I love Darjeeling! (And not feeling clever)

We've left shillong for a whole lot of adventure times. 

First we went to a jungle resort in Guwahati where we RODE AN ELEPHANT. That's really the main reason we went there. Jill was adamant about the elephant ride. It wasn't, oddly enough, the unbearable humidity, the dining table surrounded by spider webs catching their prey or the beetles the size of mice (I wish I were kidding). Needless to say, it was a memorable night in the jungle resort. 

What followed was an 8 hour train ride to West Bengal. My first experience with Indian railway? Also memorable. There are some times where it's easy to forget that you're somewhere cool

And exotic and then you'll see giant beetles or see hundreds of people piled into a train or watch as men selling everything from memory cards to samosas to other pungent foods come down the train aisle. It was a pleasant journey though. Some beautiful views...and lots of smells. 

Then we drove a terrifying drive up to Darjeeling. It was horrible. Oh yeah, and I was so excited to get out of the jungle and away from the mice with wings...and then...oh man. Okay so because of the lack of public facilities we've gotten pretty used to pulling over on the side of the road. This time we came back to the car only to discover we LEECHES. Jo found 4 on her feet and I only found one. But we both kept checking obsessively. It so didnt help that our driver kept looking back at us like we were diseased. 

But thankfully worth it! This is the view from our hotel. I love darjeeling! I texted my mom almost immediately to tell her she had to come with my next time. It's the land of tea and beautiful mountains and a lot of Tibetan and Buddhist influence. 

Darjeeling is really awesome, were all sad to leave. I've loved the tea and the monasteries and the mountains (even though half the time we've been here it's been too cloudy to see anything). Darjeeling is still awesome. 

We're leaving Darjeeling this morning but for the first time it's clear enough to see the snow capped peaks of the Himalayas! AND our hostel provided apples! The first apple I've had in a month! I'm gonna go pour myself some freshly brewed tea. I'm really livin the dream over here. 

So long Shillong!

Today is our last day in Shillong so here is a collection of pictures/memories from our time here!

Above left: picture of the intersection right outside of our college. Above right: we escaped one night and visited a park right at sunset!

Below left: They have been working on a fish tank in our college the entire time here. To the right, one of the desserts our chef made! So cute! Apparently he's the head of the confectionary department at a local hotel! 

 

  

Giant caterpillars and giant beautiful flowers 

Downtown Shillong, where we do our shoppin'

 

City streets and kittens on roofs!

Downtown Shillong. Lots of umbrellas up here in the rainy mountains! And we're leaving right at the beginning of monsoon season. 

Well it's been an interesting few weeks. The weather changes every five minutes and so do my feelings about Shillong (these rapid changes also apply to the bowel movements of pretty much everyone in our group. TMI? In India there's no such thing as TMI.) 

I appreciate everyone who welcomed us so warmly but I think we are all excited to move on and see some new parts of India! I have also appreciated the wifi. I don't know when/if I will get internet access again so thank you for reading this! I will post again if I can! We leave bright and early tomorrow morning for Guwahati where we will ride some elephants (yayy!) right before boarding a train for eight hours (hmm...). Then it's off to Darjeeling where we will all try to avoid altitude sickness and drink lots of tea! 

I return to America on June 14th (a ten hour layover in Delhi, a plane to Frankfurt and a 13 hour flight to Chicago before finally boarding my last plane to Boston!) 

A Weekend of Fieldtrips!

When Rakhal told us we had two very long travel days ahead of us, I was not looking forward to it. Bumpy windy roads are not comfortable and combined with the fact that the roads/heights freak me out...a lot.

That being said, it was a surprisingly pleasant past few days: Enjoy this lovely picture show. 

SATURDAY: 

We embarked on our very bumpy journey to a collection of monoliths that are amongst the oldest monoliths in India. We passed some villages, some trash, and some rice paddies. You know, India.

 Here's a picture of the monoliths and some really cool old trees. 

We walked through a market. 

 

 Rakhal asked me if I wanted to go to a temple where they used to do human sacrifice. He asked as if he thought I wouldn't. Come one, of course I want to go!

And there were some really cute kids there. They were super excited when we gave them candy. 

 

We had lunch on the side of the road next to a rice paddy. In spite of our insistence that we can make our own PB&J sandwiches, the chef made our lunches...sardine sandwiches. Luckily Subrata (Rakhal's wife and one of our professors) made us a delicious chickpea and pumpkin dish. 

We then went to a Khasi (an indigenous tribe of the area) village where we visited the home of the queen and her husband. (He is not the chief because it's a matrilineal society. Instead, the queen's brother is the chief...pretty cool!) Her husband greeted us, told us some facts, showed us his beautiful home and even took us inside! I petted the cat of the Khasi Queen...what?!

 

We then watched some archery practice. 

SUNDAY:

On Sunday we were told that we would have a very long 4 hour drive to the Living Root Bridge. It started off as a cold and rainy day and after Rakhal told us we'd have to watch out for leeches on the walk down, I was very hesitant. But it was a great day! It was only 3 hours and an easy drive. We sang some songs and the walk to the bridge was nice and easy. It wasn't raining and the bridge was so cool!

Then we visited the "cleanest village." Like all of India they have a no littering policy. Unlike the rest of India, they follow it. It was a beautiful little village and a nice sunny...and hot...day. Here are some pictures of pretty flowers of India's "cleanest village."  

 

Overall, great last weekend in Shillong!

