On Saturday morning we packed and left Damak, saying goodbye to all our gracious hosts. The brother of the driver who brought us from the airport was there to pick us up and drive us up to the district of Ilam. The hotel manager gave us a couple of recommendations for hotels and we took off. First we drove east through the Turai, flat country but much less industrial than between Biratnagar and Damak, more woods and even plantations of trees (they appeared to be eucalyptus). Again we saw the little graves shaped like houses—in fact, the driver had a flat tire right in front of one of them, so I hopped out and got good pictures. He told us they were graves for Buddhists. One, in fact, was shaped like a stupa.
Our poor driver. Not only did he have a flat tire, but he also ran over a chicken. A whole flock was out in the road. Ugh: the other hens immediately started eating their squashed sister. The driver stopped and walked back to talk to the owners, who demanded 200 rupees (about $2.60) from him. He paid it, even though he told us it wasn’t his fault the chickens were in the road. Later we added it to our fare, because it seemed like a lot for a dead chicken, especially when our room tonight is 800 rupees.
Soon we got into the hills and we saw what a good driver he was. Once we started climbing we never stopped climbing and winding around blind corners. He went fairly slowly, honking his horn before every turn, since one never knew what was ahead—a pedestrian, a boy on a horse, a motorcycle, a truck, a jeep with 15 people inside and 3 on the roof, chickens, goats, or pigs. Soon we felt cool air for the first time in a week. There was mist everywhere, and everything was green. Then we began to see the tea gardens. They are planted on the slopes with footpaths running through them. Frequently we saw groups of people picking the tea, baskets on their backs supported by straps across their foreheads. We stopped at a particularly scenic spot near the summit and watched for a little while. There was a small knobby hill nearby, and the driver told us music videos are often filmed on top of it. Sure enough, there was a man sitting by the roadside, having make-up applied to his face.
We drove into Fekkel, Ilam, a market town on a hillside, and stopped at two hotels. The first was very dirty, and the second had a very uncertain restaurant schedule—with the only other food in town roadside fare. So we drove on another 40 minutes to Pashupatinagar, another town right on the Indian border, very close to Darjeeling. The hotel there was a hundred yards or less from India. None of the hotels had western toilets, but this one had an adequate though smoky and uncomfortable room, the unique experience of a squat toilet next to a broken window with moths, dragonflies, and other bugs coming in, an evidently reliable dining room, and friendly staff, so we went for it.
By then it was lunch time, so after dropping our luggage in the room and bidding goodbye to our driver, who had managed to find another fare while we were checking in, we went to lunch. It turns out the hotel is part of an Indian chain, and the food is more Indian than Nepali. It was a delicious meal of typical Indian vegetable dishes, rice, and paratha. The large family who was also dining sent their children over to the table to find out who we were, and we, or rather Claire, ended up having a long conversation with them. It turned out they had driven up from Damak as well. Like everyone else, they complimented Claire’s Nepali language skills, expressed delight that she was marrying a Nepali, asked what tribe and family he was from, and asked how I liked Nepal: “Ho, malaai Nepal manparchha” (new expression of the day: I like Nepal. I haven’t learned “very much” yet).
By then it was raining, but we set out anyway with umbrellas to do a little exploring. First up to the border, a very sleepy place with not one official in sight. Then down into town, also very sleepy with most businesses closed. We stopped in a couple of shops, and then went to a tea house: two tables, two women, all open to the street. The most delicious masala tea, with milk, cloves and cardemom (which also grows here), not too much sugar, and another conversation. They told us that there were several different population groups represented here, each with their own language. They said the reason it was so quiet was that most of the town’s business is from Darjeeling, and today there was a strike going on there, so few people were coming to town. The tea was 16 Nepali rupees, but we didn’t catch why they specified “Nepali” till we were buying something in the next store. If we had had Indian rupees the store keeper (who came out to see us along with his wife and two daughters) could have made change, but he didn’t have Nepali rupees. That’s how Indian this town is.
Saturday night we stayed in the dining room, intermittently watching the World Cup with the hotel staff. Intermittently because the electricity comes and goes. It was still rainy and rather cold, a sleepy Saturday evening.
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