The Auto-Rickshaw Bed in the News

Through a friend of a friend who works at a local newspaper in Hyderabad, the auto-rickshaw bed became big news. This week the article was published, including interviews with us and with Eimor Customs, the guys who built the bed for us: All for the smile... It was priceless!

If you ignore how they changed my quotes to be Indian English, the only thing they got wrong was noting Mike as a writer and editor, not me. Otherwise it's a fun and funny article about the project.

For more information and photos on how we turned an auto-rickshaw into a bed, see my posts with the auto-rickshaw tag.

Site-Seeing in Thimphu

Day Six

The official itinerary of Bhutan, which seems to be copy/pasted between all the tourism company websites and wikitravel, lists a jam-packed day of monasteries and museums. We did not want to see every monastery and museum on the list. We knew Muffin wanted to see them even less than we did. So the previous afternoon, Mike pulled our tour guide aside and explained that we wanted some time outdoors rather than driving in the car and being in and out of museums all day. He understood and came up with a good solution, considering the rainy weather. In the morning, when the rain was light to nonexistent, we visited the taken preserve and took a mile-long hike to one of the monasteries; along the route we were treated to some wonderful views of the valley where all the dzongs and royal residences are. In the afternoon,when the rain was predicted to be heavier, we would visit museums and other sites.

Our first stop was the takin preserve. Takin is the national animal of Bhutan. Genetically they are so unlike any other animal that they are in their own class. However, they look sort of like cow-deer. We arrived just as a few taken were coming over to the fence for breakfast and Muffin was delighted to see them so close up. She was also delighted to be outside in cool weather and insisted on being our tour guide, making us all walk behind her along the path as she told us the takin were eating grain for breakfast.

Next, we drove up the mountain a ways to a power plant and parked the car. From there we took a mile-long hike along the side of the mountain to a monastery. Along the way there were clearings where we could look down into Thimphu valley to see the dzongs, the major government buildings, and the royal residences. After the monastery visit as we were walking back, Mike and Muffin walked so fast that they got ahead of me, and I was walking faster than the guide and the driver. Eventually Mike and Muffin were so far ahead that I couldn't see them, and the guide and driver were so far behind that I couldn't hear them. Then, a little dog came padding up alongside me. It crossed my mind that he was our guide, an animagi. Bhutan has a feeling about it that makes you think that's possible. He was just checking up on me. He walked beside me for a bit then ran up ahead to join Mike and Muffin. He continued to run back and forth between us, the whole time our guide was never in sight. Eventually he stuck with Mike and Muffin and even ended up scaring off some other dogs that came too close to them. When I caught up to them at the car later, the dog disappeared just before our guide arrived at the car, too.

Bhutan does not have much in the way of local handicrafts, but they have produced some beautiful and unique stamp collections and I'd read that a stop at the national post office in Thimphu was a must for souvenir shopping. I wanted to keep our shopping cheap and our souvenirs light-weight, so stamps and post cards were perfect. They also had a make-your-own stamp machine where they took your photo in front of a decorative backdrop and printed the custom stamps right there. We did not opt for that, but we spent some time browsing and chose some commemorative envelopes and post cards to send home to our parents and Muffin picked out a set of butterfly stamps to decorate her bedroom (I had the set framed to prevent her from sticking the stamps to random furniture and walls).

By the time we finished up at the post office it was noon, it was pouring rain, and we were ready for lunch. We went to the tourism-approved lunch spot and were a little early so they set us up with some tea while we tried to prevent a Muffin meltdown while waiting for the food to be ready. It was a buffet of Bhutanese food that we shared with another tour group. We were finding that the food was good at the restaurants and hotels but it was bland compared to the spicy Bhutanese food we'd heard about. We were being given the "Westerners" tour and we never fully broke out of it. Sometimes we were able to get extra chili paste, which worked out well because Muffin has been going through an anti-spice phase and was enjoying plain chicken and rice while Mike and I wanted a little more heat. I wish we'd had a little more of the authentic food though. One of our best meals the whole trip was our first day in Bhutan at the hotel in Phuenstoling, where Mike had spicy pork and I had the national dish of  cheese-chili stew. (Knowing that was the national dish, I was prepared to love Bhutanese cuisine!)

It was still raining after lunch but we decided to press on with visiting the sites. There was no sense in going back to the hotel to sit around being bored all afternoon.

