We woke up at 6 am to catch the 7 am taxi (170Rs each). They obviously weren't kidding about the taxi being booked. Even at such an early time the taxi stand was packed with people yelling for a taxi to Pelling, most looked really frustrated and we were glad that we had our tickets the day before. The taxi was packed full, at one point we had 18 people crammed in there (two were kids). The kid sitting on his mom's lap next to me would fall asleep and collapse onto my lap. Although it was kind of cute, it became annoying towards the end of the 5 hour jeep ride. Finally I put my small backpack on my lap and leaned forward to try to sleep. Andrew and I both joke that after the 36 hour train ride to Silliguri and all of these share jeeps, the plane ride home will be a snap. We got to Pelling at 12:30 pm and checked into the Hotel Garuda (300 Rs a night for their best room). It was clean but the toilet had to be jiggled in order to work. We ate lunch at the café in the hotel, decent food, slightly overpriced, and slow service. But they'll bill your meal to your room which was convenient for us. They had excellent Tibetan bread, which is a warm kind of thick flat bread that's excellent with soup. We went up to the tourist office, which was one man in a bare room, behind a desk. We asked if we could get a taxi back from Kachepperi Lake if we walked there tomorrow and he said it would all work out. We also booked a taxi for back to Silliguri for Monday. The vacation almost over, but we were still having a lot of fun. It was tiring (and expensive) and in some strange way we missed the comforts of our apartment in Delhi. We called it our "base camp", Andrew said it's not his home, but it's still comforting somehow. I thought that at this point "home" could be three places: Delhi, Livermore, or Davis. It's like we're the opposite of homeless, we have too many homes!
We woke up at 6 am to catch the 7 am taxi (170Rs each). They obviously weren't kidding about the taxi being booked. Even at such an early time the taxi stand was packed with people yelling for a taxi to Pelling, most looked really frustrated and we were glad that we had our tickets the day before. The taxi was packed full, at one point we had 18 people crammed in there (two were kids). The kid sitting on his mom's lap next to me would fall asleep and collapse onto my lap. Although it was kind of cute, it became annoying towards the end of the 5 hour jeep ride. Finally I put my small backpack on my lap and leaned forward to try to sleep. Andrew and I both joke that after the 36 hour train ride to Silliguri and all of these share jeeps, the plane ride home will be a snap. We got to Pelling at 12:30 pm and checked into the Hotel Garuda (300 Rs a night for their best room). It was clean but the toilet had to be jiggled in order to work. We ate lunch at the café in the hotel, decent food, slightly overpriced, and slow service. But they'll bill your meal to your room which was convenient for us. They had excellent Tibetan bread, which is a warm kind of thick flat bread that's excellent with soup. We went up to the tourist office, which was one man in a bare room, behind a desk. We asked if we could get a taxi back from Kachepperi Lake if we walked there tomorrow and he said it would all work out. We also booked a taxi for back to Silliguri for Monday. The vacation almost over, but we were still having a lot of fun. It was tiring (and expensive) and in some strange way we missed the comforts of our apartment in Delhi. We called it our "base camp", Andrew said it's not his home, but it's still comforting somehow. I thought that at this point "home" could be three places: Delhi, Livermore, or Davis. It's like we're the opposite of homeless, we have too many homes!
Comments
Post a Comment