Book Review: Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

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Here's my review as it appears on Goodreads.

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first Sarah Vowell book I ever read and while I've read all her others, I've come back to this one several times to reread. We move in and out of the Washington, D.C., area every few years and I usually read it when we're heading back there in anticipation of seeing some of my favorite monuments and hearing some of my favorite stories. I of course had to read it again this summer since I'll be starting a job as a tour guide with our next move there this fall. I wanted to refresh my memory of the funny and interesting observations Ms. Vowell shares.

Assassination Vacation gives us a look at the assassinations of three presidents -- Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Students don't learn much about he presidencies of Garfield and McKinley these days but they are definitely worth a look. At the time she was writing, Ms. Vowell makes comparisons to the McKinley and Bush administrations. I'd make similar comparisons to a possible Trump administration this year.

Ms. Vowell makes American history accessible and points out how American history and politics have always been mired in scandal and downright silliness. I love how she goes into the lives of the assassins as well. Everyone knows John Wilkes Booth, but Guiteau and Czolgosz rarely get much mention. Ms. Vowell points out that many people were relieved to hear that Czolgosz had a foreign name because it made them assume a foreigner had shot the president. But Czolgosz was an American citizen, born in the Midwest to immigrant parents. Sound familiar to the fears one of our presidential candidates is helping to fester this year?

I do not want a presidential assassination. But I think it's worth learning about what drove others to do it in the past and take a look at the atmosphere of politics and the entire country surrounding those events. I recommend this book to anyone who has even a passing interest in American history, politics, or current events.

View all my reviews

• And, yes, I'm really going to be a tour guide in Washington! I'll be with City Running Tours. I'm so excited. I'll share more details once I'm down there getting started.

Leaving Bamako Behind

I’m going to start with a sequential order of events then try to sort out my feelings. It’s been hard for me to sit down and write this post but it is something I want to get down before I forget everything.

The week before Thanksgiving there was a terrorist attack at a hotel in Bamako. The hotel is near our house there and the attack not only changed the dynamic in the neighborhood but the entire security profile in Mali.

On December 1, the State Department put an authorized departure order in place, which is a sort of voluntary evacuation for nonessential employees and family members of all State employees in Bamako. But if you leave the country for any other reason during that time, you are not allowed back in until the order lifts.

Mike and I decided we would stay in Bamako until school let out for the Christmas holiday, then, after a family vacation, Muffin and I would return to the U.S. while Mike returned to his job in Bamako.

We had a wonderful safari vacation in Kenya. Mike and I were happy that Muffin’s last memories of Africa were fun adventures with animals, not being stressed out over bad guys in Mali.

On New Year’s Eve, we separated in Nairobi airport. Muffin and I landed in Boston the next day; Mike landed in Bamako.

The authorized departure is ongoing but even when it ends, Muffin and I will not be returning to Bamako. We’ll be staying in the U.S. until Mike’s assignment ends later this year.

It’s hard. We arrived to shocking winter cold with just a couple of suitcases and had to figure out some logistics, like winter clothes for Muffin, right away. There are loads of good things, however. We have a house, and a car, and lots of support from family and friends. Muffin is back in the same class she was in before we left for Mali, which helped her transition. The dust allergies we’d been suffering from in Bamako cleared up within a couple day of leaving there, so our physical health improved greatly. We no longer have the stress of living in the security situation in Mali.

But it’s still hard. We left with so little time to really process it. We were so sick and stressed out in the last couple of weeks in Bamako that it became difficult to say proper good-byes to all our friends, especially with all the stress of Christmas parties and other seasonal social obligations. I broke down toward the end and couldn’t really leave the house. I was so sick I couldn’t hold a conversation without coughing uncontrollably, which made me anxious and self-conscious. Muffin was visibly worried about bad guys all the time and we felt horrible about our decision to move the whole family to Mali in the first place.

We arrived to a house we’d bought but never lived in. I’ve slowly been bringing it together, but there are still days where I just sit and stare instead of put shelving together and measure closet space. I always have culture shock when I return to the U.S. but it seems doubly difficult this time. Some days all I can do is the minimum to get Muffin to school and provide decent meals. I’m running as often as I can, which is something. It’s been almost impossible to write, though. The seven hundred words or so of this post are the most I’ve written in weeks.

Friends and family members would ask me about what it was really like in Bamako during and after the attack. Eventually I caught on to a sort of glazed-over, yet slightly horrified, look in their eyes. I'd forget that I'd lived with the Bamako story for so long that it wasn't shocking to me anymore, it had become the status quo. But events like that and living in conditions like that aren't normal for most people in the U.S.

