Traveling is the fine art of balancing distrusting everyone who approaches you and trusting (almost) everyone you approach– more or less.<\/p>\n
We’ve become good friends with Antoine and Anais, a French couple traveling for 6 months in India and Nepal and have been traveling with them since Bodhgaya.\u00c2\u00a0 Through some serious harassment, we convinced them to cross the border to Nepal earlier and thus began our unplanned adventure into Nepal.<\/p>\n
Our first step was to get out of the Himalayan town of Darjeeling and come back to sea level (Siliguri), where we could catch a 40km bus to the border.\u00c2\u00a0 Easy, right?<\/p>\n
Getting out of Darjeeling was extremely hard at 6am because the taxi drivers wanted to charge 3x the amount because “Siliguri is closed”.\u00c2\u00a0 Saying a venue is closed is a popular scheme to get travelers to go to an alternate bus, hotel, or restaurant, so the schemers can get a commission for redirecting you.\u00c2\u00a0 Seasoned travelers that we are, we laughed at the audacity of claiming that an entire town was closed.\u00c2\u00a0 So we bargained hard and got the price down to a reasonable level.<\/p>\n
Upon arriving in Siliguri we found there were no taxis, no rickshaws, and no open restaurants.\u00c2\u00a0 We asked, and were dismayed to find the entire county was on strike because Gorkahaland wants to be their own state and are lobbying in government.\u00c2\u00a0 So we got stranded in a town with nothing to do,\u00c2\u00a0 nowhere to go, and miles away from a guest house.\u00c2\u00a0 So yes, Siliguri was indeed closed.<\/p>\n
No amount of rupees could convince a local to drive us past the barricade– not that I wanted to, but our friends were adamant about getting out of India right now!<\/p>\n
We approached a young man watching the developments and he responded with a curious Indian accent with a hint of British mixed in.\u00c2\u00a0 He was very friendly, explained the details of the strike, and led us to a bamboo shelter to wait for a few hours.\u00c2\u00a0 After some chit-chat, we found out he was a sherpa (a mountaineering guide) during the trekking season working for an Australian company.\u00c2\u00a0 This quiet unasuming man had climbed with the greats, had summitted Everest not once, but twice, and all with no supplemental oxygen.\u00c2\u00a0 Needless to say I pummeled him with questions for an hour.\u00c2\u00a0 What does it feel to be on top of the world?\u00c2\u00a0 What’s the view like?\u00c2\u00a0 How cold is it?\u00c2\u00a0 What’s your greatest fear?\u00c2\u00a0 He explained that it’s not cold, it’s fucking cold.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t feel your fingers for days.\u00c2\u00a0 The view isn’t that great, because the view from climbs like Gokyoryi are better, and the first time he summitted he had mixed\u00c2\u00a0emotions over having lost a member on the way up.\u00c2\u00a0 Spending time with Anand was a truly remarkable experience.<\/p>\n
After lots of questions and answers, he invited us to his house, where his mother prepared tea and food for all 4 of us stragglers.\u00c2\u00a0 After some time, the strike subsided, we\u00c2\u00a0said our goodbyes and headed over to the border on the back of a pickup truck with 20 other Nepalis\/Indians.\u00c2\u00a0 We hope to return one day, and trek with a man who was been on top of the world and who has climbed with such greats as Tenzing Norgay’s grandson (yes, we saw the pictures!).<\/p>\n
p.s. Tenzing Norgay was the sherpa who, along with Edmund Hillary, were the first to climb Mount Everest.\u00c2\u00a0 His descendants are still great names in climbing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Traveling is the fine art of balancing distrusting everyone who approaches you and trusting (almost) everyone you approach– more or less. We’ve become good friends with Antoine and Anais, a French couple traveling for 6 months in India and Nepal and have been traveling with them since Bodhgaya.\u00c2\u00a0 Through some serious harassment, we convinced them … Continue reading Siliguri closed<\/span>