Darjeeling: West Bengal

Darjeeling is a city in a cloud. Truly. It is a small hill station high in the mountains, and perpetually shrouded in fog. This is the rainy season, and the weather is notoriously crumby: rain, followed by heavy mist and low-hanging fog, and of course followed by more rain and mist. Apparently there is an amazing view of Kachenjunga from here, but I have yet to see a thing beyond the haze.

It is the school holiday for Bengali school children, and every citizen of Calcutta it seems has come here to celebrate. Who knew Darjeeling was such an it little city?

The streets are simply thronged with people - Bengalis, Nepalis, Tibetans and foreigners. Darjeeling has a wild and violent cultural history, as it has passed through the hands of Nepal and India, and of course the British, for whom this was a playground and place of respite from the heat and plains of colonial India. As a result, there is quite a mixed population here - mostly Nepali, but also Bengali, Gurung and Tibetan.

I woke up at dawn, and I had absolutely no idea where I was. This happens to me a fair amount, as I rove around like a gypsy more often than not - however, this was different. It was a confusion that came from very deep within my body - where in the hell am I? My next thought: Ah yes, I'm in Tibet. Next: (hearing Nepali spoken outside) No, I'm in Kathmandu. And then: Not quite right either. I'm in a Tibetan guesthouse in a Nepali-speaking city in India. Of course. Where else?

Painted Lorries and Jasmine Flowers: my arrival in Delhi

26 May 2006
Delhi, India

It has been seven years since I was last in India. It has been difficult to imagine my return, as India never quite becomes a familiar place. I left a rainy, cold Amsterdfam yesterday morning, and arrived in Delhi around midnight. It was 95 degrees (34C), and the night was calm and the air quite still. I opened the windows in my taxi, and the heat forces one's body to relax completely.

India is, above all, a complete sensory experience. The scents are so vivid you taste them; the sights so overwhelming that your head spins; the culture so different that wearing your white skin becomes an inescapable ornament.

As it was night during my arrival, my olfactory senses became my eyes. The first scent heavy in the night air was that of white jasmine. The perfume so intense and the night so black, one can only imagine passing through an utter forest of jasmine. The flower grows wild throughout India and Nepal, and when it is in bloom, it dominates the senses. But speeding through the night, the smells change quickly. Dust and diesel smoke. Yeast. The unmistakable scent of water buffalo. Bay rum. Rotting vegetables and dank earth of monsoon. I am back in India.