Day 1, 22 December 2012

                Next morning, we got up and were waiting for our cab to come. Finally a time came when I had to call the Cab driver, and to our surprise he was sleeping and said, “Sir, you should have called to wake me up 2 hours before…”. We were in no mood to have an argument with this person and so hung up a phone, went down and luckily got a Rickshaw. We reached airport well before time and took boarding passes with window seat.

                Our flight was a GoAir hopping flight from Mumbai to Delhi to Guwahati to Bagdogra. Am not sure if am right, but the food served on the flight was worst and I started feeling nauseated. The only thing that could distract the feeling was the beautiful view of Mount Everest and Mount Kanchanjunga from our window. The feeling cannot be expressed in words and can only be felt by experiencing it. The mighty Himalayas at it’s best was giving us a clear view of it’s tall, white and cold Crown. We were mesmerized by the beauty of it.

                Finally we landed on Bagdogra airport by 3:40 PM. Took a prepaid cab to Darjeeling. It was then I realized that riding in these mountains is going to be a tough task for sure. Extremely steep and curvy roads were leading us to Darjeeling. It started getting cold and we started throwing vapors from our mouth. Although it was a extremely beautiful start, my nausea was giving me a tough time. We were entering Darjeeling by 5 PM and it was pitch dark outside. While entering Darjeeling, the famous Mountain Toy Train welcomed us with it’s whistle and steam. We reached Darjeeling’s chow-rasta from where our Hotel Dolphin was on a walking distance. The first look at Darjeeling reminded us of some European town, where all youngsters were walking by, singing songs on guitar at a corner, having fun in a cold weather. We took our luggage and found our hotel, relaxed a bit and again got back on chow-rasta to collect our motorcycle. There was this Tea Festival going on at this junction and people were performing a musical show. It was really interesting to watch everyone having fun and no worries at all. Then we went to Gatty’s Café. It’s a café owned by Gautam Shreshtha. We met Gautam at his café. It was warm in there and the café was vibrant. Due to my nausea I could not mingle so much, had a small conversation, checked the Enfield, took a quick test ride, made payment and got back at the hotel in hurry. Hotel managers were surprised to see series of events happening so fast. By this time I could not bear the uneasiness, so we went to our room and I threw up. It was really cold by then and due to vomit I was feeling really week. We went up for dinner but I could not have anything. Maithili had her dinner and we were back in room thinking, with my weakness how would we travel now. Maithili convinced me that there would be some other way by which we can still enjoy our journey. The day end was really sad for me and I was really worried about our vacation.