So my plans for updating this page regularly have not been achievable. I overestimated the computing connections I would have while over here, but here I am- at l;east until the power goes out again.
The flight to Delhi went without a hitch. I started from Omaha at 10am on the 8th and landed in Delhi just before midnight on the 9th. (To those of you in Omaha, thats about noon on wednesday!) Our hotel there was very nice and we had fun touring there again. Got to see the pro-tibetan folks marching and protesting at one point.
I should point out that I forgot that the images from my camera are to big to upload to my Flickr account, so until I get home of figure out another way, I will not be posting images.
So, after that we flew to Bagdogra airport in the eastern part of India. After landing, our guide and driver picked us up and we started the 3 hour drive up into the mountains to Darjeeling. It started off fine in the lowlands, but as we climbed higher, it was like the road to Hana on steroids! I would like to personally send a thank you note to the guy who invented the transdermal motion sickness patches, because without them I would have died!
Our guide taught us that around here they pronounce Darjeeling as DAR-zelling, not dar-GEE-ling. It comes from the root "dorje" and I think means thunderbolt. Its amazing how these towns just cling to the hillsides. I hope to get some pix of just how steep the mountains are up here for viewing.
After a day there, we hopped in the car and are now at the end of our stay in Gangtok. Same kind of town, just on another mountain. We have visited a number of buddhist monasteries.
Tomorrow we leave for Kalimpong and then head into Bhutan after that.
I'm gonna wrap up as I am afraid the power might go out again (it does that alot over here!) and I want to at least let you know we are having a blast.
Maybe our connections to the internet will be better when we get into Bhutan, but I really think that is unlikely.
Last night we went to the Boudnath Stupa expecting to see them light it up with butter candles by the buddhist monks. It was disappointing to see that no preparations were being made to light it up. So we decided to circle it a few times like the buddhists and them go sit at the rooftop restaurant we sat at last time. Mid-way through our meal, we hear all this chanting going on in the street outside the stupa and soon there were what seemed like thousands of demonstrators marching around the stupa with candles and yelling something we didn't understand but expected had to do with Tibet. Absolutely amazing!
The next day we came across a group of monks who were taking shifts chanting and they were also fasting for 24 hours periods. They gave us facemasks of our own.