We went to the paper-making shop, where I bought some hand-made paper to write notes to send home in the fancy envelopes I'd bought at the post office. Muffin picked out some gorgeous hand-painted post cards for "decoration" (I also had them framed so she cannot ruin them) and Mike fell in love with a piece of black canvas that had the Buddhist circle of life painted in gold. It was very expensive, but we thought it would go well with a golden-colored silk carpet we'd purchased in Jaipur. It seemed to have already been damaged from the early start to the rainy season, though, so ultimately we decided it was not worth the price.

We went to the national heritage museum, which is actually an old Bhutanese house that has been restored. It was three stories high, plus the hayloft on the roof, and the ladders were a little slippery and scary in the rain. We feigned interest and tried to move through as quickly as possible. Muffin was losing patience and we didn't want her to run away from us and fall through any of the ladder holes in the floors.

Then it was time for the national traditional arts and crafts university. There are four major traditional handicrafts in Bhutan -- sewing/embroidery, painting, wood carving, and sculpture. Young men and women compete for entry into this school and when they graduate from their program they get jobs practicing their craft for the tourism trade. It was fun and interesting at first, peeking in at the classrooms to see the different levels of students working on their projects. One of the wood carvers gave Muffin a small "imperfect" mask as a souvenir. In the sewing rooms, the young ladies went crazy for Muffin until the teachers came in and scolded them to get back to work. The guide insisted that we peek into every single classroom, though, four levels of classes for each of the four trades. It was repetitive and, I'm going to say it, boring. I have a lot of appreciation for traditional handicrafts but enough is enough.

At the gift shop of the arts and craft school Mike found another black canvas painted with the Buddhist circle of life in fine gold and the price was significantly cheaper than the previous one we saw. Since they accepted credit cards (we were low on cash and our ATM cards weren't working) and they had a sturdy tube to roll it up into, we bought it.

By then, we were ready to go back to the hotel. We wondered if there was anyplace to stop for ice cream or hot chocolate to reward Muffin for being so good all day. Before our final treat, though, there was one more mandatory stop on the itinerary, the national library. I had mentally checked out already, but the library houses some ancient sacred texts and beautiful Buddha displays. I wish I'd been a little more "there" to appreciate it more.

Off in search of ice cream. The driver parked in front of a watch shop and our guide told us to get out here for ice cream. We were very confused. We walked in and saw a small freezer in the watch shop. The owner proudly exclaimed that he makes the finest ice cream in Bhutan. And, he added, he's on TripAdvisor.com. It was a little odd, sitting on the floor of a watch shop eating ice cream, but it was pretty good ice cream.

Back to the hotel for the night.

Day One: 8 Days on the Road from Darjeeling to Bhutan
Day Two: Some Enforced Site-Seeing in Darjeeling
Day Three: Aloobari Monastery: Escaping Darjeeling to See Some Nature
Day Four:  We Made the Long Journey from Darjeeling to Phuentsholing
Day Five: Driving from Phuentsholing to Thimphu

Moving Panic Officially Begins Today

Image from Threadless

The craziness before moving begins for real this week. Dentist, eye doctor, Muffin's pediatrician. A few last pieces to bring in for framing. A chair or two for re-upholstering. Lunches and coffee dates to say "good-bye" to friends. The movers come two weeks from today and we fly out a couple days after that. I'm not that worried about the actual packing. The movers will do all the physical labor for us and whether it's in our suitcases, air shipment, or boat shipment, everything will all get back to us eventually.

I'm panicking over what happens after we're packed up. We are having trouble getting new U.S. driver's licenses. The hotel I wanted to stay in is booked so I had to choose another location that's slightly less desirable. It feels like all our "free" weekends between July and October are all booked up already. I need to find a house to live in. I need to get Muffin into preschool. Some of these things I can't do until we land in the United States, but that's not stopping me from worrying about getting a game plan in place.

I woke up feeling sniffly this morning. Muffin's had a slight cold all weekend and Mike is a bit under the weather as well. We are kicking into "just getting by" mode.

I'm trying not to let yoga and running fall by the wayside over the next few weeks. My mind has been wandering more than my legs lately, though. I'm sick of the park. I'm tired of the treadmill. I'm anxious to be back in the United States where I can wear my shorts not just for running at the gym, but any time I leave the house, whether it's for running, going to the grocery store, or anything else.

