Darjeeling

We had two full days in town with a good mix of planned excursions and free time.

During the British Raj, Darjeeling's temperate climate led to its development as a hill station for British residents seeking to escape the summer heat of the plains, and its becoming the informal summer capital of the Bengal Presidency in 1840, a practice that was formalised after 1864.

The development of Darjeeling as a sanatorium and health resort proceeded briskly. Arthur Campbell, a surgeon with the Company, and Lieutenant Robert Napier were responsible for establishing a hill station there. Campbell's efforts to develop the station, attract immigrants to cultivate the slopes and stimulate trade resulted in a hundredfold increase in the population of Darjeeling between 1835 and 1849.

  

Tiger Hill is the highest viewpoint (2,590m), some 8 miles from Darjeeling, to which we made a dawn excursion here to contemplate the sunrise and the ravishing beauty of the world's third highest mountain Kanchenjunga (8,586m) and other eastern Himalayan peaks - on a clear day it is possible to see Mt Everest (8,848m). We set off at 0400 up 'jeepable' roads to the top of the Hill on which sat a concrete structure reminiscent of the famous mountain top restaurant in the Alps. However, this had seen better days with little internal fittings and few windows. There were hundreds of jeep taxis (the most prevalent form of local transport) and quite a crowd of, mainly, Indians. We stood around huddled into our warm clothing waiting for the sun to rise and the mist to lift - we weren't too bothered about the order of events. In the meantime, we fended off purveyors of postcards of what we were there to see and chai sellers. The mist swirled around and we waited - we may have had a brief small glimpse of mountain top and, perhaps hopefully, some snow capped peaks - but no spectacular rose hued pinnacles. Giving up, we headed back for breakfast.

The Himalayan Zoological Park has had some success at breeding rare / endangered animals. Including the elusive but fluffy Snow Leopard with its smudged rosettes and long bush tail, the shaggy Tibetan Wolf and comical Red Panda. They also have a breeding programme for the powerful Royal Bengal Tiger - unfortunately, just before In left the UK it had been announced that the gene pool for this species was now too small to be viable : yet another extinction. There were also single examples of the 'common' Leopard, the Black (Melanistic) Leopard and the Clouded Leopard (which although being a spotted cat isn't from the Leopard (Panthera) family. Despite everything having largish compounds with 'enrichment' the Tigers were showing signs of stress related metronomic pacing.

Adjoining the Zoo was the Mountaineering Institute which teaches and promotes climbing in the region but also has an Everest Museum. This was fascinating with many pieces of equipment used in assaults on the peak, atmospheric photos of climbs and of proud people who had reached the pinnacle, some very sad and tatty stuffed animals & birds found in the mountains and, what really brought things into perspective, a number of 3D maps showing the whole range and the Tibetan Plateau beyond. As ever, it's the often the strange / wonderful item that stays longest in the memory : in this case it will probably be a pair of leather walking boots specially made for somebody that had lost all his toes to frostbite - they were truncated just below the laces.

It was suggested that we might like to visit the Tibetan Refugee Centre were Tibetan craft-work is on sale. However, it was Tibetian New Year and it was closed.

We took the steam powered Toy Train up as far as the station at Ghoom - a journey of about 6 miles. The train shared the road with vehicles for most of the journey shaving itself past shopfronts and cliff faces - spewing steam and soot its shrill whistle gave plenty of notice of its approach : of course it had right of way over everything. We had a brief stop at a large memorial to Gurkha deaths in service of Britain and then visited the Railway Museum in Ghoom. From there we had a gentle walk back to town on a back road that contours around the other side of the ridge. It took us past the front doors of many small houses. Evidently they are restricted to a first floor only - unless you have enough money to bribe a planning official.

One of our excursions was to the Botanical Gardens - it was a long walk down hill through the thongs in the back streets.  I didn't really realise that we were there until I started to see Latin labels on the trees. There was an Orchid House (but it was the wrong season for blooms) and a large glasshouse but it didn't seem to be any better than an average garden centre back home. It must have been an idyllic place in its heyday but, with paths lined with barbed wire fences, empty concrete pools gathering dead leaves and fountains that look as if they contained frozen water when it was a thick scum, it was no more.

This faded glory theme was evident elsewhere with beautiful old buildings falling apart, the paint flaking of the badminton hall / skating rink at the Gymkhana Club, potholed roads with open drains and people having to carry water home. However, there was enough left to still generate a feeling of how it must have been during the full force of the Raj. It is perhaps understandable that the Indian Government doesn't want to preserve its colonial past when it has so many other pressing problems. However, it is both an integral part of its history and a valuable tourist revenue generator.