Andrew woke up lazy, but I wanted to go out. So I looked up a small monastery near Pelling, about 45 minutes walk away. I asked the hotel manager if it was close, and she said it was a nice walk. So I headed out. It turned out to be a pleasant walk, there was actually a soccer field on the trail with kids playing and strangely enough a helipad. The road split and I asked a man walking by which way to the monastery and he said "always take the rough road". It sounded like some sort of proverb, but as the road split three more times I always took the rough road and it turned out to be good advice as it was the path to the monastery. Most of the walk was level but the monastery is at the top of a big hill that there are switchbacks up. As I was walking up there were lots of other families walking up, it was nice to see a different sort of Indian tourist than what I find in Delhi or the other big cities. At the top I found that the monastery was actually closed, but I walked around the grounds which were full of prayer flags and stupas and small houses. Eventually a monk came out and unlocked the gate to the monastery and let us all in. The monk was about 16 years old and as I walked around he followed me and described what all of the paintings meant and what he did at the monastery. He said that usually there are more monks but they were on holiday in Kolkatta. He said that he has lived his whole life in the monastery in the school learning about Buddhism, art, music and math. I walked around with him for a bit and he showed me the building where he slept. He said that sometimes tourists come and stay in the guest house for free, I thought that was pretty cool. I told Andrew that I'd be back from lunch so I headed back down the hill. Of course, Andrew was still asleep, but I woke him up and we went out to lunch. The sun felt really nice and the weather was perfect, it felt like California. We walked around some more, but there isn't much so we ended up going to bed early. Monday October 13 Day #114 We woke up early again and took a taxi back down to Silliguri. We shared the taxi with a Swedesh couple who was here on vacation. It was a lot of fun to talk to them about their experiences in India, they were having trouble not knowing any Hindi, and thought that some mannerisms of Indian men were funny. Whenever an Indian man asked them where they were from and they said Sweden, the Indian man would respond "Oh, a beautiful country." They figured it was a standard response whenever the Indian men didn't know where the country was or anything about it. I thought that was pretty funny, because coming from America our standard response it "The best country in the world!" We talked to them about how it is to live in Sweden and found out that the cost of living seemed about the same. They were training to be nurses, and we surprised about how much nurses make in America. I told them they should visit sometime. He said he has some family in Southern California and that they were planning on visiting sometime after they got the money together. We arrive in Silliguri and parted, they had to catch a train to Kolkatta. We checked back into the hotel that we stayed at before, but this time on the second floor and it was a lot nicer. We had dinner and lunch at Crazy Khanna again and had some icecream for dessert. There is something weird about Silliguri and I'm not quite sure how to explain it. First of all, it's all men, everywhere. And rickshaw drivers, everywhere. It's also pretty dirty. It's just not that pleasant, although we were near the train station so that could be affecting our impression. We stayed pretty near our hotel and stayed up watching TV. Tuesday October 14 Day #115 We woke up around 9 am, had some breakfast, and took a share rickshaw to the train station. We got on our train and slept and read most of the way with no great mishap (unlike the fire on the way there). The airconditioning worked the whole time which we were thankful for, and we were pretty relaxed the whole time. We got back on Wednesday in the evening and were glad to be back in Delhi were at least we can make an attempt at the language and we have our own apartment.
Andrew woke up lazy, but I wanted to go out. So I looked up a small monastery near Pelling, about 45 minutes walk away. I asked the hotel manager if it was close, and she said it was a nice walk. So I headed out. It turned out to be a pleasant walk, there was actually a soccer field on the trail with kids playing and strangely enough a helipad. The road split and I asked a man walking by which way to the monastery and he said "always take the rough road". It sounded like some sort of proverb, but as the road split three more times I always took the rough road and it turned out to be good advice as it was the path to the monastery. Most of the walk was level but the monastery is at the top of a big hill that there are switchbacks up. As I was walking up there were lots of other families walking up, it was nice to see a different sort of Indian tourist than what I find in Delhi or the other big cities. At the top I found that the monastery was actually closed, but I walked around the grounds which were full of prayer flags and stupas and small houses. Eventually a monk came out and unlocked the gate to the monastery and let us all in. The monk was about 16 years old and as I walked around he followed me and described what all of the paintings meant and what he did at the monastery. He said that usually there are more monks but they were on holiday in Kolkatta. He said that he has lived his whole life in the monastery in the school learning about Buddhism, art, music and math. I walked around with him for a bit and he showed me the building where he slept. He said that sometimes tourists come and stay in the guest house for free, I thought that was pretty cool. I told Andrew that I'd be back from lunch so I headed back down the hill. Of course, Andrew was still asleep, but I woke him up and we went out to lunch. The sun felt really nice and the weather was perfect, it felt like California. We walked around some more, but there isn't much so we ended up going to bed early. Monday October 13 Day #114 We woke up early again and took a taxi back down to Silliguri. We shared the taxi with a Swedesh couple who was here on vacation. It was a lot of fun to talk to them about their experiences in India, they were having trouble not knowing any Hindi, and thought that some mannerisms of Indian men were funny. Whenever an Indian man asked them where they were from and they said Sweden, the Indian man would respond "Oh, a beautiful country." They figured it was a standard response whenever the Indian men didn't know where the country was or anything about it. I thought that was pretty funny, because coming from America our standard response it "The best country in the world!" We talked to them about how it is to live in Sweden and found out that the cost of living seemed about the same. They were training to be nurses, and we surprised about how much nurses make in America. I told them they should visit sometime. He said he has some family in Southern California and that they were planning on visiting sometime after they got the money together. We arrive in Silliguri and parted, they had to catch a train to Kolkatta. We checked back into the hotel that we stayed at before, but this time on the second floor and it was a lot nicer. We had dinner and lunch at Crazy Khanna again and had some icecream for dessert. There is something weird about Silliguri and I'm not quite sure how to explain it. First of all, it's all men, everywhere. And rickshaw drivers, everywhere. It's also pretty dirty. It's just not that pleasant, although we were near the train station so that could be affecting our impression. We stayed pretty near our hotel and stayed up watching TV. Tuesday October 14 Day #115 We woke up around 9 am, had some breakfast, and took a share rickshaw to the train station. We got on our train and slept and read most of the way with no great mishap (unlike the fire on the way there). The airconditioning worked the whole time which we were thankful for, and we were pretty relaxed the whole time. We got back on Wednesday in the evening and were glad to be back in Delhi were at least we can make an attempt at the language and we have our own apartment.
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