Driving from Phuentsholing to Thimphu

Day Five

We had one more long day on the road planned. From Phuentsholing to Thimphu is anywhere from 140 to 175 kilometers, depending on the road signs or maps you read. Google maps times it at about a ninety-minute drive. Realistically, it's six or seven hours. But here's the thing: Drivers in Bhutan are so mellow that it's not a stressful drive. It's relaxing. There are plenty of stops along the way for stretching legs and getting a snack. Everyone is driving slowly and there are guardrails along most of the corners so you aren't afraid for your life every five minutes.

Our tour guide was Bhutanese but had gone to university in Chennai, India, so when we told him how much Muffin loved dosa and idli, he understood right away the importance of a South Indian breakfast and knew of a spot where we could get one. The Indian army has installations throughout Bhutan and along the main road between Phuentsholing and Thimphu there is an army canteen. It was the perfect place to stop for a snack, a couple hours after we'd been on the road. We had some great chai along with dosa, idli, and vada. A couple hours later we had another snack stop, where there was a nice green pasture with grazing cows for Muffin to wander around for a bit before getting back into the car. (She was also finding it unappealing to use some of the bathrooms along the way, taking a look and saying "I want to go outside instead." She didn't mind the cows and the cows didn't mind her.)

It was cold and rainy when we arrived in Thimphu but before going to the hotel it was necessary to stop at Memorial Chorten to spin the prayer wheels and circumambulate at least three times in a clockwise direction.

Memorial Chorten on a sunny day. (Image from wikipedia.)

Our hotel was Peaceful Resort and it was located above the city, far enough away so that we couldn't wander around to get some dinner or do some shopping. But it was nice to take a walk and let Muffin play outside safely along the road with few cars going by.

The balcony had a Muffin cage.

And a very short door.

When we arrived this chair was mysteriously placed in front of the mirror.
Some sort of Buddhist mystery to ponder?

I had read in a guidebook, or perhaps on wikitravel, that the dogs in Bhutan don't sleep at night. Yikes. We thought we were used to dogs barking in India, but these guys were nonstop all night long except when it was raining and thundering too loudly to hear them.

Fortunately, we did not have an early morning on the road planned for the next day. We had a full day of sight-seeing in Thimphu, including a nice morning hike.

Day Six Coming Soon

Day One: 8 Days on the Road from Darjeeling to Bhutan
Day Two: Some Enforced Site-Seeing in Darjeeling
Day Three: Aloobari Monastery: Escaping Darjeeling to See Some Nature
Day Four:  We Made the Long Journey from Darjeeling to Phuentsholing

Indian Cooking Lessons: Chai

Yes, I need lessons in making tea. I've watched my housekeeper make it hundreds of time and I've been practicing making it myself but I can never get it exactly the way she does.

The chai you get at Starbucks is known as masala chai here. Throughout India, "chai" mostly means "tea with milk and sugar," not with all the spices that Americans have come to know it as.

This is the basic recipe my housekeeper uses for two servings of the ginger chai that I like best:

1 1/2 cups water, the "cup" being the cup you'll be drinking from
1 1/2  spoonfuls of tea leaves ("chai powder," it's called here)
2 spoonfuls of sugar
1-inch of fresh ginger, washed and crushed (for plain chai, omit the ginger)
milk

Add everything except the milk to a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil it for a few minutes until it turns black then add milk until it is "the color of chai." If the milk is pasteurized and from the refrigerator, keep boiling for just a minute, long enough for the milk to heat up.

Strain directly into two tea cups and drink while it's still hot.

I usually blog with a cup of chai.

For some reason when I make it myself, my chai is weak so I think I'm using too much water or not enough tea, ginger, and/or sugar, or I'm not boiling it long enough. I've been working on my own recipe with ginger, mint, and honey (instead of sugar) and I'm getting closer to the taste I want but I'm not there yet.

When I have a cold, my housekeeper uses a special blend of ingredients. They make me feel wonderful; the chai feels great on a sore throat and clears up my head congestion. It's so delicious but she refuses to make it for me unless I'm sick. She recently shared the ingredients with me, though, so I can make it when I'm feeling sniffly during the cold New England winter:

ginger
honey instead of sugar
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of the following: cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, and cumin powders
a few leaves of mint
a dash of black pepper

Follow the same steps as above with the tea powder and the milk.

