How to be non-touristic: 21 tips for the non-touristic traveler!

The general area between real life and being on-the-road

I went through a phase on this trip (it should have been established by now: I have many phases. I am rather weird at times) where I referred to everything as ‘non-touristic’. I drove the guys crazy asking ‘is that a non-touristic meal?’ ‘was that a non-touristic experience,’ ‘is this a non-touristic beer?’ and so forth. It is, in my mind to the depths of hilarity to refer to everything as ‘non-touristic’. The term originates from Jaisalmer, where all the tourists go on ‘non-touristic’ camel safari’s (none of which the locals would ever dream of going on), all sharing exactly the same ‘non-touristic’ experience. In fact, there isn’t a ‘touristic’ camel safari in town.

You can imagine the Indian line of thought. These idiot westerners want to ride a train through the desert for eighteen hours, sit on a camel (not a comfortable animal to ride by any stretch), and take a walk around the countryside. If they want to, fine by me. Being an astute businessman, I also know that ‘tourists’ don’t want to do ‘touristy’ things, so I will therefore market my ‘touristy’ activity as ‘non-touristic.’ It’s almost cute in the primary-school like sophistication of it.

So all the tourists like myself turn up, go on our non-touristic camel safari’s (read: walk around the countryside) and go home beaming about what a great non-touristic experience we had.

It’s a beautiful dichotomy, and I just love it.

It was just after our ‘non-touristic’ camel ‘safari’ that I calculated I’d been out of New Zealand for a cumulative six months, over four trips, and across about ten different countries. I’d come to know a few things about being a tourist, gotten relatively familiar with South-East Asian and Indian culture, and had some fun, poignant, hilarious, inspirational, and awe-inspiring moments along the way.

Rather than my usual proclamations about life, and my self-proclaimed insightful offerings, I thought I would leave all that crap at the door, and for once, just offer twenty-one or so thoughts about what it is to be a tourist, what it is to travel India and South East Asia, and some things you learn about yourself and others along the way. I've thought about 'summarising' India, but I think the previous 32 blogs do a good enough job of that - there's so much variety in India, you can't reduce it to a little essay, let alone a full length book. 

By travelling, also, you come to understand the place you live, and work, and the people you associate with better, for it is from the outside looking in that you get the greatest perspective, and it is from a wider range of benchmarks and references points from which you can judge your own situation and circumstances.

By all accounts, I, and others in my country, are pretty lucky. We’re affluent, do not struggle for basic necessities (believe me, this is a luxury) and have opportunities many people in the world can only dream about. But let’s leave that at the door, and focus for a second on me, on you, and what I have learnt along the way.

Here goes:

1.    One of the great luxuries of travel is time. You can sleep in every day without an alarm clock. You can spend fifteen minutes shaving and an hour for lunch. You can have three hour chess matches on a whim; you can spend a day doing absolutely nothing and not feel guilty about it. You can do nothing, or something, and fill your days with as many activities as you like. Point is – it’s yours to do with as you please. I read The Luminaries in less than three days, Burmese Days in less than two. Such luxuries are afforded on holiday.

2.    The best experiences are those that involve people, getting to know them, and sharing an experience together. Temples and pagoda’s do not have feelings, nor do museums, monuments, buildings and forts.

3.    A lot of the talk about ‘spiritual enlightenment,’ ‘finding yourself’ and somehow thinking that travelling, by right, gives you greater insight than the rest of the population – is bullshit. The reality is you are on holiday, taking time out for your ‘normal’ life, and perhaps trying to broaden yourself and try some new things. You are not an enlightened man on a higher plain than the rest of humankind.

4.    You can do lots of learning whilst travelling. Travelling may allow you to ‘see’ things that you couldn’t previously, and give you context and perspective for your own life. Viewing how different people live their lives is often a vantage point from which you can view yours.

5.    The streets are a good a teacher as the classroom. Spend some time in a South East Asian village and you’ll get a quick lesson in economics: distribution of income, extraction of natural resources, manufacturing methods, distribution and supply chains, marketing, and of course, making the sale. You’ll see that the west has hugely benefited from rationale thought and economic models of development, not to mention first-mover advantage.

6.    You quickly realise what you miss from home. For example, I miss: chocolate, cheese, ice cream, milk, pizza, burgers, sushi, (good) coffee, red wine, having a car, music, nice speakers, a double bed, soft linen, not having itchy bites, ready access to sunscreen/after-sun burn, warm showers, treadmills… the list goes on.

