Into every happy tale

...a little strife must fall (or however the fuck it goes).

It's not too bad, and it's all worked out for the better, but I had a nail-biting moment in the Middle Of Nowhere, West Bengal, India. Long story short, I missed my train to Kolkata. *sigh* Here's the story of my day...

I woke up early again, which while being a personal habit of mine while traveling, is also unavoidable at the Modern Central Lodge in Gangtok. Everything is concrete and my room had a window looking over the outdoor staircase for the residential building next to it. Result? You can hear EVERYTHING on that side of the building and pretty much everything on the street below as well. A baby started squalling around 4:30 and was still going at it when I left the room at 5:30. I decided to take a taxi out to Tashi viewpoint again to see if maybe the peak of Kangchenjunga was clear instead of obscured by clouds as it was the day before. SUCCESS!! Clear sky, absolutely stunning view, shitloads of pictures.

I went back to the hotel for breakfast-- yummy banana pancakes-- and met up with Caroline and Nick, a lovely and charming couple from the UK (hi guys!!). We had chatted quite a bit the previous two nights and had a great time. I wish I'd been able to spend another day in Gangtok, as they were making their way to Tsomgo Lake, another major thing I wanted to do but couldn't. The reason I couldn't do that was because another permit is required and it takes 24 hours to process, blah blah blah. Oh well, I have lots more excuses to go back now, as if I need any.

As an aside, I have yet to meet a single American person here in India. I've met loads of Brits, a couple of Belgians, tons of Finns, a few French, a smattering of Spaniards, a few Japanese.. but no Americans (to my knowledge). One of the Kashmiri guys I met in Delhi used to live in Seattle though, and his sister still lives there on the Sammamish Plateau. Odd.

So anyway, after my lovely morning of the mountain view, pancakes and chatting briefly again with my new friends, I had about an hour to kill before my jeep left for Siliguri to catch the train. Caroline recommended that I go to the beauty parlor up the street for a head massage, which sounded nice especially since I've started to come down with a bit of a head cold. The beauty parlor was hilarious-- small and narrow, and the lady was wonderfully sweet, but... the pictures of hairstyles on the wall. My god. Straight out of 1986!!! I mean, seriously-- Asian fluffy permed mullets. Weird rolled things on top of the head. I really wanted to grab my camera and take a shot but I didn't want to be insulting either. The head massage itself was nice, in a rather, well, vigorous sort of way. Think of sitting in the bathtub when you were a kid, your mom scrubbing your scalp off as you howl in protest. It wasn't quite that bad, for the most part it actually felt kind of good. She had rubbed some sort of oil in and had to wash my hair afterwards, which was a bit of a shock as the water was freeeeezzzzing cold. Some of it made its way into my right ear as well, which came back to haunt me later. I ended up paying what I suspect was far too much (hello, whitey), but in the end it was only about $7 US, so I can't really bitch about it.

The jeep ride, well... Argh. At least I got to sit in the front this time which was a nice change, but it was still way too crowded. I was next to the door, and kept feeling the fingers of the guy in the middle creeping onto my knee supposedly by "accident", which was irritating but really not of much consequence. The real problem with this jeep ride was that I started to notice that the driver was having trouble shifting. The damn thing didn't really want to go into gear and it kept getting worse. Besides that, the scenery was amazing. We wound our way along the river and this time I was actually able to see everything. It's a weird combination of tropical jungle and alpine forest, with lovely bamboo trees here and there and huge banana trees and ferns and all sorts of other bizarre plants. There are a lot of wildflowers as well, and I saw a lot of red poinsettias growing wild around Gangtok.

As time went on it became clear that the jeep's not-so-trivial clutch problem wasn't getting any better, not that I thought it would. We didn't end up having to evacuate the jeep and hitchhike although in hindsight I think it would have been better if we had. For me, anyway. Instead we limped our way into town at a snail's pace, and by the time we got to the train station and I rushed my way to the platform, the train had just left. I'm sure you can imagine my extreme frustration and pissed-offedness (is that a word?) at that point.

Fortunately the ticket collector's office was right there and after some discussion (I irritated them by repeating "what? WHAT?" because my right ear was completely plugged up and I couldn't really hear very well) they were able to put me on the next train to Kolkata, leaving at 1:00am. That was fantastic, but it also left me with 4.5 hours to sit in the train station. Ack, kill me. I'll spare you the details of my time in the waiting room as nothing of interest happened. Let's just say that I got bored enough to count the moths on the walls (47) and number of times the guy "guarding" the ladies' waiting room hocked up a loogie (about 7). It's mostly better now, but it was a miserable few hours.

After all that, here I am in Kolkata with a bit of a head cold and what promises to be an intriguing journey to the chemist for some medicine. There's a staggering amount of things that you can get over the counter in this country, heh. I decided to shell out for a hotel room mostly to store my backpack and to take a much-needed shower. The room is shit and smells peculiarly of bacon, but I don't give a rat's ass at the moment. (That "rat's ass" part may be a little too accurate... we'll see.)

I've spent a little time wandering around my 'hood, which is full of bazaars. It's crowded, chaotic, noisy and there are tons of beggers, but I kinda like it. There are waaay too many fun, mostly dirt cheap things to buy around here. Thank god I'm getting out quick.