Making chai was one of Muffin's first tasks in the kitchen. She uses the mortar and pestle to crush the ginger, she fills the water cup from the distiller, and she spoons the tea and sugar into the saucepan, taking "just a little taste" of each. If I can't get it right, she'll probably be able to.

We Made the Long Journey from Darjeeling to Phuentsholing

Day Four

There was some confusion and, as it turns out, overcautiousness about our drive from Darjeeling to Phuentsholing, Bhutan, and how long it would take. I'd read somewhere that the drive should take about four hours. Our hostess at the hotel in Darjeeling insisted it would take seven to eight hours. I'd arranged to meet our guide at the border between 1:00 and 2:00 in the afternoon, but there's a half-hour time difference between India and Bhutan and we'd never clarified if that meant destination time or origin time.

We made plans to leave at 5:30 in the morning. At 5:00, just before our alarm went off, the hotel host knocked on our door and brought in a tray of tea. He also excitedly beckoned us out to the common room to look out the window. There had been magnificent thunderstorms all night long (which thankfully Muffin slept through, although Mike and I did not) which had cleared the clouds. We could finally see the snow-capped Himalayas!

We got on the road and had the scariest drive in India we'd ever had.

It started off okay. It was early enough to leave town before there was any traffic. We stopped at a couple scenic overlooks to get a few more photos of the mountains. Muffin had a little snack and was happy to sing to herself and eventually doze off. We had to drive up the mountains for a while before coming down. At some point the driver started chanting. We've learned not to interrupt someone when he's chanting and I thought that if the chanting helped him concentrate or gave us good luck for a safe trip then I wasn't going to get in the way of that.

We've been in India long enough, and Burundi before that, to not be phased by Third-World mountain driving. There's going to be honking, big trucks, and blind corners without guardrails. By the time we got to the flat lands of West Bengal, though, we were terrified. And the driving got worse on the flats as the driver became braver about passing trucks. The chanting seemed to be distracting the driver, not helping him concentrate. But I guess it gave us good luck because it only took about five hours to reach the border and we arrived without incident.

We arrived in a busy town and the driver pulled over and said, "Get out now. We're here." Huh? We're in Bhutan now? There was no border patrol, no passport check. Mike got out of the car, Muffin and I did not. Within a few seconds a young man appeared and asked Mike for our passports and visas. He noted that we didn't have exit stamps from India. And then there was a strange argument between him, Mike, and the driver. Indians are allowed to drive across the border without a check and it never occurred to our driver that as Americans we'd need to stop at passport control. It hadn't occurred to us that there wouldn't be someone at the border at least looking at cars as they drove in. We also had no idea how to find our guide now because I'd assumed there would be a border check office he'd be waiting for us at. We were at least an hour early, too. Eventually the Bhutanese man was able to explain to the driver that we needed to go back into India and stop at the immigration office. So we turned around and drove back into India for a few minutes.

While we waited for the Indian to stop being so confused as to why Americans with valid Indian visas and valid Bhutan visas were crossing the land border for tourism reasons, Mike called our tour guide to let him know we were there. To our surprise he was waiting for us when we came out of the passport office. Our stuff was already loaded into the van. He and the driver seemed nice and friendly. We hopped in and drove back into Bhutan.

When we'd gone through this gate the first time:

I'd wondered if it was the border because of the dragons on it. Now I knew that it was. We were checking another country off our list and our drive was finished for the day in time for lunch.

Phuentsholing isn't much different from India except for the drivers being more polite and not using the horn as much. It's busy but not quite as dirty. Our guide explained that it's not like the rest of Bhutan at all but it's the major entry point for all imports. Bhutan imports just about everything from India and it all goes through Phuentsholing. There was one monastery to visit there but otherwise our guide, Yeshi, planned to have us out of Phuentsholing as soon as possible. It was hot and muggy and we all wanted to be in the mountains for cooler weather.

We had lunch at the hotel and then drove a few minutes into the mountains to see Karbandi Monastery, a spot popular among Indians who go there to pray for children because of an Indian pilgrim who traveled there and had a child. The view of the West Bengali plain is pretty spectacular from the monastery.