7.    You also realise who you miss: what friends you miss, family, and who you just can’t wait to see again. On the flip side, you realise how some friendships just ‘fall away’. I wish it were easier, but life fills up and speeds up, and you just can’t be everything to everyone.

8.    Your problems, whatever they may be, don’t disappear or dissipate when you are on holiday. They may be out of mind for a while, or be temporarily suspended, but they do not disappear. Whatever your problems are, you are still you, and the world around you still exists.

9.    Cities, towns and villages on the road are often visited and ‘done’ in a few days. You quickly realise the limitations, and possibilities of a place. This applies to the world-at-large as well. Each and every city has its own series of restrictions, limitations, and possibilities; if a city doesn’t fit yours, perhaps it’s time to find a new one.

10.  For some, true independence can only be achieved with the three-fold act of moving out of home, moving away from the city you were born, and moving away from the city in which your parents live.

11.  As of one-on-one time, so does travel allow time to get to know other people. Walking up a hill with a complete stranger for the better part of a day is a great way to get to know someone – you may find you know more about them in a day than you did people you’d known for years. You also meet people who have studied and worked in areas you’ve never even heard of.

12.  Another great luxury is the absence of stress, pressure and worry. This is like pre-exam mode, before you sit it, you’ll think you’ll be in ecstasy once it’s over. Often, you feel no different. This is what absence is like, it not being there is hardly noticeable. Still, it’s nice not to have these things in your life for a while, especially if you can use that to your advantage (have you ever met someone who’s mastered this?).

13.  When travelling, you learn certain skills, including problem solving, remaining calm under pressure, resolve, making friends, and how not to lose your shit when things aren’t going well. Some people really just need to chill out. Others need to learn how to plan and figure things out. You can do this in foreign countries. I can think of any number of examples.

14.  Another advantage of travel is that you have the ability to reset all your habits and routines – the good and the bad. Over 30 days you can practically start again – no morning coffees, lay off the beer, keep up the daily writing, and so forth. It’s fun, and often you don’t realise what habits you did and didn’t have until you’re not in them anymore! What’s harder though is deciding the habits you want in the real world and sticking to those!

15.  Cameras on holiday, are in my opinion, overrated. True, I say this with an official photographer on board, but ever since I dropped my camera in the sand, I’ve enjoyed not having one. You hardly ever look at photos anyway. Try a day with a camera and a day without – see which you prefer.

16.  Travel gives one the chance to re-evaluate certain habits and behaviours. For example, if your habit is to drink every Friday night, travel allows you the time and context to assess that behaviour and assess its merit, whichever way that may fall.

17.  Travel stories are boring to other people. Your experience is your own, and other peoples are their own. At work on a Monday morning, people won’t care that you saw the most magical sundown on the planet… unless of course you’re a gifted storyteller…

18.  Avoid clichés and commonly accepted ‘wisdom’. I was assured I would get ‘Delhi Belly’. I’m still waiting.

19.  Exchanging of travel talk is often boring too. ‘I went here, we went there, did this… etc.’ I normally leave that to the others. I would prefer to say hello, and talk about something else.

20.  There are perhaps two types of travellers. Those who set a plan and execute it, and those who ‘feel’ their way around. Neither is better than the other, and often the two groups will end up at the exact same place!

21.  This is probably the grumpy old man in me – travel can have its share of boring moments too, and stressful ones for those inclined. It’s not all fine dining with great people after a day of exhilarating fun. Sometimes it’s walking around a boring strip mall after a hot, stuffy bus ride, having a mediocre meal in silence, and having annoying Thai girls scream ‘masaaage’ at you for the eighth time that day on your way home. Doing ‘activities’ day-after-day does have its limits, and you’ll reach a point where even the most surreal thing won’t give you the slightest feeling or thought. There are moments on the road when you just can’t wait to get back home and back to work. Remember this on a Wednesday morning when your boss wants a paper done in the next two hours…point is, there is no easy answer to anything in life - it's just a state of being and trying to make the best of it that you can. There's good things everywhere, if you're just willing to find them - and know the value of them - be it on the road, or in you backyard. 

So that’s it; after six months of combined travel time on the road, most of it in South East Asian and one month in India, it’s fair to say I need to set my sights on new horizons. I have always maintained that travel is about personal growth and improving yourself between the start-point and end-point. Having left South East Asia behind, and starting a new journey in London, Europe, and beyond, I hope I can look back at this starting point, now, as a place from which I grew, and from which new experiences carried me far.

