drinking tea in the mountains

jen, me, and view of darjeeling
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due to my currnet lack of concentration and creativness, but given my feeling of need to write about somthing, instead of pulling something out of my head, i'll quote an entr8y from my writtne jornal. this computer really sucks. and it takes ages to correcct typos and i'm in a really bad mood, so this ent8ry will be infested with them. deal with it.

May 1 2006 "chai coffee, coffee, chai" this phrase has been resonating in my head in the most nasal piercing voice you can imagine since 6am. I'mready to drown the man in his own chai. I woke up to find about 10 indian men staring intently at me, and presumably hjave been all morning. my face currently feels like it's been greased with cooking oil., and now chai man's ass keeps touching me as he bends down to pour my neighbour a drink. Where am i? on the sleeper train to darjeeling, of course. I swear this train has an inexhaustible supply of men selling chai, water, newspapers, and breakfast, , al l of whom have no quals with waking up sleeping foreigners at 6:30 am. it makes me wonder how all the foreigners but me seem to still be sleeping(stange, but nice how we all got grouped together in the same cabin).

quaint little mountain town, filled with oriental looking indians and tibetans, where all i do is drink darjeeling tea and take in the beautiful scenery

view at 5am from tiger hill of world's third largest mountain peaks
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After spending one final day in calcutta upon returning from Bangladesh (i miss it already :( i'm on my way to darjeeling, sound familiar? home of darjeeling tea, it is./ 2 days ago my physical state reasched an all time low. picture this: nausea, vomiting, diarreah, period cramps, runny nose and headache on a 10 hour bus journey with a 2 hour tr8ansfer, in 35 degree heat. somehow i managed not to lose it and was able to see the small str8and of humor in my oh-so-unfortunate situation. my 15kg backpack became my worst enemy as i tredged from office to office, proclaiming to jen the whole while that i knew exactly what was going on. she was slightly perplexed about the fact that we were no longer being babied and told exactl what was going on ( as was the case in bangladesh), i was enjoying the independence after having no contr8ol for the past week. my highlight of the day was having one foot in bangladewsh and the other in india as we crossed the border. THat was about as good as the day got. it was all down hill from there as i was struck by several bouts of bad luck, none of which i want to discuss at present.

town in the mountains
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yesterday was much better as it involved swimming and my new fave restaurant "flurries" the day started off however, shakey as i was walked in on by a hotel worker while geting changed and had to by a one piece, pointy boob bathing suit due to lack of options (my bikini had finally seen it's day). ....

yada yada.,and sensless rambling in my written journal, which currently leaves me to my own unimaginative devices. let's talk about darjeeling. i love this place! (i've never said that before...) A quaint little mountain town, filled with oriental looking indians and tibetans, where all i do is drink darjeeling tea and take in the beautiful scenery. the cool temperature and unassuming locals who don't get in your face are a breath of fresh air from the scorching heat and the exceedingly friendly natives found in most areas of india. in fact, i have to keep reminding myself that i'm in india, as this town has a very different feel to the rest of the country.

this morning jen and i were accompanied by alana and james to tiger mountain to wathc the sun rise. we ambitiously woke up at 3AM and arrived by 4:30 to catch the amazing view of the 3rd largest mountain in the world. everest was a bit too far and it was a bit too cloudy, so it was not visible. even though the clouds were abundant and the sunrise was not totaly visible, the peaks of the mountains glowed pink as the sun hit them, and made for some spectacular viewing that, unfortunately our cameras could not capture. still, the picture remains in my head, and i'm sure always will. i have to keep reminding myself how lucky i am to keep having such amazing experineces.

so i'm trying to ignore the trivial facts that nothing seems to be going my way today, and that this cafe has the backstreet boys on repeat.