Karbandi Monastery

Muffin and our guide became friends right away:

After the tour of the monastery we went back into town and Yeshi gave us some direction for walking around town ourselves for the rest of the afternoon. We needed to find an ATM and we wanted to stretch our legs because we had another long drive the next day. Yeshi's only advice: "Don't go back into India." There's really only one main road so it was easy to navigate. We walked along a river for awhile. ("It's not full of garbage!" Muffin said.) We stopped in at the Bob Marley Bar for a drink. Then we went back to the hotel for dinner and bed time.

Day Five Coming Soon

Day One: 8 Days on the Road from Darjeeling to Bhutan
Day Two: Some Enforced Site-Seeing in Darjeeling
Day Three: Aloobari Monastery: Escaping Darjeeling to See Some Nature

Long Runs and Sugar-Free Consideration

Image from Pinterest.

It's Motivation Monday and it's an off day. We stayed up late on Friday night eating steak and drinking wine and I did not wake up early on Saturday morning for my long run. I did it on Sunday instead and was so tired all day long that I decided on a rest day today. Tuesday is a running and yoga day so I'll more than make up for it.

My "long run" for the next couple of weeks is only six miles and yesterday I eased into long run running with 5.3 miles. I've been doing three-milers a couple times a week but rarely any longer; I really feel like I need to start from scratch with the long runs so that I don't injure myself or get sick. I was talking to a friend about goals for the half marathon (she signed up to do it too, yay!) and I said that since last year I got sick and missed both the half marathons I trained for, if I show up at the starting line healthy, that's a PR for me. So that's the goal for this year: Stay healthy and complete 13.1 miles in any amount of time.

I have to be very particular about my running, eating, and sleeping on the days when I have control over those things because there are going to be a few days when I don't have control. Like the thirty hours we'll spend on flights between Hyderabad and Newark.

On the menu for this week: There's a big pot of chili simmering away on the stove right now and cornbread muffins will be going into the oven as soon as Muffin wakes up from her nap and helps me make them. Mango season is ending so I'm desperately getting as much as I can into the freezer to get us through the next couple of weeks until we leave. I also have a case of gluten-free oatmeal and a case of Corn Chex cereal for Muffin and I to eat through in the next month.

Since I'll be starting fresh with an empty pantry in a few weeks, I'm considering this How To Go No-Sugar plan, at least the first step or two. It seems more realistic and do-able than plans that tell you to throw everything away and go cold-turkey. Has anyone tried this plan or other no-sugar plans? I love sugar. I don't know that I want to give it up completely but I feel like I should definitely cut down on it considerably. If I can satisfy the cravings with other foods then that would certainly be healthy for me.

Alcohol is a sugar, so what happens to wine in a sugar-free life?

Indian Cooking Lessons: Chicken Biryani with Gravy and Raita

With our few weekends left we've decided to have our housekeeper come in for some over-time on Saturdays to teach us how to cook some of our favorite dishes. Yes, at any time over the last two-plus years I could have learned these things but it's difficult for me to concentrate with Muffin underfoot, I'm often busy with other things so our housekeeper can cook quickly while I work, and Mike wants to learn too. So on Saturday mornings Muffin goes to two hours of music and art class and Mike and I have cooking lessons.

Hyderabad is known for its biryani. It's a layered rice dish. It's the reason we moved here when given the option of several Indian cities. Chicken biryani is the first dish our housekeeper made for us and it's remained our favorite. Muffin has grown up on it. One of the reasons its imperative that I learn how to make it is so that I don't deprive Muffin of one of her favorite foods. Moving to the United States is going to be a shock to her and I want to continue making some of her favorite Indian foods to ease her transition.

So, to the best of my ability, I have transcribed my notes from watching my housekeeper make chicken biryani and making it myself under her supervision.

If anything in the recipe is too confusing please let me know. I've been living with it for a while now and it makes sense to me but it's not helpful to others if it doesn't make sense to them!

Chicken Biryani 
½ kg chicken – boneless chicken breast cut into one-inch pieces or quartered chicken with bones
½ kg yogurt
bunch of cilantro, leaves and stems chopped
bunch of mint, leaves and stems chopped
2 chilis (mirchi or serrano), chopped
1 big spoon garlic-ginger paste
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp cardamom powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
juice of 2 small limes
2 tsp salt

Put all of the above into a big pot to marinate for 30 minutes. 

