Bhutan in 40 Seconds

I woke up early to a cold shower and disappointment. There was a different guard at the border this morning and he said there was no way I could pass. He knew nothing about day permits, and I couldn't enquire at the immigration office because it is closed on Sundays.

The 40 seconds that I passed through the gate the night before was all I got to experience of Bhutan. Feeling somewhat defeated, I decided to take the bus to Darjeeling. I was 1.5 hours early for the 7:30 bus, so I sat and soaked up the atmosphere of Bhutan on the Indian side of the border.

It seems I had been wrong about the guards' housecoats last night. They were actually traditional Bhutanese clothing. Two Bhutanese couples brought freight to the bus and confirmed this. The men wore simple plaid coats that folded across their chests and came down to their knees. One man wore pants under his, and the other wore long socks so that it looked like he was wearing a kilt. The women wore horizontally striped skirts that looked like sarongs and knitted petticoats.

I scored some Bhutanese money when I got change to tip the porter for loading my luggage (he called it a handling fee, although no one else paid it). The unit of Bhutanese currency is called the ngultrum (don't ask me how to pronounce that) and is on par with the Indian rupee at about 45 ngultrum or rupees to the US dollar. Feeling somewhat less defeated, I boarded the bus. I had a similar experience to yesterday. There was a detour in our journey and the attendant, perhaps aware of the porter's 5 rupee forced tip, tried to scam another 15 rupees out of me for the extra hour of travel. I asked "why?" a few times and he gave up.

Hours later we finally reached the hills. "Hills" near the Himalayas would be huge mountains anywhere east of the Rockies. Being afraid of heights, found myself sitting on the wrong side of the bus.The road didn't follow the valley, but cut along the sides of the hills. I was next to the windows overlooked the edge. I could look straight down over a half metre high barricade that probably wouldn't stop a bicycle. I had to avoid thoughts of the bus plunging to my and the other passengers' death the whole time.

The mountains were covered with a blanket of fog that wasn't fog at all. At nearly 3000 m about sea level, we were in the clouds. The windows of the bus were tinted and made the vivid green of the hills even more vivid. We passed a number of tea plantations. The bushes were low and looked like a leafy shrub that would make a nice hedge.

Bright yellow signs along the road gave subtle and not so subtle messages to motorists to slow down. One read ""Enjoy the beauty of the hills at slow speeds." Another read "Time is money but life is precious." No slogan was repeated twice. I could imagine bureaucrats sitting in a tiny room thinking of what clever lines they could put on yellow signs.

We stopped for lunch part way there, but not knowing how long we were to stop or how to order, I chose to eat two chocolate bars and a bag of chips.

At 4:30, after about 9 hours in transit, we arrived in Darjeeling, "Queen of the Hill Stations." There were a few old British building scattered around town. The post office and government office looked like they could have been anywhere in the UK. Some of the old plantation mansions had been converted into heritage hotels. The rest and majority of the buildings were Indian in design and construction.

I quickly found a hotel, walked around town and now am going to sign off and go to bed.