Last week I felt like I started to wake up from a fog. I feel healthier, mentally and physically. Muffin and I miss Mike but we all know this was the best decision for our family and we'll be together again soon.

So that's where we are now. We're in this weird limbo. We're waiting for Mike to come home safely. We're guilty about being healthy and eating good food. Most of our belongings are in Bamako and we can't get it back until Mike's assignment is up. I'm already tired of the U.S. and want to go back to Africa. I'm trying to get by with what I've got.

Mountains Never Meet Kindle Release Day!

About a year ago I half jokingly posted a status on Facebook stating I was going to write expat-travel themed romance novels. Whether they were half joking or not, my friends encouraged me to actually do so. After a lot of work, here it is.

I made it a point to read more independent authors on my road to becoming one myself. I had no idea what I was getting into. I reached out to different online communities and not only did I learn some of the ropes (because there’s really no one way to do this) I met some wonderful people who have helped and supported me immensely.

Mountains Never Meet is available for Kindle from Amazon (in several countries, including the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, and India, so check your local Amazon site). The paperback edition and other digital formats will follow in a few weeks.

Thank you, everyone, for the various ways you supported and encouraged me. I hope you enjoy it. (And if you don’t, that’s okay, too. Not every book is for every person.)

US: http://amzn.to/1MN6QxF
UK: http://amzn.to/1Mbcpsz
Australia: http://bit.ly/1QzHwkW
Canada: http://amzn.to/1Nu7FvY
India: http://amzn.to/1NP4dRj

After you read, please consider leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads. (And check out the reviews I’ve left for other indie authors.) Thank you!

"Sweaty, Gross, and Super Hungry"

That's what I said to Mike one morning when he leaned in for a hug and a kiss before he left for work. I was in the midst of my run streak and had just returned from the great outdoors. It was the peak of Malian summer, sometime in April or May. Every morning I was sweaty, gross, and super hungry. Mike laughed that morning and suggested it as the title of my memoir when I eventually wrote about the run streak.

I started on Thanksgiving last year and ran at least one mile every day for 199 days, ending in mid-June. I ran in Mali -- in Bamako and Segou. I ran in Paris. I ran in Salzburg. I ran on the pedestrian path between the hotels and the airport in Munich. (Or was it Frankfurt? I don't remember now where our twenty-four hour layover was.) I ran in West Palm Beach and South Beach. I ran along Ocean Road in Narragansett. I ran by myself most days but with sometimes with Mike or other friends.

I ran on treadmills sometimes. I'd brought one with us to Mali to get me through running during the worst weather here -- the dust storms of winter followed shortly by the intense heat of summer. The treadmill shorted out the electricity in the entire downstairs of the house every time I plugged it in, and by the time someone was able to fix that problem, I'd already run through the worst weather outdoors. The dust storm days when my lungs hurt after ten minutes outside. Long runs in the May heat that I broke up by running two miles to the gym, running on the treadmill under a full-blast air conditioner, and running two miles home.

I learned that I can run one mile under almost any conditions. Bad weather, minor injuries, mild fevers, after too much cider and chèvre-stuffed galette for lunch at a Breton café in Paris. I learned that eventually one mile wasn't enough unless I was extremely tired or pressed for time and most days I was going out for at least two.

I was always hungry. Even the low-mileage days left me ravenous and I ate like crazy. Yet, I started to fit into clothes that hadn't fit me in a few months (a few years, even, after my winter hibernation in Rhode Island).

Until one injury stopped me. We were back in the U.S. I was eating like crazy because so many foods were available that we don't have in Mali. I was running every day but pain was causing me to slow down and limit myself to less than two miles. I could have run slowly through the injury, limiting myself to one ten-minute mile each day. But I'd planned to run a half marathon with some friends, friends who I hadn't seen since we'd run a half marathon together the previous year. I ended the streak so I could get some real rest. A week later I ran with my friends and came within ten minutes of my half marathon PR, which I was thrilled with considering the horrible two-hour nonstop downpour we ran through combined with still nursing the injury.

I belonged to a handful of run streak groups online. Some people congratulated me on knowing when to end the streak and concentrate on having fun with my friends instead. Others sniffed at my decision, saying they would have chosen to keep the streak alive and forego the half marathon. Whatever. I made the right choice for me at the time. (And the people who supported my decision are people I'm still in touch with regularly even though I'm not streaking any more.)

Even though I kept running regularly, I did not go back to streaking. Yet I was still in the U.S. eating as if I were still streaking and training for a half marathon. By the end of our vacation, some of those favorite clothes no longer fit.