Chicken marinating with yogurt, spices, and herbs

In another pot...
2 medium red onions, sliced
pinch of salt

Heat up enough oil to completely cover the onions for deep frying. Once the oil is hot, add the onions and fry until deep brown. Remove onions from oil and drain on paper towels, allow to cool. Save the pot and the oil!

Cover onions with oil...

Fry until golden brown; drain and cool until crispy

Back to the chicken pot
Add about half of the onion oil to the chicken pot (save the frying pot and the rest of the oil). Start cooking on high heat, bring to boil. Boil for 5 to 10 minutes, then reduce to low heat.

In a medium pot
½ kg rice
sprinkle shazeera seed (taste similar to caraway seed)
2 Indian bay leaves (English bay leaves can be used)
3 black cardamom pods (green okay if black is not available)
pinch salt 

Add to a medium pot and cover with water plus about one inch. Cook over high heat until boiling. The rice should not get fully cooked; it needs to be a little hard.

Aromatics in water, waiting for rice

Back to the chicken pot
Crumble about two-thirds of the fried onions and add to chicken pot.

In a small cup
Prepare food color: About 1/3 cup milk with orange color powder. Set aside.

In the rice pot
Stir rice occasionally. When it boils, take it off the heat and drain. Remove bay leaves. Spread the rice over chicken mixture and smooth off. Spoon food coloring over the rice in swirls; crumble the rest of fried onions evenly over the top. Spoon 1 to 2 Tbs of onion oil over top of rice. Cook on low heat for 15 to 20 minutes. To test for doneness, press a spoon into the rice. When it’s firm, it’s done.

Finished with fried onions and food coloring

Gravy
Toast 1 Tbs white poppy seeds; grind to a fine powder then add 1 – 2 Tbs water and grind into a paste. Set aside.

1 medium red onion – chop into large chunks
2 chilies – chop
2 medium tomatoes – chop into large chunks
1 large handful mint
1 large handful cilantro
½ tsp each cinnamon, cloves, turmeric, and chili powders
½ cup yogurt
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
2-3 large pinches of salt

Grind in the blender until smooth. Add to the frying pot that still has oil in it from frying the onions. Cook on low or medium flame for five minutes until the oil separates. Add a big spoonful of ginger-garlic paste and the poppy seed paste. Simmer for a few more minutes.

Raita 
Grate one large cucumber and mix with a cup of yogurt. Add a pinch of salt and a pinch of mustard or cumin powder to taste. Carrot, tomato and/or onion can also be used along with the cucumber.

To serve, spoon through all the layers of rice, yogurt, and chicken and place on a large plate or broad, shallow bowl. Add some of the gravy and some of the raita. Dig in!

My taste-tester

The key is to use the same proportion of chicken, rice, and yogurt. Using a half kilogram, or about one pound, makes enough for four to six people. All the other spices and seasonings can be adjusted to taste.

When I made it myself, with our housekeeper watching, it tasted great but not quite the same. I think I went a little light on the spices and I know I didn't use enough salt. The recipe includes approximations of what my housekeeper uses; I used about half the amount of salt and my teaspoons were a little scant. You can make the biryani less spicy by not putting in fresh chilies and by using less chili powder. Then, you can make the gravy spicier for diners who want their biryani with more kick. Muffin also prefers plain yogurt to the raita, so that's another option for those who don't want quite so many flavors.

Aloobari Monastery: Escaping Darjeeling to See Some Nature. And Losing a Shoe.

Day Three

Our host at Dekeling Resort finally understood that we wanted to take a nice walk rather than sit in the car. He suggested we take the Toy Train up the mountain to Ghum, then hike to Aloobari Monastery. We'd stopped by the train station the day before and the train was already sold out so we decided to take part in one of the Darjeeling travel traditions -- the taxi-share. We packed up Muffin, some snacks, and some dry clothes (because it was raining) in the backpacks and walked into town. We took a wrong turn, then ended up at the wrong taxi stand. A driver pointed us in the right direction. We passed another taxi stand and then another one. And a driver there pointed us back toward the last stand we'd passed. A driver there pointed across the street. It seemed like we'd been walking for nearly an hour and we'd finally found the right taxi. We decided to pay for four seats so we could have the large back seat to ourselves and have room for the backpack. We then had to wait for the taxi to fill up. Three more guys climbed into the front and a man and two women climbed into the wayback, and we were on our way up the mountain in a taxi-share!

