Fantastic Darjeeling - F*** Racism

We escaped from the confusion and eerie quiet that over-swept Mumbai not knowing what we were stepping into (I have never ventured north or west of Delhi before). We arrived at the airport and met a Dutch guy who had been sitting opposite us on the plane, it seems we were sat on the wrong side as he had some fantastic views. Chatting we found he was also heading for Darjeeling so we shared a lift and enjoyed the 3 hour crawl up the foothills together (hills here would definitely be considered mountains back at home (and the roads could not really be classed roads with all the rubble, pot holes and twists and turns)). But as we were making our way up we laid our eyes on the mountains... and o my gosh what i sight... its something where the cameras couldn't quite capture the beauty at all. I for one could not stop looking at them and was pointing them out even till the last minute of our trip. James, still being jet-lagged, managed to sleep soon after we arrived and so we didn't explore Darjeeling till the next day when we took a long walk up to the highest point we could, watching the mountains all the way up. Darjeeling seems to be filled with strategically placed wires which ran through every ideal photo location! Throughout our stay, as it would typically be we bumped into our Dutch friend on several occasions throughout our stay :- shopping in the market streets where

• every other shop sold tea
• there was such a strong smell of satsumas (I was definitely taken to Christmas)
• women sat at their stalls whilst knitting/crocheting warm hats and cute frilly dresses to sell
• people walked down the street carrying massive bags using straps across their forehead including 100kg cement
• man walking down the road with a basket on his head of 10-15 chickens

we also saw him at Tiger Hill where we watched the sun rise over a valley where the lights of the city and towns were seemed to be reflected in the billions of stars in the sky. The Sun flooded across to the mountains making them glow from blue to pink to white. It was absolutely stunning and although it wasn't completely cloudless, it seemed the mountains were floating in the sky, making it almost more breathtaking.

Finally we re-met him whilst learning the wonders of tea manufacture and in our discovery of Happy Valley Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Piko One Tea, the tea named and sold by Harrods! Claiming to be the only organic estate in Darjeeling, it is the only place where you can sample delicious and tasteful tea brewed in front of your eyes in just 5 secs. It was fantastic stuff, shame you probably have to spend £40 to get it from London!

We really learned a lot more about the situation with Tibet at a fantastic Self Help Refugee Centre, which though playing an important part made us realise how little is being done to help the situation and how truly terrible the state of things are.

we have both now sat in amazement at how adamant people can be that all this happening is soo wrong but then they themselves can hold such hatred and prejudice against people. no matter how rationally and fairly we based our arguments we could find no way of convincing anyone they were wrong.