Darjeeling - Tea Anyone?

Namaste all,

I hope you are all enjoying the holidays, though im not sure i remember which one it is now (Sukot perhaps?). We are currently in Darjeeling - land of Tea Plantations and tea stalls selling local tea everywhere. It's mostly an Indian tourist spot but they have started to catch on to the foreign tourist trade as well. We are staying in a lovely family run guest house that has an amaizing view to the valley below. There is only one problem though. Cant see much of the view. Why you ask ??? well... damn clouds everywhere... but still the countryside is green with tea plantations and lush wet greener than green jungle like forest. On the day we arrived in the early morning we managed to catch a short glance at the Kunchengunga mountain (above 8km) which is the 2nd or 3rd highest mountain and the highest in India. But since then we didnt get any chance of seeing any snow capped mountains.

Tomorow we are heading out for a 8-9 day trek which if the local cloud god is on our side should allow us good views of the Kunchengunga peaks. The trek is actually only 7 days long but we will spend perhaps a few more nights on the trail to relax and enjoy (if we get any) views and of course aclimitize to the alltitude. Darjeeling is around 2300m and the trek will bring us to just under 3700m. But it should be an easy one. After the trek we will be heading towards Sikkim (probably the day after our return to Darjeeling) for the remainder of our short time in India :(

Now you must have noticed i did not complain about the ride here from Khajuraho... well i cant really help it (Yoav/Nira) and ill just give out some details. We left our guest house in Khajuraho on the morning of the 3/10. We arrived in Darjeeling at 8am on the 5/10. Thats 2 days. and about 85% of it was actually on the road. But im not complaining :) the train rides were more than good and we even managed to take a shower at Mughal Serai train station (yes we only now found out that they have retiring halls with common showers) So all went well and rather smoothly.

So firstly dont expect to hear from us till the 18th. So no complaining about me not writing and being lazy etc. etc. ;)

Second we are very happy to see you all (well some) participating in the commenting on the blog - please write more and of course questions are welcome. At least i wont need to devise any stupid animal naming contests to keep you all interested (I'm sure you were all glued to your seats the last time). Though we did catch a few photos of a lovely large black himalayan bear in the local zoo which im sure will be needing a name (suggestions anyone??? ;). We are still in negoteations with the zoo regarding aquiering the furry animal, and thats after understanding that the siberean tiger is out of the questions (something to do with its sensitive wiskers).

That brings me to the last topic - Pics. Connection here is slower than slow so i wont be uploading any pics this time (try not to throw any bad tomatos at the screen please) but once we find faster one we will upload more pics. I wish i could have uploaded more pics the last time and I will try to squeeze in more the next time.

So that wraps it up for this post - I hope you all are having a lovely holiday which ever one it is :)

We are having a great time here and hope to have even more fun :)))))

Namaste all,

Hila & Mr. Morphhh Sleazy.

p.s. i know - i didnt spell check.