The driver stopped a couple times to let off other passengers. No words were spoken; we were hoping we'd either see a sign or the driver would indicate to us when it was time to get out. We wanted to get out just after Ghum. We passed the Ghum train station and then saw a sign for the next town. And then we got stopped in pooja traffic again. More people celebrating the lunar holiday by parading through town with Buddhist texts on their heads. They were also tapping the heads of people on the sidelines so while we were stopped, Muffin stuck her head out the window and got herself blessed with a Buddhist text.

We inched along in traffic until a T-intersection came into view. The driver pointed to it and said "Aloobari," so we got out and walked from there.

Traffic

Taking a left at the intersection

The walk was great.

Every fifteen minutes or so we'd see someone and ask them if we were still going in the right direction. There had been a couple intersections; also, we had no idea how long the walk was going to be and if someone told us "short distance" or "long distance" it was completely irrelevant. We knew we were on the right path and we decided that if we were out there for six hours and still hadn't found the monastery or our way back to town, we'd flag down a car and pay any price they asked for a ride back to our hotel.

Luckily it didn't come to that. After maybe an hour of walking, some of it at Muffin's pace, we glimpsed this through the fog:

Aloobari was under renovation but the caretakers let us come in to take some photos.

From the monastery we could continue along the same road to return to Darjeeling. We were told "long distance," but we hoped that the man who told us that meant "long distance for tourists," which actually wouldn't be as long for us as it is for other people because we are hearty walkers. We were getting hungry and the weather was turning cool and rainy so we were ready for lunch.

Somewhere between this photo:

 and this photo:

Muffin fell asleep and when her foot relaxed one of her Crocs fell off and we never saw it. By the time I noticed it was gone, it was out of sight and none of the locals had seen it and picked it up for us (which often happens when one of her shoes fall off). We were too tired and hungry to back-track more than a couple meters so we wrote it off and figured we could find some fake Crocs in town.

The road brought us to Chowrasta, a pedestrian plaza in Darjeeling about two kilometers from our hotel. We stopped at a restaurant and ate some of the worst Indian food we've ever had. Muffin didn't even eat her dosa, and she loves dosa.

Chowrasta:

One of the roads off Chowrasta was a Cheap Chinese Plastic Mela so we browsed there for a new pair of shoes. Only one guy had fake Crocs and he didn't have a pair small enough for Muffin. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at every shop that looked promising but couldn't find anything appropriate. This meant a trip to the Western mall, as opposed to the Mall, a pedestrian walkway lined with shops and restaurants. So we went to the mall and not a single store sold children's shoes. We'd heard about a Thai restaurant and on the way we found a children's shoe store. The Crocs were all too big for Muffin and most of the sneakers were too but we finally found one pair that fit and, even though I thought they were ugly, Muffin thought they were cool so we bought them. (Two days later she announced they were too small and has refused to put them on since.)

We had an early dinner of terrible Thai food and took a taxi back to the hotel. We needed to get an early start the next day for our drive to Bhutan.

Day Four Coming Soon

Day One: 8 Days on the Road from Darjeeling to Bhutan. With a Preschooler
Day Two: Some Enforced Site-Seeing in Darjeeling

Some Enforced Site-Seeing in Darjeeling

Day Two
Since we had to go back to the hotel with Mike's passport for registration, we decided to eat at the breakfast buffet there. So another walk down the hill and back up it was needed. Breakfast started at 7:30 and we had arranged for a car to pick us up at the resort at 9:00 for site-seeing so we needed to get back-and-forth with a reasonable amount of speed, for India.

We didn't come to Darjeeling very prepared with touristy things in mind to do. We wanted to walk around, see some mountain peaks, and drink some tea. Tea was the easy part. The weather was too cloudy, and even rainy at times, to see the Himalayan peaks. There really wasn't much to walk to in town, especially if you wanted nature. So we decided we may as well start with the standard tourist package. We'd heard the zoo was worth the fifty-ruppee (one dollar) entrance fee and we wanted to tour a tea plantation so if that's all we could do that day, we'd be satisfied.

The driver was supposed to pick us up at 9:00 but everyone forgot it was a lunar holiday and traffic was completely stopped in town as celebrants paraded with Buddhist texts on their heads toward a temple. He showed up at 11:00. We had no idea where he was going to take us; we decided to go with the flow and see where we ended up.

Pooja traffic.

