You just meet the most interesting people. Really.
After writing this morning, I decided that becoming the poster child for cabin fever was not one of my goals. So I choose freedom and wandered up to a hotel near my house (Ailment for those friends who know Darjeeling). They have a great view of the mountains and a friend is staying there. They also have the best Tibetan bread I've ever eaten. It's fried, puffy, and served with lots of butter. Mmmmm.
After breakfast, I went upstairs because my friend (Mike--the one staying there) was warming up his sitar. He was going to hold a little private concert up on the roof of the hotel last Wednesday night, but since the strikes were starting the next day no one wanted to be out at night. So he decided that since we were all around (Matthew, the once and future monk who studies Tibetan at the Manjushree Institute and became my breakfast buddy over the summer, some other tourists and me!) he would play for us. Amazing. If you can imagine being on the roof of a hotel, overlooking Darjeeling and the entire range of Himalayas topped off with Kanchenjunga...listening to an amazing sitar performance. For a while I was the only one up there, and it gave me a chance to take my first look at the town since the strikes began. Oddly enough, it made the concert and day much better because there were no cars around. Meaning no exhaust fumes, no horns, and no scraping the bottom as they try to navigate impassable sections of the road. Between that and the sun it was basically a perfect day.
Since I mainly hang out with Nepalis (Matthew is the notable exception), I don't often talk to tourists. We just have different reasons for being here and there are only so many times you can hear the following: "I'm here because India is, like, mystical man. This place is where it all makes sense. The energy lines of the earth converge about 10 km from here and..." etc. Basically things that make me want to shoot myself in the face. This place is not any more mystical than any other place. Everywhere is home for someone and I'm sure if some mystical energy lines converged that will give you magical powers...someone would tell us about it. I would go there and discover my superpower. I've always wanted superpowers since I was a comic book geek as a child. Love the X-Men, especially Storm and Mystique. But I digress (as usual).
These tourists, however, were really interesting and did not inspire even one thought of shooting myself in the face. I spent most of the morning and afternoon talking with a man from Holland who spent the last 7 months riding his bike from his home to India. He went through southern Europe, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, the central Asian republics, China then down the Friendship highway into Nepal and then over to India. Camping when he could and just seeing the world in the open air. This man is my new hero. The fact that he is incredibly good looking has nothing to do with it :) Honestly, if I could drop everything and do the same, I think I would. Can't really do it on my own, but wow. What a way to travel. No drama about waiting for taxis, buses, trains, or airplanes. Doesn't really matter if you want to talk a day off or not. Just riding. You can go places that no bus goes to in a second. If there is a road--and by road I mean anything from an asphalt road to a flatish dirt path--you can get there. No people, no vehicles, nothing but you, the road, and the sky. Really, really impressed. He can't go to northeastern India because of continuing violence in the area and Bangladesh is out since the cyclone so he is thinking about heading down to southern Thailand and then Indonesia.. Sooooo impressed.
After a few hours, an older couple came up and joined us. Also very interesting people. They defected from Czechoslovakia to Canada in (I believe) the late 1970s, which was an amazing story in itself. They are now just traveling around by backpack and climbing mountains. It was great to talk to them as well, because I never take the time to travel if it doesn't relate to my work. Thailand this year was the great exception, but I don't consider eating Egyptian food and shopping in Bangkok to be a great adventure. And these people are in their 60s and still wandering. They go mountain climbing in Russia, Canada, Nepal, Tibet, and in the Alps. Gives me hope that I will be able to keep doing it when I'm older to make up for all this time I've dedicated to the degree.
A few others came in and we ended the day with a beer and another sitar concert. Quite a way to spend a strike day.
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