I hope you have enjoyed reading. I have enjoyed writing. All the best on your own travel adventures, and drop me a line if you are so-inclined. Would love to swap travel stories…! 

Crackson King... signing off.

Victory beer

Kolkata

We returned to Kolkata early afternoon, after an anxious wait at the airport. Thick fog covered the entire ground at Badogra, and as we rode to the absolutely deserted airport, our thoughts turned to changing plans on the go, and driving the 700km to Kolkata to ensure we made our departing flight to Bangkok. We were only delayed half an hour, much to my relief.

The familiar yellow ambassadors greeted us at Kolkata. To once and for all prove our adeptness at travel, we encountered the usual rip-offs, only to sort ourselves with a bargain cab-ride some fifteen minutes later.

Our visit to Kolkata was a total mess really. Our flight was departing at 1:00am, so we reasoned we’d need to be at the airport at ten. Given the magnitude of the flight we erred towards caution. Nevertheless, we headed into downtown Kolkata for a whistle-stop tour.  

We spent about six hours on the ground, three hours of which we were in the taxi in gridlocked traffic (at least it was a luxurious, spacious ambassador cab), and three hours in the streets. Of those three hours, half were spent in a restaurant (nice, but not the best we’d had), and the other half wondering aimlessly in heavy traffic and ramshackle streets. Despite my rather downbeat assessment however, I do have quite a strong impression of the city and its streets, and think the images of trams cruising along wide streets, yellow ambassador cabs, and exhausted stained, decaying, crumbling British influenced buildings will remain in my head for a long time.

Finally, after enough aimless wondering, we decided to hail a cab and head for the airport, knowing the myriad of ways in which we could entertain ourselves (chess, cards, reading, writing, push-ups, idle chat, shopping, eating etc.). We did so, and got into the car, settling in for what would be our final ride in India, and one more glimpse of the sliding streets and ceaseless activity of the big city.  

Surreal would be the best way to describe that final hour.

We whirled through the traffic like we always did; the horns beeping, the cars pushed up against one another, the animals and motorcycles filling the gaps like blood running through veins. Outside the mountain of activity continued, sky-high buildings going up in what seems like hours, crowds of young men around constructions sites, and people everywhere, as usual. I suddenly flashed back to it all, riding a taxi through the dark streets of Delhi, walking that first, fearful alley, finding Andrew outside the hotel, the snarl, and traffic of Delhi, and the historical heart underneath; I thought of the trash pit of Agra, and the most beautiful of monuments, standing out proudly, the world beating a path to her door, Jaipur and the Pink City, my firsts sunsets, the kites soaring in the sky, dusty cricket fields, and Muslim prayers ringing out in the early evening. Udaipur and the shimmering lake, the dense white buildings, the mountains, the forts, and to Jodhpur, the Blue City, and packed, crowded activity, a ride in the countryside to Jailsalmer, and the magical camel ride. And off, again to Delhi, feeling the stink in my bones once more, the slums beside the tracks in clear view as we rode in early morning; down to Varanasi, and the smoke and heat from the burning bodies, flaring up the darkness, to Kolkata, the monstrosity, the dark mosh-pit; at last a break, in Darjeeling, the gentle hill town with views of purity and the simple delights of a people; back to Kolkata, and out, to the car, to the city, and finally, the last image, a small boy, curled up on the dusty floor, his hair, his clothes, his skin, the same colour as blackened exhaust, blending in with the earth as the they were one, he a tiny mouse against the monster of development in the background, an unfinished concrete block crowding out any light that would come this way – this is India, the light and the darkness, the hope and the despair, the rich and the poor, the India of ancient cities and air-conditioned shopping malls, this is India, at least, the one I know.

The last photo taken in India, snapped from a speeding car.

And above all, two timeless friends in the seat next to me, squashed up as usual, sharing in the magical experience of India, smiles far outweighing our weary bodies, and our spirits ready for the next adventure.   

Your correspondent

A bond cemented through shared acts of.... pleasure

  

The effervescent Swags

Breakfast in Nepal

The peak of fatness... thirty days of curries and beer

Border between India and Nepal

We Kiwis have something about us. We can have absolutely no plan in place whatsoever, have no idea what we are doing, go against all odds and sense to do something, and somehow end up believing as if the day had been ordained for us. We might think, it was only because we ventured out there that something special happened. Had it not been for our visit, nothing would have happened. This, of course, is baloney, but it's a nice sentiment nonetheless. 

