Ok -- I'm technically in Kolkata and still alive and still have my laptop. Actually I think I've finally got the "traveling-with-stuff" thing down. I've abandoned even more belongings and did some surgery on the pack (needle & TJ's dental floss) so that I can strap my fiddle onto my pack and it sinks more in rather than being on, and then I wear the backpack on my front which actually works out to be alarmingly comfortable. The money-belt with passport/tix/cards goes in a special hidden place in the backpack which ends up being very hard to get to and right against your skin. It actually took me about 4hrs of work in Bali to get all of this worked out.

And it was classic. Once the system was perfected, I looked at my watch and I was late for the bus to the airport. I went down to the stop and hired a guy to take me on a scooter (with everything) to catch up to the bus at the next stop. Tiny Balinese guy, tiny scooter, me with *everything* on the back and a very fast ride through town and traffic to catch the bus. Wow.

So, anyway, here I am. A local guy on the plane was nice as could be and little bottles of whiskey kept appearing in front of me, so I guess I arrived here in the right frame of mind. Immigration and all of that was a blur -- all I know is that I did it local style, cutting to the front of a horde in with everyone else doing the same. The taxi ride from the airport to here was beyond words. I thought the driving in Bali was intense. Four or five times I had to retract my arm into the car for fear of close calls. It *is* Sat night here after all, but man, it was just intense. And get this: imagine, no traffic cops giving out tickets or anything like that. Instead they are on or near traffic on foot w/ a big stick and actually hit the cars. I can't imagine what would constitute as a "traffic law" here, much less breaking one. But I actually saw one strike a car. And Ian was right -- *everything* here (with the exception of very few cars) is straight out of the 40's, including my taxi ($4 for a 25min ride). The funny thing is that it all just seems to work. I think it's doable. Talk to me in a few days.

I was looking in the lonely planet and saw the description of this hotel. The Oberai Grand. Supposed to be the nicest one in all of Kolkata (a city of 17 Million people). Only $200/night. I went online to travelocity (or something like that) and got a price of $119 and figured I'd treat myself for a couple of nights. A present to myself for actually getting here. I guess this is one of the leftovers from when the British occupied India. The Raj era. Words can't describe this place. It's a palace and easily one of the nicest places I've ever been in, much less stayed in.

For what ever reason, I didn't manage to get pictures of the place. Suffice it to say that it was an immaculate oasis in the middle of the intensity of Kolkata, a place with seemly more staff than guests that are constantly bowing at you as you walk around. Lots of stone, marble, elegant lighting, beautiful pool and courtyard and carpets that you sink into so far when you step on them that you nearly trip.

Of course there are sights to see in Kolkata, but I was tired from flying and just ended up walking around the area around the hotel and through a large market. That was a sight enough. Again, I was bad about photos. Oh, I did go check out a museum -- nothing I'd recommend to anyone.

(yes, the taxis and other cars are really straight out of the 40's)

	left: Crowd silloughetted against the Dawn w/ crescent moon> below: People actually cheer when the sun comes up
but the real view is looking in the opposite direction The 3rd highest mountain in the world: Khangchendzonga Darjeeling is on the hill top in the lower left

Every morning, around 4am, visitors swarm up Tiger Hill to watch the sunrise. Yes, really. It's definitely a tourist thing, but a really fun tourist thing. Enough people had done and recommended it that I went. Sure enough, there are really people walking around town at 4am. You can make reservations with tourist agencies, but it's easy enough to walk down to the traffic circle and just get a seat. Mine was essentially on the driver's lap, w/ the gear shift between my legs. Those jeeps..

I'm not sure what was more entertaining: The sunrise or the just the "scene" of so many tourists (mostly Indian & East Asian) all being up there in the cold, w/ vendors selling Chai (the locals pronounce it CHEE-AY) for six roops (yes, I call Rupees, "roops" -- six roops, about $0.12) .


Tiger Hill is about 1000' higher than Darjeeling and the walk down was supposed to be nice. I ended up doing the walk w/ Rachel and Celeste from the UK and Australia respectively. I was still starved for conversation in fluent English and so needless to say it was a really great walk with two really nice people.

On the way back to town we passed by/into a couple of monasteries.    
This is a newer monastery. Founded by the Dali Lama for local students and teachers. Visitors were welcome to roam around. It was hard to feel like visitors weren't a disturbing influence, but I think we westerners may hold a rather romanticized view of monastery life.

For a while we sat out side a large prayer hall and listened to the monks chant and play music. The prayer hall made for an amazing acoustic chamber. Very intense. Again I felt like I was a disturbing influence, but as you can see below, it probably wasn't me sitting there that was distracting these boys from their ceremony.
   

Rachel finally asked if we could go inside. It was fine -- just take off your shoes and prostrate. We sat in the back and did a bit of tedimating. Time passed. I was ready to go. Rachel was still in a meditative state.
   

