Day 98, Singalilla Ridge [Sunday 9th March 2008]
Previous day: Day 97, Darjeeling [Saturday 8th March 2008]
Next day: Day 99, Singalilla Ridge [Monday 10th March 2008]
Wake up at 6.45am and have a very brisk cold shower. Order porridge and tea, pay our bill and rush down to meet Santosh, our guide, in the square. We drive by jeep to Maneybhangjang, where we have to sign in to the park and provide our passports as ID. This security is because the trek path we'll be taking along the Singalilla Ridge strays at times into Nepal, and they need to be able to track the traffic into and out of the park.
The trek takes us up a steep, winding jeep track, the heavy mist coming and going, simetimes reducing visibility to about 10 metres. Three woodcutters emerge silently from the woods, carrying huge packs of chopped branches on their backs. We pass rhododhendron trees, their reds and whites blazing against the grey, misty background. It's cold, but the walking keeps us warm.
Santosh gives us a precis of the Ghorkaland movement, from the 80s to the current strike and political manoeverings of Ghising, the Morch and the West Bengal government.
We stop in a cosy little lodge for tea. A woman is here with the kettle boiling on a wood fire. There are pale yellow strips of cheese hanging from the rafters, drying. We try some - it's hard, and tasteless. Santosh tells us to suck it — for a few hours! A cat sits on top of the stove, warming itself.
We stop in another lodge a little further on, and this time get lunch. Steaming hot noodle soup. They have a conservatory here full of pot plants.
A couple of hours hike into Nepal, past gompas and Buddhist memorials, brings us to Tung Lung, where we will stop for the night. There's a huge kitchen here, with trekkers huddled around the wood stove warming themselves. We get a cup of tea, maybe our 6th or 7th of the day, and it comes in a china mug with a china lid that keeps the heat in.
We sit and chat to the other trekkers — English, French, some Bengalis, who you can spot by their bobble hats or other improvised headgear; a shirt tied around their head, for example — until dinner. And dinner is delicious. We have soup, rice, dal, potatoes, veg and an apple and custard pudding. The guides and porters sit around the fire getting merry and giggly on tongba — fermented millet beer.
We go outside to watch the absolutely dazzling array of stars in the cold, clear night sky. Eventually we go to bed, which is excrutiatingly cold. We take hot water botles and climb beneath layers of blankets.
Next day: Day 99, Singalilla Ridge [Monday 10th March 2008]
Previous day: Day 97, Darjeeling [Saturday 8th March 2008]