OCT-B-8

CLOSING OUT WEST BENGAL AND KALIM PONG

WITH AN AMAZING TOTAL OF 1380 PATIENTS FOR FOUR CLINIC DAYS IN THIS PROVINCE FOR MY FIRST WEEK,

AND GOING ON BY ROAD, OUT OF WEST BENGAL

AND INTO SIKKIM, THROUGH ITS CAPITAL, GANGTOK,

AND ON TO OUR NEXT CLINIC SETUP IN MANGAN

October 12, 2003

It has been a full day in transit with a number of stops for permits, clearances, and re-packing our stuff out of vans rented in West Bengal and transferring over to Sikkim jeeps, but I have arrived now at dark in Mangan, in a “guest house” in which the electricity (at least there is some here) is crackling through and melting the connector to which I have attached my adapter. So, before the total meltdown, I will try to describe our transfer out of the week in West Bengal and entry into the week in Sikkim.

SECOND DAILY RUN IN A ROW, AS WE RUN UP THE STEEP HILLS,

AND THROUGH THE POST-MARKET DAY QUIET KALIM PONG

I did not see the mountain in the Kanchenchunga Range this morning, although I looked hard for it. Later there were twp mountain tips above the clouds, but the clouds became denser rather than thinner, as the day progressed, with little evidence of rain here—the first day it was missing—but enough clouds to obscure the great view of the mountains advertised on the brochures for Sood’s Garden Retreat, which Sid and Wendy Sood swear is the usual rule for this time of year with the unprecedented status of heavy rains and cloud cover being oddities for our week here.

I returned from the run with visions of a hot watrer bucket bath, since I had been careful to see that the heater was turned on in our bathroom, so that the water could get hot. Unlike yesterday when I returned from the run to find that all I had was clod water, today would be different. That’s right. There was no water, hot or otherwise. After an initial dribble of warm water, which encouraged me to get soaped up, the water quit altogether, so all I could use to rinse was the left over cold water in the pail I had hoped to use to flush the Indian toilet, which being in India, never flushes completely before the fourth try.

Well, that was just one frustrated hope; let’s try another. Christi had got up early and had logged on to the internet, and acutely had sent an email. I rapidly logged in and got---the same perpetual page that it has shown me all week “This page cannot be found.” It never did work, for me or anyone else all morning, so that must have been a fluke occurrence for her. I had tried to send Milly’s birthday message, typed two days before here birthday, and now, still unsent, two days after her birthday, at a time when she will have forgotten the significance this event. I have also tried to send another message, which has likewise been typed in several times and never has the connection been made. So, I will have to carry along these thoughts until I can reach some reliable machine somewhere, although it seems I am on my way to places more remote and less likely to have phone and electricity to be counted upon.

We were supposed to have an “Indian Breakfast” due to the misplaced enthusiasm of one of our group who expressed rapture over the spicy exotic dishes as a wake up dish. So, I mostly had bread and got the minimal stuff I have with me (remember that all of my stuff for this trip is supposed to have arrived from Simla for my use, but it is unaccountably tied up in Kolkata, from which it will not be ransomed in time for this trip, if ever, for my use. So, we would be ready to go at 8:30 as Ravi and Crystal headed back toward Bagdogra and the rest of us loaded up three vans to of to North Sikkim. Not so fast. Many legal formalities had to be filled out including the passports and visas for each of us, and it was not until 10:30 that we got to moving. We went down the steep roads toward the Teesta River and took off up the long roads toward the border crossing, where we had to wait for about an hour as the guards kept going over our forms. It was hard to keep the troops patient during this bureaucratic wait, but hen we drove off up through verdant tropical rainforest and a game refuge that I had read about with the tourist booklets I had got from Sid and Wendy Sood. We had to wait for a cup of tea and other breakfast run rituals, which got us off to a late start. Then we had to wait at the Teesta River border of Sikkim to have each of our passports checked and the list of our visas and pre-approved permit to be in this sensitive area---between Nepal on the west, Tibet (China) to the north, Bhutan to the east, and West Bengal from which we had come to the south. We just stood and waited at the government guest house and police check point, and put in over an hour waiting for someone to review the permits. Except for these three intervals at borders, all the rest of our day was spent driving the tarred “hill roads” into the mountainous province of Sikkim.

We drove to Gangtok, the capitol of Sikkim from the Teesta River site where we had seen companies of white water rapids going downriver with tourists. WE had to stop in Gangtok to change out of our West Bengal vans to get into our Sikkim yellow Mahindra MAXX jeeps, since there is a rule that limits our transport to the locals who must be registered with the police. Our driver Tensing drove as fast as he could up the mountain roads, often coming to a screeching halt when a head on vehicle had approached around blind curves despite the honking of horns as an advance warning. We passed several “Chus’ the Hindi name for waterfalls, several being very spectacular and had names like Sansi Chu. Then as it began to get dark around 5:00 PM and only the top ridges of an imposing string of mountains all around us could be seen, we came to a single lane bridge called Rang-rang, and drove over it looking down into the deep canyon beneath us. This is Asia’s highest bridge, over 400 feet to a chasm of white water below.

I had been in a similar vehicle going from Malaybalay to Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao and crossed Autama Canyon, also claiming to be the highest bridge in Asia, and as I remember it by daylight and this one by dusk, it might be hard to judge between the two claims. But each is in very out of the way places, and don not seem to flaunt themselves as tourist destinations or attractions.

We arrived in Mangan, and have found our way to facilities, that, at the most charitable, can be said to be “Rudimentary”. I had plugged into to the one outlet—as mentioned above—to take advantage of the flickering electricity to charge up the lap top, but for the puzzling and alarming buzzing and crackling sound accompanied by snap, pops and a bit of flaring smoke. It stopped after a while, and so did the green light indicating that I was charging my laptop battery. It seems the wall circuit had fried after shorting out and burning through the plastic receptacle in the wall, so I am flattening the battery on this text as I rush to complete the day’s account.

I walked across the street to an “Indian dinner” which consisted of rice, “roti” pan bread, and a veggie mix soaked in curry powder and pepper, so the best part of this dinner for me, of course, is the liter of water that I had to drink as fast as I could to extinguish the flames of the assault on my tongue and oral mucosa. It is unlikely that I will gain much weight on this trip! Another reason may be that I scheduled another 6:30 AM run with Jackie, the Air Force FP resident who has been an army brat all her life, so we will run UP the hills at the start of the run before the hazardous traffic has started up for tomorrow, and return to the downhill on the return. I then will come back to my room, and seek some way to clean up without hot water or a shower, and quite possibly without much water of any temperature.

One other item: I saw the Asian toilet at the end of the hall down from my room, and crawling up the wall was a large female preying mantis. I thought this looked neat, so I went back to take my camera back to shoot this “facility” and the large insect who had chosen to perch here for prey. As I returned, she had decided upon her prey. She flew directly at my face and perched upon my right eyebrow! Given the reputation of the female mantis for her culinary tastes following her amorous pursuits, I elected to flick her off and run back to leave the camera in the room and not to try to make any portraits of amorous mantidae!

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