Independence Day

Take that!

We woke up early to see the sunrise but it was too foggy so we went back to bed. When you can actually see the mountains around here they are quite beautiful. Once we finally did wake up we walked around town, to get an understanding of the layout of things. I have been telling Praj, how much I want to go riding horses. I’m imagining we go to a ranch in the mountains and take these mountain trails on narrow cliffs and across rivers to spectacular views. All we found in Darjeeling was an opportunity to sit on a horse while a man walks the horse and shows you all over town. If the man can walk it, so can we and we declined his services. While we were talking to the horse man another man came over and put his hand on the horse. Guy 1 shouts “Is this your father’s horse? Get your hands off of it!” Guy 2 responds “It’s not your father’s horse either” Guy 1 “I don’t care, get your hands off it anyway”. It was a very humorous conversation.

Then we decided to go to the Zoo and The Himalayan Institute. Again I had to pay much more than Praj did, but I’m getting used to it. At the zoo, Praj called to all of the animals despite the signs specifically forbidding it. “Panda, Panda, Panda, I think that Panda is deaf.” When Praj called “Monkey, Monkey, Monkey” to a monkey it showed us its teeth and then jumped at us, I have attached the video below. There was another sign that said “No teasing the animals”, which makes sense except they put the big cats right next to the deer, so they could see the deer and smell them but not eat them, talk about teasing. The Himalayan Institute is about the Himalayan Mountains and the people that have climbed them, it was very informative and interesting. It makes me want to go rock climbing and climb some mountains, but I’m not interested in mountains like Everest, which is too cold for me.

At the zoo we saw some employees taking a break and playing cricket in a courtyard. I asked them if I could give it a try and they said I could. The first pitch, I completely missed the ball. The second pitch, I got a decent bouncing roll back towards the pitcher. On the third pitch I connected well and hit the ball over the neighboring building and down a giant hill, gone forever. I felt horrible that I had ruined their game, but it was fun to whack the heck out of the ball.

We went out to dinner at a restaurant listed in Lonely Planet because we wanted to hopefully meet up with other Americans to celebrate the Fourth of July. There were plenty of other Americans there and we all joined together at a large table and ate chicken wings, french fries and macaroni and cheese.


Hilltop views

View from our roof

More Hilltop Views

Wassup Wolf

Big Kitty


Chillin' with Tenzing Norgay

Looking Crazed