The next morning, we woke to the smell of cigarettes permeating through the door and what sounded like an automobile assembly line happening right outside of our windows- all accompanied by men yelling at each other in Nepali. Turns out they were paving the road in front of the hotel.
All of us had a little trouble getting ourselves out of bed because it was SO COLD! Somehow, I managed to wash my hair with the bucket shower and give myself a sponge bath minus the sponge. My entire body was shivering and my lips were blue, but I forced myself to go through with it because I hadn't showered in a few days.
We loaded up our backpacks with our work and headed to the same cafe we had been at last night because it opened earlier than most places- and it was just so heavenly we couldn't stay away. However, on our way, we passed a sign at a restaurant that said WAFFLES- so immediately our priorities changed- and we went there instead.
We sat in the upstairs of the restaurant all to ourselves a and chatted about our experiences here because it was one of those times when we all were like "Woah, this is pretty awesome." Luke showed us his ongoing list of "Indian Things" he's experienced- for example- how many people wear flip-flops with socks, but not just regular old socks- socks that have a slit between the big toe and the rest of the...toe spaces? Super fashionable. Another was being asked every time we inquired someone about a good place to eat, "Veg or non-veg?" A lot of restaurants have bright neon signs outside saying "PURE VEG!" Since most of the people here are vegetarian, it's necessary to distinguish, I guess. Another very "Indian Thing" is being referred to by people- regardless of your gender- as "Sir." I've been called "sir" much more than "m'aam." I don't take offense though, because they seem to use it just as a formal-greeting.
Another "Indian Thing"....but more so just our "American perception of Indian things"....was how we never know what to expect when ordering off a menu at a restaurant- especially when ordering "Western" foods. The other day, Danielle ordered a grilled egg sandwich for breakfast. She was excited for it and I was just as excited for her because we had just finished talking about our favorite kind of breakfast sandwiches (Italian bread (toasted obv) with cheddar cheese and a runny yolked egg...just so ya know.)When her order came out, it was a hard-boiled egg cut up into pieces covered in mayo between two crustless pieces of white bread.
So, as we do every time food is in the air, we talked about the foods we were missing. Danielle misses bagels. Shelly misses flavored yogurt (TRUE THAT.) Luke misses macaroni and cheese. I miss VEGETABLES....and really hearty grainy crusty bread. As we were salivating mid-description about what meal we wanted to have when we first got home, the waitress brought us our orders. It was the best (non-Indian) meal I’ve had thus far- fluffy waffles with CARAMALIZED bananas, cream, and chocolate sauce. Need I say more.
Afterwards, we headed to the cafe to do some work for a few hours. Around 1:00pm, we decided to be done with the work for the day and take advantage of some of the sights Darjeeling had to offer. We were told about a tea garden nearby- “Happy Valley Tea Garden.” Our tour guide spoke very broken English which made it difficult to take anything in, but I did learn that different types of tea- be it green, black, or white- all come from the same tea bush. There’s three seasons of tea-plucking: 1st flush is the best quality tea as it it picked first in the early spring. 2nd flush is picked from the same bush in the summer and the autumn flush is picked last- that’s what they were finishing up when we were there. We hit the garden right at the end of the season, so not much actual work was going on, but it was interesting to walk around and see where they did do work- like drying, rolling, and sorting the leaves.
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