From Kolkata to Darjeeling

So clearly we made it to Darjeeling, which is the most beautiful place I have ever been. But lets back up, and I'll catch you all up on the past few days. I don't have the best things to say about Kolkata, the two days we spent there we stayed mostly indoors. Being the third busiest city in India, it was an overwhelming first place to go to. The streets are just filled with people of all classes, going in every direction. The first thing I noticed was the traffic. There are relatively no traffic laws, and the taxi we took from the airport definetly gave you a little hair on your chest. The cars just zoom around, honking the entire time for everyone to get out of the way, and letting you know they will not slow down to avoid hitting you.It was common to see about five lanes of cars in what was actually two lanes. Took a bit to get used to. And don't even think about crossing the street, you are putting your life on the line. They WILL hit you. You can't really just sit down outside and enjoy yourself, because women will come up to you with their babies and beg you to buy them milk for them. It's hard enough to say no, and they don't take that for an answer. The follow you wherever you go, and if you do say yes, they will get their friends and their friends will follow you. The one time we tried to visit the markets we got followed by men, trying to get us to go into all the markets, once again not taking no for an answer. One man followed us for about 7 or 8 blocks, trying to persuade us even as we repeatedly said no, and the second he left another man followed suit. We ended up not even going inside the markets and ducked back into our hotel room to relax from the hectic ongoings of outside.

Our hotel We did come across this amazing Indian Museum. It was in this beautiful old mansion and had a bunch of different sections, fossils, archeology, zooology, history, bugs, birds, everything. They had dinosaurs and wooly mammoths! They went through the history of all the different tribes, and displayed what they looked like. It was by far my favorite part, and I even snuck a few pictures!Here are some other pictures I took in Kolkata.
So that was basicly Kolkata. Unfortunately I think we we're both too jetlagged and hot to enjoy it all, but we were just too excited to go to Darjeeling and only stayed for a day and a half. We left Wednesday night and took the 10 hour night train from Kolkata to another town in the foothills of the himalayas. The night train was...well it would have been fun and ruggid, but we got a little screwed. When we bought the tickets they told us one was confirmed, and one was on the waiting list but would be confirmed by the time we got to the trainstation. It was not. It took about twenty minutes into the trainride for us to figure out that we paid for two tickets, but in fact only got one. Best part? It was a full train and Trevor and I had to share a seat/bed. For a better understanding (and sympathy) I took a photo. You can't really see from this picture as well, but they were three beds ontop of eachother not quite long enough for an actual human. And Trevor and I got to share one. Now I dont know if you remember Trevors size, but he is a tall man. Ten hours. And in the morning we remembered the delicious biscuits we bought for the ride. We eagerly reached into the bag only to find that in the night...some creature (could have been anything, we couldnt pinput what) bit a good-sized hole into both bags and ate our delicious biscuits. Not cool, animal, not cool.

Exhibit A

We pushed our hunger aside and got through the rest of the ride. This is our sweet Darjeeling train.
We arent quite sure what town we arrived in, but within a minute of us getting off the train we were surrounded by children begging for food, touching our arms and looking at us with pleading eyes. We found a shared taxi that would bring us to Darjeeling, and as we waited for the taxi to fill, the children stood outside tapping our windows, despite the drivers pushing them away. How do you turn away a starving child? It's very hard to see. We took the taxi (a jeep) away from the small city, and towards the himalayas. Now for the people who visited Courtney, we all remember the cars (i cant remember how to spell Yaas, I know im butchering it) that took us from city to city in Africa. This was equally if not more terrifying. The streets are unpaved, and our driver was apparently trying to break some sort of record to get there. We zoomed around corners, zigzagging around other passing vehicles. I white-knuckled it the entire time. The two and a half hour hell-ride did make for some beautiful pictures. When we got out of the taxi, it was time to find a hotel. We were both sleep-deprived, I was a bit shaken up from the rocky ride, and everywhere we had to go was uphill. This is also at 6000o ft, so even walking was a bit harder. We were so exhausted that the second we got into our hotel room (we couldnt find the one we were looking for so we gave up found some random one that ended up being nice with a gorgeous view) , we passed out. The past twenty-four hours we spent not eating, unbearably uncomfortable on the train, white knuckling it on the terrifying (trevor loved it) taxi up to Darjeeling, caught up with us and we both went into an 18 hour coma. Seriously. So now I think you all are pretty much caught up. Next time I'll tell you all about the beautiful place that is Darjeeling, and all about our time here. Spoiler Alert: Its freakin awesome.
Love you all and miss everyone! And mom, check your myspace, I emailed you a couple days ago and you still haven't read it. Later!