This is not Stop & Shop

Last night I went to the market with Rakhal for the first time. Wow. It was quite the experience. 

We loaded into the car and made our way to the first stop. Here's where we bought our vegetables. (Rakhal had people to carry it back to the car). Rakhal kept saying "come come" as we scurried from stop to stop. This whole area smelled distinctly of fish. Right next to the vegetables sat a man chopping heads off of very large fish so that explains it. 

Goat head anyone? (Though all they give us here is chicken. Chicken on chicken on chicken).

Which brings me to the next stop. After another 10 minute drive through dark windy streets and a whole lot of people, we made it to another market. (I don't really understand what was wrong with the chickens at the other place but we came here next.)

Ben had gone with Rakhal before and had warned me that you see the chickens die. Apparently the sound is the worst part, he said. I was still completely unprepared. We walked through a small alley and I am not kidding when I say a rat ran past right in front of this chicken coop. 

The man picks the three chickens...ties them together and weighs them. Then see that box to the right? That little box of death. He puts them in there. And that's when I walked away. Rakhal told me to "come come" because he doesn't like watching it either.

I watched Kenneth and Ben watch the chickens...and their final demise. 

After that fairly traumatic experience we got our eggs. 

Then followed Rakhal down the narrow streets to his preferred fruit guy where he bought some lychees and mangos. 

Then another walk in the rain to his rice and noodle guy.

Rakhal then returned to get our fresh chickens and we drove home. Only four of us went to the market and though we were late for dinner, there were still plenty of leftovers for us. Yup....you guessed it...chicken.

Mountains, Caves and Spiders, oh my god.

Oh man. This weekend was exhausting. So many fears and anxieties to conquered/to absolutely knock me out. On Saturday all six of us students and four St. Anthony’s students piled in a small van for a long and bumpy 4 hour mountainous drive to the Bangladesh border. Meghalaya (the name of our Indian state) means land in the clouds and there were many times this weekend when we were literally driving through a giant cloud. I don’t know what I prefer - watching our driver speed along a windy road and watching the borderless edge of the highway and the steep steep drop or watching him drive with only about two feet of visibility. Both are equally exhilarating. 

Those planes over there. That's Bangladesh!

Lots of trucks and rocks on their way
to Bangladesh

Objectively I can tell you it was a really beautiful drive. And the Bangladesh border was definitely cool to see. The Bangladesh border control got a kick out of us and let us come on the other side (and then they took plenty of pictures with us). So I went to Bangladesh (unofficially that is) this weekend so that’s pretty exciting. It was also incredibly hot so I jumped back into the van very quickly (unairconditioned but shade is great anyways). After about a 30 minute break at the border, we loaded back into the van to journey four hours back making a quick stop to eat our packed lunches once we got high enough for the heat to die down a little bit. It took me a while to understand the purpose of our 8 hour journey...pretty sure it was just to say “hey, I’m cool, I’ve seen Bangladesh.” 

We got home at 5:30 and I immediately fell asleep...woke up at 7 for dinner and was back to sleep before 9. I could not at all figure out how I was so incredibly exhausted but in retrospect the anxiety of the mountain roads definitely did me in. I can handle the many near accidents and lack of road rules in Delhi but the height really really kills me. 

So for our second sunday when we traveled a different set of narrow roads to see some waterfalls (this time in a very top-heavy blue school bus...perfect for a speeding driver on sharp turns) I learned that closing my eyes made it a little better. It’s like watching a gory movie and closing your eyes when the surgeon is about to cut into someones brain. Your brain knows that there is still a lot of nastiness on the screen but not being able to see it makes it slightly more bearable. Unfortunately this is a little bit more life threatening than watching a movie but you gotta do what you gotta do. 

We stopped by a coal mine. Check out our totally stable and safe blue school bus. 

Below are some pictures from Cherrapunjee, the rainiest place on earth and a picture of the really cool waterfall you could see from up there which we saw for about 2 minutes before the cloud came. 

We saw a lot of beautiful waterfalls. At one point I stayed a little further from the edge and Jill asked me if I liked mountains. Sure I do. I like looking up at them the way they’re meant to be enjoyed.

We made a pit stop at a cave too. That sounds nice and safe right? Yeah okay this cave walk would never fly in the US. We followed a very slippery and wet path (thank goodness I wasn’t wearing sneakers), we squeezed, crouched and climbed never knowing quite how far this little cave trek was. Oh and there was a bat. That was fun too. But I didn’t turn around (mostly because the path was too narrow to do that) but I did it and I was very proud of myself.

To the left is a picture I took before I had any idea what I was getting myself into. And on the right is a picture of a very unsteady bridge we clamored across. Keep in mind that I was crouching while taking that picture. 

And the cherry on top of this weekend of fear and anxiety? THE GIANT SPIDER I FOUND IN MY ROOM. HOLY S&%T. I was nice and safe in my room, ready to take a shower to wash off the cave water when I see this on the wall. The picture does not do it justice. We are talking about a spider you'd see in a zoo! I wanted to die. Jo took the pictures below, I couldn't even grab a camera. I calmly walked to the house and got Jill to take care of it though no one believed me when I calmly said "please help, the biggest spider I have ever seen in real life is in my room." I didn't completely lose it until Jill tried to catch it under a bowl (which was barely big enough) and it moved so quickly down the wall. Oh man.

This weekend. Oh my god. It's going to take me a while to get over the constant fear of a giant spider in my room. Even typing this I'm shuttering. Gahhhhh. Nightmares forever.