I remember waxing lyrical in a Filipino blog I wrote, about a meeting of fate between a whale shark and I. I wrote about how our paths were destined to cross, even when we were on opposite sides of the world. What utter crap. The reality is, we got very lucky, and just so happened to catch a short glimpse of a whale shark on a Thursday afternoon.

So, it is the ‘older, wiser’ me that describes our encounter with the Himalaya’s and our two minutes of glory, of which Facebook has seen no end, and which I take any opportunity to show off to people.

Let me start at the beginning.

We arose before dawn for the third morning in a row and got into a jeep for the one and a half hour drive to the start of our trek. The arranged pick-up time was 6am; we got to the jeep at 6:40am, unknowingly and unfortunately keeping Nico – an Austrian gentlemen and PhD Student – waiting for 40 minutes. We set off through the winding streets, and arrived at the base of our day-climb to meet our guide – a 23 year old computer science major, and part-time tour guide.

Our gracious guide

He pointed towards Nepal. We put our hands up to block the early morning sun and looked far into the distance.

“Where?”

He pointed to the ground; hence, we did what all self-respecting geezers (read: tourists) do and put one foot in India and one foot in Nepal. As we began the steep, 2km climb towards breakfast, we debated whether doing so was worthy of another notch on the belt. The firm answer: no. No stamp, no notch. No overnight stay, no notch. Further, Nepal, from everything I hear is a staggeringly beautiful country, so it wouldn’t feel right to say I have ‘been’ there – even though I just crossed in and out over the course of a day. To 'do' Nepal, you have to really 'do' it. 

Getta load of this guy and his classic hiking gettup

A well-deserved breakfast consisted of hot noodle soup and endless cups of tea, served to us in the house of a kind Nepalese gentlemen. His backyard was right outside, providing us with morning views of sun christened mountains, and goats feeding on the tussock land outside. I can say, it was a site far improved from the three foot wide garden at my Thorndon flat. 

Nike marketing department... call me

Our walk continued, higher and higher, and at about midday we made it to the top – and an altitude of 3,000 metres, and again congratulated each other. Pity about the view; once again it was a blanket of white.

Some snacks at a pit-stop... ever-present hard liquor

I am not one to despair however, and we spent about an hour and a half for lunch, enjoying more Nepalese food prepared for us by a family up there. It was delicious, and the hospitality most excellent. Having finished lunch, and somewhat, though not totally, dejected at not having seen the mighty Himalaya’s.

Look at me and my wanderings forever orbiting...

Preparing to depart, we sat with our backs to the blanket of cloud, on a long bench in our hosts backyard.

“Look!” Someone said.

There it was. The clouds had momentarily parted, and we had our view. The four of us stood in silence, four equals across a tiny bench, looking out at the view before us. Words can’t do it justice, nor can pictures, I suspect, but have a look anyway – they are pretty special.

The walk after that was more one of contemplation and reflection, as if the mountain range had somehow given us reason for thought, and that having seen it, we were somehow a little different.

That said, getting back to our hotel after the long hike never felt so good, and that night we cosied up in our enchanting little room with hot water bottles in our bed. I looked forward to breakfast in the morning, for I was hungry, but felt a little tinge of regret for the fact that it wouldn’t be breakfast in Nepal once more. 

Mystery man of the mountain
 

Eerie mountain area

The three muskateers and an Austrian...excuse the terrible fashion

Taking tiger mountain

Your correspondent, reporting for duty!

Darjeeling

It’s a given in India that any tourist attraction you visit will have thousands and thousands of people in attendance. So, when you wake up at 4am, hop into a jeep still half asleep, start driving up a steep and rocky hill, you should not be surprised at the thousands of people that greet you. And, it should be added, that most of the tourists are in fact, Indians. White faces are few and far between.

No condition is sufficient to stop the almighty Indian tourist (even the non-touristic ones).

Now, in any sane country there are likely to be systems and process in place to ensure that people are not overly inconvenienced and that various resources – including people’s time – are put to their most efficient use. For instance, ski reports tell us when the weather conditions are insufficient for snow sports; we might learn on the radio that Saturday morning football is cancelled, or that there has been an accident on a local highway. Hardly a tough ask, one would say.