We ended up at the zoo, which is also where the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute founded by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa is. The zoo has red panda and snow leopard breeding centers. It's small, but seeing the pandas, a variety of leopards, and peeking in at the mountaineering museum was certainly worth the dollar we paid for admission. Muffin was fascinated by the mountaineering gear and the statue of Tenzing Norgay. She started talking about how she wanted to climb mountains. She even insisted on standing on the "little mountain" next to his statue rather than on the ground in front of him when she posed for a photo.

We unfortunately ruined the whole day for many zoo-goers who wanted to take Muffin's photo. We wouldn't let them. It slows us down and makes Muffin withdrawn. Plus, she's not an exhibit. We were watching the snow leopards. One was actually walking around very close to the front of the cage and I'd never seen one so close before, nor so active. They are always curled up as far away as possible. So I was pretty mesmerized and was enjoying myself. Until someone asked me if they could take Muffin's photo and they kept insisting after I said, "No." Eventually I said, "There's a snow leopard right there! Take a photo of that! My daughter is not part of the exhibit." I cannot get over the fact that so many people feel it's okay to intrude on our day to take a photo of Muffin and get insulted when we say it's not okay. It's never just a quick snapshot; even if it were, a quick snapshot for ten different people asking becomes a large amount of time for us. It's not as if she's a celebrity and she owes it to her fans. She's a regular little girl trying to enjoy the zoo with her parents.

Okay, that rant is over.

After the zoo we told the driver we wanted some lunch. I specified "Good Chinese food or good Indian food" so he'd have some idea of where to take us. He drove up to some kind of tourist attraction and we could smell the fried snacks. We were very annoyed. But then he pointed down a treacherous staircase along the side of the hill. "Go down there and cross the street." We did, and we saw a sign that said "Burmese Restaurant." We were hungry and didn't know what else to do so we went inside.

It was pretty dirty. But we got some fried rice and Mike had dumplings and they brought us a yummy cilantro soup. It made us warm and full and didn't make us sick later in the day, so that made it a good lunch.

When lunch was over we told the driver we wanted to tour a tea plantation. We didn't care about his enforced itinerary anymore. He seemed confused. He'd also seemed confused about our request for lunch. We were not sticking to the plan anymore. But Muffin could only last for so long and gosh darnit, we were in Darjeeling and wanted to see the tea.

The tea plantation was a pleasant surprise. We were at Happy Valley. The guide told us they are the only plantation that does tours. I have no idea if that's true or not. But it was free and I ended up buying some tea so everyone was happy. It was a tour of how the tea is dried and processed once it's picked and how the black tea, green tea, and white tea are handled differently. After the tour of the building we asked if we could walk around outside and the guide said it would be okay. Muffin took off down a path saying "Follow me, guys!" ("Guys" is a new thing for her. It's funny, but I still want to be "Mommy.") Then she saw some local children playing in the tea and the next thing I knew, she was climbing her mountain right into the middle of the tea bushes. She was running and laughing and having so much fun that we didn't stop her. We just let her go for a while. We could see her head and her red sweatshirt and we could hear her laughing and yelling. Eventually I followed so I could fish her out and help her back down the hill. She refused and kept climbing higher.

Just outside of Happy Valley, there was a little old lady with a snack shack who invited us in every time we walked past. Once we were done with our tour and our walk, we obliged her and went in for her tea. I'm a little confused about her operation but it has something to do with the tea that is given to the pickers each week as a supplement to their salary and she collects it and resells it so the pickers can get more money. She had several small bowls with different tea leaves in them. She taught us how to pick up a handful, blow on it, and then smell it to see if it's good tea. Muffin loved that:

Then she taught us the super-secret-special thirty-second brewing process. I found that it's just like brewing tea any other way, except the result is weak tea. Muffin loved the tea, though (with more milk than tea and a little sugar):

After our tea adventure we asked the driver to bring us back to the resort. We'd accomplished our goals for the day and Muffin was approaching melt-down time if we tried to squeeze in one more tourist attraction. Plus we needed to rest up for the walk back into town for dinner. We'd forgotten to put our order in at breakfast and we wanted to try a different restaurant anyway so we walked to the Mall and went to a Continental-style diner/bakery. We were hungry and it was edible.

We walked back up the hill to the resort for the night, remembering to put in a breakfast order before we went to bed.

Day Three Coming Soon.