Some of the monks, however weren't. Click the image below for a little movie and see if your view of what really goes on in a monastery is as romanticized as mine was. Amidst all the chanting (hamm-ma-na-dob-ba-da-dob-ba-da-dob-ba-da- or something like that) I guess those "three grains of rice" end up being pretty handy to throw at your school-mates. When they're gone, turn and beat on the monk to your left...
   
Ok -- technically they aren't monks. I forget the nepali word that directly translates as "small monk" -- students. This was a much needed laugh for me after having such a hard few days. R & C stayed and meditated and I walked back for some much needed fiddling.

that's zevon on the right

Happiness is having your butt kicked by a 19 year old Nepali kid w/ a fiddle.

The weather was funky again today. The sun came out for a bit in the afternoon, so I figured I'd take the violin out to a sunny spot, and maybe even subject the public to a bit of Irish-styled caterwauling (sp?). I hadn't walked far and this young local guy comes up and starts asking questions and wants me to go play w/ him. Turns out he lives about 10K away and comes here to study music w/ this Christian family. Nice guy, good English. Hansmark. Interesting Nepali name.... We barely get started playing when his teacher comes in -- Zevin (surely I'm not spelling it correctly).

Zevin turned out to be amazingly hospitable -- took me out to a restaurant (friends place) and then invited me to his place for dinner (too much food!). He was a great musician, and is into Jazz & Classical as much as the local stuff. He gave me a full-on lesson in Nepali music which has some alarming similarities to Irish (fiddle cuts are exactly the same). I think that's why maybe he "took" to me like I did because I could instantly knock off so much of the style, which might take a non-Irish player a bit more time to get.

The lessons didn't stop there. We had dinner at his house. Fish in a garlic/ginger/lemon sauce w/ rice and Nepali "Pan". He wouldn't let me eat w/ silverware and I think I've got the eating with my hands, Nepali-style-thing almost down. Try pouring a runny sauce over rice and eating it w/ your hand. Not easy. There's actually a trick to it. After dinner we went out and tonight is Diwali -- The "Festival of Light" -- sort of equivalent of our christmas but with fireworks, candles and all that. Mostly fire-crackers and some _really_ loud. All eventually irritating (especially after a few days as kids keep finding left-overs).

There was also the ongoing music festival in the town square, and just above my guest-house. Some good acts. Some, not so good. One band I liked a lot was "Aziz" -- just guitar and tablas, but managed to sound like a Indian U2 as the tablas also provide a substantial base tone. Really great.

yum yum yum ...

I came to India really paranoid about getting sick from the food and water, among other things. !!Super thanks!! to Silke for so many things, but especially for encouraging me to break nearly every rule in the Health Dept Travel and Lonely Planet guidelines on eating...

The Tiger Hill morning was great, but despite how the pics may look, it really wasn't all that clear. No Everest, which can be seen on a clear morning. I figured I'd go again -- the whole "event" was so interesting and maybe it would be a clearer morning. And more fluent conversations in English couldn't hurt either. The weather was actually a lot worse, but I had the good fortune to meet Silke & Lemor at the jeep stand.

Silke is from Germany originally, but had the same funny Australian-affected accent that Lambert (see Ubud) did. She as spent the last several years working for various NGO's and other things (??) in more third world countries than I could possibly name and is currently working for Oxfam in Kolkata on a disaster relief program -- mostly dealing w/ flooding. Needless to say she was incredibly interesting to talk to, and had some amazing stories, especially for a neophite traveler such as myself.

To make a long story short, Zevon was trying to rope me into cooking "an American dinner." Silke said that nothing good could come from it, but managed to give me a pretty incredible tour of the market place since as she'd spent several years in Asia and was a nutrition specialist and liked to cook. Between being out of my cooking element and Zevon being, um.... let's say, under the weather that night, I wiggled out of cooking for anyone.

Instead I ended up putting the fate of my digestive tract in Silke's hands and tried sampling the fare from several of the local food vendors that I'd been avoiding up until now. Ok -- the vendor stands *are* scary at first, hygene-wise. But the food is *incredible* in ways that go way above and beyond anything you can get in a restaurant. And then of course there's the experience. I could go on and on, but the most interesting (sorry, no pics) was these little hollow rice shell things. The guy hands you a paper tray (just folded newspaper), grabs a crispy, golf-ball-sized crispy rice-shell-thing, pokes a hole in it with his thumb, stuffs it w/ some sort of vegetable mixture, dips that into a jar of spiced water and places it on your tray. Your job is to pop the whole thing in your mouth, and the process repeats 5 or 6 times, about 7 seconds between each one. Then you hand the guy 10 rupees (about $0.20). There was nothing even the least bit hygenic about it. Or any of the other vendors from what I could see. But I never did get sick. After all of that we went to a very "local" Nepali place. So local that it almost might have been uncomfortable being westerners had Silke's Nepali not been so good. It didn't seem like the owners saw westerners speak decent Nepali very often...

Note: Most of the food is served in these disposable, biodegradable dishes made from dried and pressed banana leaves. You just eat and toss it knowing that it's nothing more than a leaf being thrown away.