India: Day 10 – A trip to Kurseong
As I have already written, we had intended to visit the city of Darjeeling on Independence Day but were kept from doing so by terrible traffic. Having learnt our lesson, we moderated our ambitions and decided that today, we would only try to get as far as Kurseong. After all, the people travelling to Darjeeling would probably be returning in droves that day, and the driver estimated it might take three hours one way if the roads looked the way they did yesterday.
By some miracle, we
managed to avoid the rain until our drive back, when we only made a brief stop
and left the car to gaze at a local waterfall. Walking through Kurseong itself
was a strange experience. The town is built into the side of the hill, whose
foot can barely be discerned during the monsoon. No other settlement I have
seen is so strongly shaped by the clouds, which creep in suddenly, disperse
unexpectedly, and bring rain without warning. Although most of its buildings
are of recent provenance, one occasionally spots vestiges of British rule: a
depot for the old toy train, the old-timey train station with its nostalgically
prim café, and the occasional roadside mansion with Greek-style columns.
The streets of
Kurseong are ruled by dogs, which are as carefully avoided by drivers as cows
are in the lowlands. On our way up, our driver had to pause and studiously alter
his course to avoid two dogs making love in the middle of the road. Where dogs
roam the lower reaches, monkeys are the undisputed kings of all above the
ground. Sleeping along the ledges of buildings and resting on the roofs, they
cross the road not by descending to the ground but by climbing across the
electric cables which are a whole new realm of pedestrian infrastructure.
(Also, I recently
learned that our stay at the family estate has been documented on their website:
https://dorjeteas.com/blogs/posts/cluedo-by-ludo)
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