India has its share of weirdness, and also its share of natural and man-made wonders – perhaps more than most, on both counts, one would say. It has been well documented by now (see previous 28 blog entries) that there are many puzzling and bizarre things in India, as well as its rampant peculiarities. This said however, we can expect reasonable knowledge about fog delays at airports, information concerning the trains, and other matters concerning large numbers of people and their travel arrangements.

So, it would be fair to say, India is organised enough to informed the masses of what they need to know.

Darjeeling, apparently, didn’t get the memo.

THIS PHOTO WAS NOT TAKEN DURING THE SIEGE OF TIGER MOUTAIN

We didn’t exactly awake with relish, for we’d gotten to bed rather late, and the air was still chilly at 4am in the morning. Nevertheless, it was with a deeply suppressed but rapidly rising anticipation that we greeted our driver at the foot of our hotel, and began the journey upwards. In pitch black darkness we rocked and rumbled our way up Tiger Hill, soon joining the convoy of jeeps, trucks, and other cars (easily unfit for such a purpose). Whilst the mist and darkness surrounded us outside, our cosy little car began fogging up, and we were treated to a half-dozen endlessly repeating tracks, including “My Heart Will Go On” by Celene Dion, “Whisky Lullaby,” Dear God” by Avenged Sevenfold, and [enter catchy dance tune], all marvelously enjoyed by our stumpy little driver.

We bought a ticket amidst the cluster-fuck of confusion, and continued upwards to the tip of the mountain, where we were to see the great and almighty sun showering its early morning orange glow on the white snow of the Himalaya’s. You can understand the anticipation.

The site itself was more akin to a crowd of people clambering for the prize at the top of a three storey building. The building itself was utter crap, and had three ‘tiers’ which offered various degrees of viewing comfort out a clear plastic window, which of course, spanned the panorama of the room. The bottom level was utterly crammed with people; standing room only. Our room on the second floor was also crammed, but people were seated in little plastic seats, and the top room featured lazy-boys of the type you’d pay gold ticket prices for (...wankers). Just outside the building were a big crowd of people slammed up against a railing, braving the gold to get the pure, outside view. All up there were perhaps three to four hundred people around, half of which had a crappy Nokia cellphone that took 1.3 megapixel pictures to capture the moment. And of course, this being India, there were people hanging off every ledge, jumping over every railing, and standing on any platform that would support a human body.

The conditions are set for a magic mornings viewing.

It was probably about 5am by the time everyone was in position, snapping photos and occasionally letting up spontaneous but short-lived bursts of surprise. Sunset was set for 6:15am. Great. Only an hour and fifteen minutes to wait. Naturally, I bought a few cups of chai tea and sipped on that.

You might think, by now, what an abomination: confused, chaotic crowds of people, all clambering for the greatest view in the world. Well, not so bad really, just an uncomfortable position to put up with until your view presented itself in magnificent glory.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, the morning was utterly freezing – probably about 1 or 2 degrees – there was a ghostly fog closing itself in on us, and thick, dense cloud covered any mountain we might hope to see. So much for the view.

So, there were about a hundred people outside braving the freezing conditions staring into a thick blanket of pure white, another couple of hundred people across three floors staring through a window at a thick wall of white, and three bemused Kiwi’s laughing and enjoying the site of it all.

It’s quite fun entertaining oneself for an hour or so waiting for something that you’re not going to see, and which you busted your ass to get to. I suggest: selfies, photos with locals (whose the bigger attraction?), pushing through the crowd at whim, finding new places from which to view the blanket of white (railings, edge of open-air staircases), marvelling at the shitter, and taking bets on how many days it would be before you actually saw any anything at all. May is the month, I’m told, so that would be… about 150 days.

You get to a point where you call it – ‘we won’t see anything’ – but evidently for some people that takes a while (hope, I suppose) because they didn’t depart until the morning light had well and truly come, and the fog had only gotten thicker. We watched them slowly peel off.  

My name is Terry John Richard Taylor. I am a knob.

I did what any self-respecting tourist would do. I bought ten postcards (for a buck) and promptly threw them in the bin when I got back to the hotel. I normally never buy postcards, or other tacky tourist things for that matter, but for once I thought, if I’m not going to take Tiger Mountain, I might as well buy a postcard. 

