Joanna and wool sweaters sitting in a tree...

Oh hey there!

What's uhhhhhhhhhhhhhp.

Where did I end our story last time? Does it matter? Well, I'd love to go on about how much I loved Bodhgaya and how bizarre and mind blowing sitting under the Bodhi tree was, but alas, I waited too long to update and I've got Darjeeling on mind sooooooo I Guess you'll have to ask me in person when I get home, or you could wait until I inenvitably spew out that story to you, my already travel story weary friends a few months after I get home, and you can sigh at how annoyingly deep and cultured I'll sound when I talk about it.

Until that day though, this will have to do:

Darjeeling.
Yes Darjeeling is where we are now, 2134m up the North-Indian mountainside, and extremely close to both Nepal, Bhutan and Bangledesh's borders. The city is definitely something out of a story book; the decaying streets and colinial styled buildings, the omni present fog and cold and the enormous(yes enormous) diversity in cultures(Nepali, Indian, Chinese, Bhutanese, Bangledeshi and Tibetan to name a few) that are vying for space here in this little town has made me rethink what I've learned about India's cultural identity. And the more I travel from state to state, the more I beleive that India is the most culturally diverse country on the planet. The streets and buildings follow the ups and downs of the mountain it sits on with seemingly no organisation or blueprint. Narrow cement and stone streets blend together with the gray homes and hotels that line them. Because the city is built on a mountaintop, the streets tend to zig-zag down the slope, like a net of interconnected squigally(?(WHO knows how to spell that!)) lines, that merge and seperate continually. And if you are a pedestrian, and there are infinitely more pedestrians than motorists let me tell you, there are hundreds of little alleyways made of staircases running to every house, hotel, and shop that aren't connected by road. It makes for a lot of climbing, and as a result, a very lazy and tired Ben. Those stairs can make you think twice about going to that nice little restaurant you found earlier in the day when you were a couple roads up looking for fabric for the clothing you're having made by one of the hundreds of tailors that are located very conveniently down the street from your hotel next to the market. RUN. ON. SENTENCE. I'll give you absolutely nothing if you can say that sentence in one breath. Okay it wasn't that bad, but give me a break, I can only be so bad a punctuation.

Speaking of Cold weather(and I was.),
It's DAMN cold up here! Ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok, it's not even as cold temperture wise as Victoria, let alone the rest of Canada, but let me to assure you that 4-8 degrees is F***ing freezing for India, and for my wool covered ass aswell. And to be fair, at home hotels are usually heated, you don't have to bathe with ONE plastic bucket of hot water and you are usually, not the only guests in the entire hotel. But fear not my friends, for I have accoutered myself in armour fashioned of wool, adorned with white eagles that radiate with the brilliance of a thousand suns. I have also aquired black long-johns of synthectic origin which rest beneath my denim trousers of calidity, and equiped with this garb of glory, I have vanquished winter and it's prince, the thermometer, on it's malevolent and serpentine decent towards negative degrees and have taken my rightful place on the throne of warmth, yea, the throne of the sun itself.

Darjeeling is surrounded by mountains(NO. WAY.) which we have yet to see, on account of the fog that has been working dubiously against us on our mission to finally see the himalayas with our own eyes. Every morning we wake up and see what the weather looks like, anticipating the jeep ride to the look out point further up the mountain to finally see the awesome mountainside that surrounds us. Jesus I'm being wordy today, you'll have to forgive me, I'm using thesaurus.com in another window, and unlucky for you folk, I'm really enjoying the whole experience. Everything except actually having to spell the word thesaurus. Ungh, it makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it, yuck. Anybody else find *that word* uncomfortable to spell? no? just me? I'm looking a little to far into this whole thesaurus*shudder* buisness and I should get back to telling you about whatever it was I was telling you about?

I agree.

For once this trip, we're visiting an area in it's off season, which is nice because there are far fewer tourists around, but also bummer(after all those big words that's the one I pick, WOW.) because there are far fewer restaurants open because of the lack of tourists. Which is actually only slighty irritating when you're in the mood for something a little less....worldly for breakfast. I love the food here, but man, I would kill somebody for a cheap continental breakfast right now, either that or pastries with something other than sugar or potatoes in them for flavour. Also, this whole bathing with one bucket of hot water in your freezing hotel room thing isn't exactly a rewarding experience at the beggining or end of the day. It also hasn't boosted my already austere bathing regimen, or hair washing routine either for that matter. In North-India, bathing has become my least favourite activity of the day, which is exactly the opposite from the extremely long and warm showers I enjoy daily at home. We're planning on doing a 2-4 day trek through the forest/mountains to see Everest and the himalayas from a clearer, but still distant vantage-point, and let me tell you this my friends, bathing is something I most definitely will not be doing those four days. But you know what? it really doesn't matter here, I mean, who am I here to impress?(not that the only reason I bathe is to impress...well, Scott knows what I mean, bathing's over-rated. You know what I mean.) I mean, if I was trying to impress anyone I would have cut off the trypsy-like and increasingly horse-mane-y formation of hair that's growing on my head a month ago. A horsemane I will dispose of shortly after I get home, I'm kind of attached to it right now. HA. HA.

That's all the storytelling I've got in me for today children,
I hope you liked reading my novel,
I'll see you soon(ish)

-Ben

post script:
by a show of mice, how many people am I boring now, more than mom I hope.
not that that would be a bad thing or anything...