Sunday march 29, 2009
This morning I woke about 5:30, to leave hotel at 6 to take a shared Taxi to the village of Sandukphu. In my room I had a couple of cups of coffee and a cold egg omelet sandwich breakfast.
Restaurants do not open til 8 or so. Even my street vendor restaurant - he is open and serving chai (hot tea with milk) but no food till 8:30.
A 30 minute walk (downhill - hallelujah) and only getting lost once, I find the jeep taxi I need, and it's ready to go ($2.00). However, an hour later when I arrived at the last village before Sandukphu, I was told - no shared jeeps - only private - at $50 one way. So... that ended my plans to see Mt Everest from this part of world, and I took a jeep cargo carrier (we were LOADED with potatoes) back to where I had started an hour ago for $1.50.
Then I had a a four-hour trip back down out of mountains to Siliguri ( $2.00). There I got a permit to visit the northern most state in India - Sikkim, and found where the taxis leave from the next morning.
To get a permit I went to the Sikkim Permit Office, and a little woman was there, I gave her a passport photo, my passport, filled out a long form with such information as my father's first name! Now, how that will help anything about me going into Sikkim I'll never know ... but... then sat and watched as she entered all the same info I had written into a LARGE LEDGER BOOK, then she filled a form in triplicate of all the same information again, and told me that when I get to the border - give the second copy to the police and keep the first copy. She told me that three times.
So after 7 hours of travel, I turned in at the Conclave Lodge where I had stayed before - 250 rubees, $5.00 per nite.
And that ended a rather disappointing day - but opened plenty to look forward to tomorrow.
Restaurants do not open til 8 or so. Even my street vendor restaurant - he is open and serving chai (hot tea with milk) but no food till 8:30.
A 30 minute walk (downhill - hallelujah) and only getting lost once, I find the jeep taxi I need, and it's ready to go ($2.00). However, an hour later when I arrived at the last village before Sandukphu, I was told - no shared jeeps - only private - at $50 one way. So... that ended my plans to see Mt Everest from this part of world, and I took a jeep cargo carrier (we were LOADED with potatoes) back to where I had started an hour ago for $1.50.
Then I had a a four-hour trip back down out of mountains to Siliguri ( $2.00). There I got a permit to visit the northern most state in India - Sikkim, and found where the taxis leave from the next morning.
To get a permit I went to the Sikkim Permit Office, and a little woman was there, I gave her a passport photo, my passport, filled out a long form with such information as my father's first name! Now, how that will help anything about me going into Sikkim I'll never know ... but... then sat and watched as she entered all the same info I had written into a LARGE LEDGER BOOK, then she filled a form in triplicate of all the same information again, and told me that when I get to the border - give the second copy to the police and keep the first copy. She told me that three times.
So after 7 hours of travel, I turned in at the Conclave Lodge where I had stayed before - 250 rubees, $5.00 per nite.
And that ended a rather disappointing day - but opened plenty to look forward to tomorrow.
posted by Johnny at
10:35 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home