Several months later, some of those clothes still don't fit and I know that all I have to do is commit to running one mile every day again if I want them to. Without even really thinking about it I recently found myself running every day for several days in a row -- a week, maybe 8 or 9 days, I didn't really pay attention. I felt healthy and strong again. I also felt like there's not enough food in Mali to keep me fed through another streak and we don't have plans to get to Europe or the U.S. any time soon.

But aside from the health, strength, and fitting into of favorite clothes, I also found I was extremely productive when I started every morning with a run, regardless of it being ten minutes or ten miles. I wrote my novel during those run streak days along with a number of other projects. (I'm thinking I should try to write off Strava Premium on my taxes because of my productivity during the streak.)

I'm going to take it one day at a time. I ran yesterday. I ran today. I'll probably run tomorrow but I'll make that decision in the morning.

ThrowBack Thursday: Serengeti National Park, February 2009

One of the inspiration locations for my novel, the Serengeti.

(In case you missed it, read the blurb here and Chapter One here.)

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

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

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

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.

8 Days on the Road from Darjeeling to Bhutan. With a Preschooler.

On Saturday night we returned from quite a road trip. Mike, Muffin and I flew to Bagdogra last Friday. From there we drove several hours to Darjeeling. A few days later we then drove to the Bhutan border and spent several days driving through Bhutan. Then we flew home.

Muffin is probably the best-behaved almost-three-year-old kid you could possibly ask to take on a road trip with you. That doesn't mean the trip will be easy; it means we are insane for even thinking about attempting it.

And maybe since we are insane, we had a mostly wonderful time when we relaxed and enjoyed the scenery.

Day One
We arrived in Bagdogra and I'd asked the hotel to send a private taxi. While it's easy to hire a share-taxi and the "thing to do" if you are super-cool is to take the train, when traveling with Muffin we've found it's better to just have a car waiting for us. We don't need the adventure of trying to hitch a ride up the mountain.

We are used to driving in India so the honking and the near-death experiences around corners don't really phase us anymore. I noted that more corners than usual had guardrails along them, which actually made me nervous thinking that there had been enough accidents to warrant them and people still weren't slowing down and being cautious.

I lost track of the time, but the drive took several hours. I surprisingly did not get car sick. Once we left the flat plains around the airport we could open the windows for cool, fresh(-ish) air.

We stopped a few times on the way up:

Putting on a sweatshirt 'cause it's so chilly.

We were booked at the Dekeling Resort. The driver dropped us off at Dekeling Hotel, but I didn't know it was the wrong place at the time. There was a huge walk up the side of the mountain. An ancient little man came up to the car, strapped a belt around his head, and piled all of our luggage onto his back, then started climbing the stairs. So we followed. Up about a zillion stairs. I handed over my reservation to the front desk. The guy furrowed his brow and made a phone call and told us we were at the wrong Dekeling. He had the driver's phone number and called him to come back and get us. Some other porters carried our suitcases back down all the stairs and we got back into the car.

I was so relieved when we arrived at our actual hotel. The first Dekeling we stopped at is in the middle of town, where it'ss convenient to walk around but surrounded by cars, honking, exhaust, people, dogs, and dirty city stuff. The second Dekeling is in a location known as Hawk's Nest, which is quite a little ways out and up. Clean, fresh air. No barking dogs. No honking horns. We settled in right away.

Well, we settled in nicely for a few minutes. It turns out that Dekeling Resort doesn't have a restaurant. If you want dinner there you have to place an order at breakfast time for the restaurant at Dekeling Hotel and they'll deliver it. Also, guest registration is at the Dekeling Hotel so we needed to go back there and register with our passports. 

It's about a ten-minute walk down the mountain from the resort to the hotel. The restaurant at the hotel smelled so good that we decided to go there for dinner and do our registration. It was nice to walk after the airplanes and cars all day. Some of the roads were quiet enough for Muffin to walk rather than be carried.

It was too early for the full dinner menu, which no one told us until we'd looked at the full menu and decided on dinner items that we wanted. We perused again and decided on some South Indian snack fare. We actually had some good dosas. 

While I lingered over my dosa and hot chocolate Mike and Muffin went up to the office to register. But Mike only had my passport; he'd forgotten his own. 

So on Day Two another trip to Dekeling Hotel would be in order.

We decided to walk back up the hill to Dekeling Resort rather than get back into another car. It was a long walk, especially for Mike carrying Muffin on his shoulders. But it certainly helped to tire us out for a good night's sleep.

Day Two, Coming Soon.