Quote:
Originally Posted by
DrB0b
Quote:
Originally Posted by
thaimeme
Hill Station.
Old school colonial term.
Subconsciously reflective of a particular mindset?
Nice.
:rolleyes:
Subconscious? Shut your mouth and get me another gin sling, Apu! Jaldi jaldi you black bastard!
Ahhh, the memories.
Darjeeling before it disintegrated into a Bengali style Butlins camp for deprived and depraved Marawaris and their flocks of wives and kids dressed as if they were on an Arctic expedition, looking for curry and chips and cheap Chinese gewgaws.
Breakfast at the tiny Tibetan momo and soup shop, hot buttered and salted Tibetan tea sipped cautiously in the misty morning, the sound of a pack horse bell in the distance leading a train of burdened beasts up to the market.
Chowrasta, the meeting point for everyone living up and down the ridge of the once sedate hill station of Dorje Ling.
Nepali girls laughing and chattering on their constitutional walk around the Mall, circumambulating the Sva temple, where yogins and sadhus blew chilums of hash before singing.... Om, nama Sva,......accompanied by a squeeze box and the intermittent cling clang of temple bells, no burdensome maudling chaperones to be seen anywhere, the women free to choose their own way.
More tea as we visited shop after shop of rugs, jewels gold..
Spending the afternoon browsing Chowrastas bookshop, mutton curry with dahl and rice for dinner, whisky and sodas, argue the toss of politics, till midnight.
Awake early for a cup of Darjeeling orange pekoe, chapati and dahi breakfast then off on a trip up to Tiger Hill to see Mt Everest rising at dawn, ....then to Ghoom monastery, protected by the flutter of prayer flags and rattling of bamboo stems' staccato against the rhythmic chanting of the monks as the great votive horns blown sonorously over the chasms below echoed back across the void.....mists whispering through the pines.
On to Kalimpong a few hours drive down the steep flanks of the Himalayan foothills to the Tista river, then on up into the ancient, once princedom of Sikkim, and on to Gangtok, stopping for alu dhum, tea and oranges on the way.
The return by the same road but this time to stop at a mela, where hordes of beautiful Nepali, Lepcha, Gorka, girls laughing and openly flirted for prospective lovers or husbands, music rocking the night away booths glowing dimly to invite hungry and thirsty revellers to feast on piles barbecued beef, and goat washed down with whisky or rice wine, before sleeping
Breakfast of fruit, omelettes and tea, then on, arriving at Darjeeling the next day at a very reasonable eleven o'clock, in time for a civilized pre-lunch drink at the Planters', who's faded colonial glory was enhanced by the ancient saluting bearer's curry stained but otherwise spotlessly white jacket and medalled turban, as he asked in puka English, "Would you like anything to drink sir?'
A gin sling, jaldi hei bearer! Oh, and a bloody Mary for
madam."
