway Sherpa was cremated,

Red panda

Snow leopard

View from our hotel

On my second day in Darjeeling, we toured one of the nearby tea plantations. We learned that black tea, green tea, and white tea all come from the same plant on our tour of the tea factory.  After our tour we sampled the finest tea from Happy Valley Tea Estate, it was delicious!

Showing us how to make the perfect tea.

Tea picker.

Tea pickers are small.

Happy Valley Tea Estate.

Shortly after drinking tea we decided that we wanted more, so made our way up to one of the fancier hotels (the Windermere) and indulged in a late afternoon tea, complete with pastries and tiny sandwiches. It was at the Winderemere that we were asked to accompany the hotel on a steam engine ride for a documentary that they were a part of. We had already planned to ride the famous Darjeeling trains so this invitation worked out perfectly. We're unsure where the documentary is going to aired but the cameraman said that it might get picked up by BBC for a travel show. Not only were we fed pastries and tea during our voyage, we also got to ride on one of the original steam engines rather than a diesel powered one that they typically use now for most rides.

Our little steam engine

Tea at the side of the track

The interior

The long mission east: Hyderabad and Kolkata

Hyderabad
After a week or so in Hampi it was time to move on. This portion of our trip involved the longest overland trip we had done so far. The first step was to get ourselves to Hyderabad from where we would catch a train to Kolkata. This involved another glorious sleep aboard a night bus. Fortunately we had a/c, so it wasn't too bad. We arrived in Hyderabad early in the morning and decided to book ourselves into a cheap hotel even though we were only staying for 12 hours. Despite being really tired we thought we would make the best of our time in the city. We grabbed a rickshaw to take us to the old city and spent the next few hours roaming around.

Probably the most recognisable monument in Hyderabad: Chaminar

We started by touring the massive gate known as Chaminar before getting lost among the many crowded alleyways of the old city. The craziest street we happened upon was basically an outdoor pet market selling everything from lime green chicks to black crows (a crow cost 150 rupees, I almost bought one for the day).

Watermelon wallah

Massive mosque (they wouldn't let us in because we were wearing shorts)

View from Chaminar

Can I interest you in a pink chick? They're cheep

Outdoor pet market

Alleyway in the old city

I didn't know Garry Oak construction did concrete work in Hyderabad. Nice job Mark.

The only thing that I regret about Hyderabad is that we didn't get to taste their famous Biryani.

Kolkata
The 27 hour train ride to Kolkata wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be. I watched some movies, slept, drank chai, and basically killed time until we arrived. I was pleasantly surprised by Kolkata. I wasn't sure how I would like India's second most populous city but it turned out to be my favourite. I loved the crumbling colonial buildings, old yellow taxis, hand drawn rickshaws, crazy markets, and the people were generally really nice. We only spent two days here but I could have totally stayed longer. There is so much to see and so much going on around you that it is hard to get bored. Our first day in the city we went and checked out the nearby Victoria memorial and the massive park known as the Maidan. In the evening we got lost in the night markets among crowds like I have never experienced in my entire life.

If you want a little taste of the madness check out this video I took from streetcar: the streets of Kolkata

Along the way Kiersten got interviewed by some students about whether or not the Internet should be censored

The street food in Kolkata was amazing

Horse drawn carriage near the maidan

Victoria memorial

View from Victoria Memorial

The awesome old ambassador taxis that were everywhere

The Maidan.  All the horses for the horse drawn carriages roam free here when they're not working.

I want an Enfield

Cane juice anyone?

The streets of Kolkata

Mosque

Kolkata is the only city in India that still has hand drawn rickshaw wallahs

Mmmmm roti

Copper market

On our second day we roamed around and ended up at ghat on the edge of the river where we met two awesome children that wanted nothing more than to be part of a little photo shoot. These were the best shots:

We also found our way to an area of town were they fabricate paper-marche gods:

65 rupee dosas make a great breakfast

I was kind of sad when we left Kolkata, not knowing when I would be back. Little did I know I would be back very soon.  We made our way by train to a small town named Silguri where would hire a jeep to take us to Darjeeling. Upon arrival in Silguri, Kiersten and I realised that we were missing some relatively important documents (our passports). Turns out we left them with our hotel in Kolkata. Normally hotels take your passports to photocopy and then return them immediately. This was not the case in Kolkata, both us and the hotel forgot about them. The next thing I knew Kiersten was on her way to Darjeeling while I was sitting in an airport waiting to board the next flight back to Kolkata. I guess it could of been worse, at least I got one last taste of Kolkata.