Look at that happy chappy in the beanie and red jacket

Enchantment in room A10

Darjeeling

After our butt-reaming in Kolkata, it was with a sense of renewal that we boarded our flight to Badogra airport, which itself is 700km north of Kolkata. We left the yellow ambassadors and exhaust stained buildings behind, and flew north, to a place we didn’t really know much about, but had heard good things. The most common refrain was that Darjeeling was a place to chill out and get away from the intensity of everyday India.

We got a private taxi from the airport, which was at sea level, and immediately felt the fresh cool air and the warmth of the sun. We drove along flat roads with nice scenery on either side, and began a slow ascent up a winding hill, eventually driving to 2,000km altitude, the scenery getting more stunning the higher we climbed. The driver navigated the road with skill; had any of us been driving I don’t think I’d live to tell the tale.

Darjeeling is known as a hill station, and as you approach the city (approx. population 100,000), we saw all the houses and buildings nestled in and amongst the hillside, which itself was covered in thick forest. Needless to say, the building standards were a far cry from Wellington. In the event of an earthquake, I don’t think a single structure would survive. The streets were narrow, but wide enough for a truck and a few motorcycles, with two to three storied structures on either side. It felt cool riding into town, and after a bit of walking around we settled on the Dekeling Hotel.

It was here that our period of enchantment began. The people at the hotel seemed a world away from the people we were used to dealing with (and a million miles away from Kolkata). They were nice(!), friendly, spoke good English, gave you a fair deal, weren’t in your face, and were just generally lovely and pleasant. Figures, they were Nepalese, a people who have been through a difficult past, and seemed to respond to this with kindness and humility. The room we secured was at the top of the hotel – the attic – and we had to crouch over just to get in the door, and indeed, walk around half the room! It felt like being in Alice in Wonderland, especially given the fact Ben and I are both over 6 feet. Somebody bought some tea in (picked and packed in Darjeeling) and pointed out to us the view from the window. It was above anything else in the city, which seemed to slope treacherously downhill, and far off in the distance, when the cloud cleared (if only for an moment) you could see the deep snows of the Himalaya’s. It was a magical moment.

Our enchantment in room A10 continued when we hit the streets. The air was cool but not chilly, and people just enjoyed being out and about, operating at a leisurely pace. Our spirits lifted even higher when we realised we could feed the three of us (not small boys, by any means) for less than five dollars at any one of the many family run and owned restaurants, and enjoy the most delicious Nepalese food. The best places to eat, I found, where the small, hole in the wall type restaurants that no one had heard of, and largely consisted of kids and the rest of the family. We were normally the only ones dining, and the whole place could usually only fit about six people. We also dined at some more upscale restaurants, which were also delicious, and naturally, had more varied menus.

We would browse around at the markets and shops, and marvel at the magnitude of counterfeit goods – pretty decent quality stuff too, all things considered, and all from Hong Kong. I bought some imitation Adidas running shoes for about $30 which have since served me well. We also found ourselves in a tea shop, and watching the last over of an India vs NZ ODI, in which an Indian batter smashed fifteen off the last over to tie the game – what a match, and what a moment.

Later in the afternoon I went for a run by myself (having not convinced the other guys (yet) of the benefits of running). I ran up the hill past everyone coming down, trying to show off a little, and got to the top completely out of breath. It hit me: we were at altitude, and it was definitely harder to breath. Even walking up stairs I would get short of breath.

I continued along the Tenzing Norgay road, and soon realised something: the track I was running, and the run itself, was by far the best run I had ever done! Not for the speed at which I tracked (slow), nor the depth of my breathing (shallow), but for the scenery, the feeling, and the sheer exhilaration. On one side was steep hillside leading higher and higher, and on the other, huge mountainous valleys as far as the eye could see, with villages dotted all amongst and in around. As I rounded the corner, the late afternoon sun would cast its eye over a village high up in the hills off in the distance, creating a mirage like image. It was fantastic. Every so often I would ask for directions, and eventually found myself following the train tracks and winding through the town. The locals all looked at me bizarrely, I’m sure, but would almost always offer smiles and waves.

I felt truly privileged to be in Darjeeling. I enjoyed it so much, and had the most amazing time. It felt a world away from India, and in a more practical sense, as if we were in another country. It might as well have been, given the Nepalese and Chinese influence.

In the final analysis, the best thing about Darjeeling was how easy it was to be happy there; as easy as the Himalayan freshness, and as bright as the smiles of the people living there.

Enchantment indeed.

Turkey