Jun 2005

Hi Everyone,

Jo and I are in Darjeeling in the North East of India at the moment. The temperature is almost cold, which is a welcome change and we are loving it. Darjeeling is this gorgeous hill station right near the Nepalese border. It has a strong Tibetan and Nepalese influence (there is Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre here). You can really feel the difference. It doesnt feel like we are in India at all, just in terms of the peoples attitudes, the climate, the scenary and even the food is different...although there is still the signature trash on the street, mangy dogs and random cow encounter.

We came from a place called Shillong (which is where we crossed back into India from Bangladesh), which was similar to here. We met this German guy called Falk (i definitely did a double take when he told me in his thick German accent)...he was the first white person Jo and I had seen in a long time and ended up being so interesting. He lives in Pune (town inland from Mumbai and famous for crazy sex orgy cult/"ashram") and has just had such an interesting life travelling this area and living in Iraq for a while - he has met Saddam Hussein twice (said he had a wicked sense of humour...). Its cool the randoms you meet along the way.

Darjeeling is great, with alot of people we can talk to. We even went to the pub last night and spoke to lots of people (you must understand Jo and I have only been talking to each other for about 2 weeks...sent us a little nutty - we talked alot last night, people think we are a little odd here). This morning we got up at 3.30am to see the sun rise from this high peak and you can also see the Himalayas if it isnt cloudy/foggy, which it was and has been since we got here. We went anyway and the sun rise was quite beautiful but the best part was that the Indian tourists (who packed the lookout out like a moshpit) cheered and screamed when the sun broke over the clouds...they love this kind of stuff here.

Anyway this is me ranting a bit as i just want to try out this online diary to see if it is any good. We are heading to Nepal tomorrow morning, a little bit apprehensively but determined all the same.

Hope everyone is well.

Love Jo
xxx