Dear Family, Friends, and Fellow Readers,
After seeing the other eight start their hike towards the massive mountains, Mariah and I began our journey with our contact, Arthur and driver, Snoop Dog towards Ghoom. Ghoom is a city about 8K away from Darjeeling. In Ghoom, we stayed with a man, who usually leads the India Carpe Diem treks, named Raju, his sister, mother, and two nieces.
On the way to Ghoom, we must have stopped for momos (steamed dumplings) three times, and arriving at our homestay we had our fourth helping of momos, followed by a warm slumber in our room shaped like a rocketship.
The following day, we woke up with the expectations of going to town with Raju’s nieces. To our delight we began our adventure by going to a Tibetan refugee center where we saw people weaving carpets, painting being done on dressers, and people spinning wool. After that we went to the zoo where we saw a ton of animals – including Bengal tigers…unlike our tiger jungle tour… – in cages much bigger than at home. At the zoo, I also found a new obsession with red pandas (hint hint: XMAS PRESENT!?). At the zoo, we also saw an exhibit on hiking the Himalayas, but the power was out, so we couldn’t see too much. After the zoo we walked a couple kilometers to town where we went shopping, got tea, delicious egg rolls, and marshmallows to make rice crispy treats.
The next morning we woke up early to make the family rice crispy treats. It was a lot of fun and very successful. Plus, the family loved it…and so did we.
After breakfast, we were told we could go to town by ourselves, so we did. Raju’s sister – who said we should call her “Ama” meaning “mom” in Nepali – put us in a taxi jeep with ten other strangers. And off to town we went.
Since it was Diwali, we got our family a cake and ten strands of marigolds to decorate the house. The vanilla cake tasted like bubblegum, but the family liked it. The marigolds ended up being pretty useless because our family was Buddhist, and Diwali is a Hindu holiday. Instead of celebrating Diwali, they had a different prayer ceremony we were included in with bells, chanting, throwing marigold petals and receiving a blessed marigold and blessed 15R. After their ceremony, Raju, Arthur, and Snoop Dog had us walk around Ghoom to watch little kids set off fire works.
The next day we went around with Arthur, Raju, and Snoop Dog, followed by another day in town. That night, it was the coldest we’d been thus far and Mariah and I tried squeezing into a single bed – which only worked for the first half of the night.
The next morning we waited for Raju and Arthur to pick us up after getting 10 Thai people or our trek on wheels. I chose to opt out of the hiking trek because I broke my knee over the summer and climbing stairs up hills has bothered it. Mariah chose to opt out because of her asthma and fearing the several stories we heard the night before leaving Gangtok for the goodbyes to the rest of our group.
The ten Thai, Raju, and their guide were put into three 4×4’s without a covering on the backs of them. Mariah, Arthur, a new driver, and I were in the luggage jeep, so we had the luxury of space and a completely covered car, but the actual seats and roads weren’t so comfy.
Arriving at our first lodge, we had “chow mein and soup” which was really strained Wai Wai (Ramen noodles) and the strained soupy part. It wasn’t anything to complain about.
After lunch, Mariah and I walked around and met a sweet little girl who we took pictures of, played with, and walked around with. Going back to our lodge we met two English men who were hiking most of the same trail as we drove. We also met a kitten who had the best idea of sleeping in the heat of a warm fireplace.
A few hours before dinner, a guy with a tabla and a guy with a guitar came into our dining/common room of the lodge along with several other people who made a circle with chairs, and sang and danced. I actually pushed Mariah off my lap so she’d dance with them and seven other women started copying her hance moves. Later we had a delicious dinner with custard (pudding) for dessert…and off to an early bed we went!
The next morning we proceeded to our next lodge along a longer, seemingly more bumpy, and more back-achey road. When we arrived we met a puppy who snuggled between Mariah and myself. This lodge was the highest point of our trip reaching an altitude of 12,000 ft. That evening, most of the Thai got altitude sickness, so we all went to sleep pretty early. Around midnight, I felt something in my hair moving around, so I woke up and flung it across the room while screaming. Mariah chose to ignore me because she thought I was having a bad dream, until I yelled her name. Then we discovered a mouse went into her backpack, stole and ate one of her chocolate bars, and proceeded to climb into my hair. We shared a single bed for the rest of the night…
The next morning we woke up just in time to see a beautiful view of the mountains before the clouds covered them, ate creakfast, and began our drive down. Most of the ride down consisted of hailing. When we finally got down, we ended up in a village where we first got the Thai into 4×4’s – about 45 minutes from Darjeeling. There we used Arthur’s phone to call Simone and instead of going on another day of the icey wheel trek, we left to surprise the rest of the group in Darjeeling. After a nice night in Darjeeling, Jake, Ben, Ole, and our project director, Mike, went to Tiger Hill in Ghoom at four in the morning to see Mt. Everest, but to their dismay, there was an intense cloud cover, and they ended up not being able to see it. Our journey to Rishikesh and the ashram is now beginning.
Much love from Bri H. & Mariah!
