Wes, We Need To Chat (Part I)

I was pretty bummed I couldn't go see Wes Anderson's new film, "The Darjeeling Limited" last Friday night. Unfortunately none of the theaters here in Calcutta were playing it, so I decided that if I couldn't see the movie, I would just go to Darjeeling to console myself over my poor luck and lack of opportunity. And I just have to say, the train to Darjeeling is called the Darjeeling Mail, not the Darjeeling Limited...so if someone could let Mr. Anderson know, I would really appreciate it. Anyway, I spent last weekend (including Friday night) sulking in my hotel room in Darjeeling because everyone in the U.S. got to see the film and I had to sit and actually stare at the Himalayas while all my friends at home got to pay as much as I do for a week of food to sit in a movie theater and watch it on a screen. I was so heart broken. And I often forget that sarcasm is poorly communicated via on-line communication, which is probably the reason I generally avoid it.
So just so we're clear, I think it's pretty cool that I missed The Darjeeling Limited because I was in Darjeeling the day it came out. Not to mention the fact that Darjeeling pretty much made me crap my pants, and not on account of any intestinal difficulties thankyouverymuch.
After a cab ride that literally made me believe I was at the end of my life, (and seemed more like a blind kid playing Tetris than someone consciously driving) we caught the night train from Calcutta to Darjeeling at 10:30pm on Thursday. One could dedicate an entire blog to the experiences of Indian train rides...or any form of Indian transportation for that matter...but I will be fairly brief: I miraculously slept (and managed to avoid the "foreign-pirates-will-steal-all-my-possessions-and-passport" dreams that plague my father to such an extent when travelling in third world countries that he is driven to stealthily shove his money, credit cards and passport into his socks during transportation in hopes of having something left after the pirates steal all of our things) and woke up in New Jalpaiguri with all of my possessions including body parts. From NJP we took a three hour jeep ride (shoved into the trunk area of course!) up pot-holed dirt roads into deep leafy green forested hills. I just pushed my little snout out the window and let my nostrils do all the sight seeing. The air was incredible...after being in one the most polluted cities in the world in which my lungs will not allow me to take a full breath, the air in that forest was perfect. So we got to Darjeeling, and found our guest house pretty quickly. As far as we could tell, we had landed in a tiny town in the middle of the clouds, where the fog pressed in on you so persistently that you could only half guess at the scenery around you. We were surrounded by a landscape that we could only smell, and occasionally catch a glimpse of through a hole in the clouds, but then it would be gone as quickly as it had appeared. It was almost like it was teasing me. I knew the hills and the forest and the Himalayas were there, but trying to look for them was like looking for an image on a blank sheet of white paper -- after a while your eyes start playing tricks on you. Our first day we bummed around, amazed at how the air felt in our lungs and amazed at the people surrounding us. That's another thing worth mentioning - the people of Darjeeling. They are by far the most beautiful, welcoming, kind people I have met in India. There were no stares. Literally, if someone was staring it was to say good morning or to smile. We spent 3 hours just looking at people in the face and not feeling threatened. Just looking, saying hi, introducing ourselves. Being people. It was great. I spent a great amount of time just walking around the Buddhist monastery, weaving in and out of the temples, lighting incense, and being silent and alone. Shit, silence and solitude - two things that I have all but lost here in Calcutta. Two friends that I miss almost as bad as I miss flush toilets. Whew. Anyway, it was glorious. We were attacked by monkeys, we were blessed by monks, we rang prayer bells. Then we slid into an English pub, ate egg sandwiches and drank beer, and put ourselves to sleep back at our guest house. The next morning I got up at 6 and clambered up to the roof-top terrace of our guest house and sat and looked at more cloud-draped hills. And it was silent and cold and peaceful and everything I thought it would be. We spent that day parusing the multiple Nepalese shops and eating chinese food. I walked alone a lot and reveled in not seeing another human being for 25 minutes. But it was still so cloudy and foggy, I pretty much prayed for clear weather for the next morning when we would get up at 3:45 am and take a half hour drive to the top of a hill with hopes of watching the sun rise over the Himalayas. I did everything I could think of to ask for clear skies. And apparently it was enough.
At this point in my writing I feel the need to insert a few lesser-known facts about myself, so that I feel I can continue. Please excuse the following: When I was about 8 years old I bought a book at my school book fair that was an auto-biography of a 16-year-old boy who climbed Mt. Everest. After reading that book about 4 times, I decided that I was officially obsessed with the Himalayan mountains, and Mt. Everest in particular. The root cause of this obsession is unknown to me even now, but it has persisted. I decided at age 8 that I wanted to climb Mt. Everst when I was 16, though for some odd reason that plan fell through so I made it one of my goals to get to the Himalayas in some form or another and get to at least Everest base camp by the time I die. The end.
Ok, so seeing as that same enamoration (word or not word..i don't care) with the Himalayas has plagued me since about age 8, perhaps you can understand how I felt thinking that I might have a chance to glimpse them. At 3:45am on Sunday, my alarm went off. I literally opened my eyes and knew that I would see them. I just knew it. We put on every single article of clothing we brought and were greeted with perfect star-studded skies outside. It took us 45 minutes to get up to Tiger Hill and my face was pressed to the window the entire time, with nothing to see but endless stars and black, black hills. When we got out of the car at the viewing area, there were about 80 other tourists gathered around one railing, facing the lighter skies where the sun was getting close to coming up. I saw the big dipper and made a bee-line for the railing facing it. I knew the Himalayas had to be North, and was not going to move if someone payed me. My friends were concerned that we were in the wrong place because no one else was facing our way, but I told them if they moved from our spot, they'd be sorry. So we stood, cold and quiet against the railing, and we waited.
And now I have to go to dinner....so I will continue...LATER! bahahahaha i feel like im writing a trashy romance novel......TO BE CONTINUED!!!!!!!!!!!