My India Journal 3, Darjeeling and to the World's highest mountains!

5/1/10 Arrived at the beautiful city, the pride of India. Darjeeling, defined as Dorje, the land of thunderbolt. Rich with an exuberant mixture of cultures, blessed with breathtakingly beautiful landscape and an intricate blend of architecture and nature.

與 眾 不 同

"We Want Gorkhaland, a Separation from the State(West Bengal)" is a slogan made famous by the flags and paintings on the walls of the mountainous town, everywhere. People are fairer-skinned here. Almost looking like chinese or malays, and you will forget you are in India.

逼 迫

Ruthlessness of China Military against Tibetan refugees
An elegant touch of Tibetan culture (from China) has given Darjeeling her color. Tibetans want to be freed from reign of China and have escaped to India and sought solace there. As a result, China military force acted cruelly on Tibetans. China exploited and killed many Tibetans for their attempt to run loose of China's reign.

寒

Weather in Darjeeling was pretty cold for Malaysians like me. Still boleh tahan la. Nice food and cheap things to shop for; Honest and friendly people. Comparably, the weather in the next destinations was MUCH MORE unbearably C-O-L-D! Read on.

入 幽 谷

6/1/10 Bipen was our mountain trekking guide under Barefoot org. Sachin, our strong porter to help carry things.g
Yup, we were up for a MOUNTAIN TREKKING ADVENTURE, to get a peek at the world's highest mountains: Everest and Kanchendzonga.

From Manebhanjiang, the 5-day-trek to the high altitudes ended in Rimbik. And it was exhausting. The winter climate was wearing me off. Higher in the hills, I caught a cold.

苦 病

7/1/10 Terrible, a terrible day for me. Awaken and compelled to see sunrise early in the morning. The weather was cold enough at noon, what more MORNING before the sun sheds its light! The winds howled before they struck on the high mountains real hard. The EXCRUCIATING cold froze my fingers, making it painful to even move. I hid in the small hole on the high place while others forbore the cold and the winds to take pictures of the sunrise.

I called for the Lord, even foolishly tried to rebuke and shun the winds by God's name -c'mon, u think u were Jesus meh?-but it didn't calm the winds.

this was later followed by an aftermath. Signs of mild Hypothermia emerged thro' me, as assumed by Uncle Julian.

The trek had to go on, to delve deeper into the hills, closer to World's 3rd Highest Mount Kanchendzonga. We groped our ways through as a sojourner in a foreign land, exploring the lives of the undeveloped hills-people(the Nepali, Sherpa...known generally as Gorkhas).
Symptoms began to develop in me. While trekking, I had difficulties breathing, suffered from drowziness and strengthlessness. Had absolutely no appetite. Sachin, the porter stopped me at a village house for a nap. Then the trek continued, Uncle Julian held me by my arm and hurried all the way to the next camp in Kalapukari. Due to my weakness, Sachin had to carry another heavy baggage.

最 后 一 站

8/1/10 although I had recovered, but RM100 was still spent to hire a mountain jeep to get me to the next destination(the climax of the trip)-SANDAKPHU, the peak hill of the trek where a majestic panoramic view of the Himalayas was attained.

check out more of the awesome pictures at my facebook, Aaron Ccf.

After Sandakphu, it was a downhill trek, to ending of a miraculous journey.