Safely back in civilization?

Photo by Sarah

After our evening of tumba, delicious food (remind me to tell you someday about 'has been potatoes') and cut-throat Farkle, we had little left to do but return to our room for our first night of sleep up off the ground in a week-and-a-half.  Rohit, the guide for the 'other' group (Gael, Ann-Gael and Alok) who was also our dinner host actually insisted on walking us back to our hotel.  He was sweet and generous with his aid - earlier in the day he agreed to help us with securing a fair-priced taxi ride to Darjeeling the next morning. Even though the walk between his inn and our slight-step-up-from-a-tent was less than a couple of American blocks, he felt better if the two ladies had an escort.  After all, the streets are dark and the pavement uneven.  See what I mean, sweet.


Across the street from our hotel was the bar of the Restaurant Food Paradise evidently a popular hang-out among the guides.  Raj was there, smoking ciagrettes with his buddies.  I think he'd been laying in wait for us.  Literally.  I think he was waiting for us to leave Rohit's place and come back so that he could talk to us a little before we went to sleep.  If that sounds a little creepy, that's how it felt - a dark street, a bunch of guys hanging outside a bar waiting for a couple ladies to try to enter their building...


Raj's cough seemed better (which I hope was in part because he got a hot shower), but he'd also had quite a bit to drink.  They were drinking Hit Super Strong, a popular light beer we found all over the area.  They were drinking quite a bit of it.  He talked Sarah and I into coming into Paradise for a celebratory drink, which turned into one toast and then Raj talking to us a lot about the difficulties of being a trek guide and how hard life is in Sikkim in general for over half and hour.  His buddies in the bar were chiming in quite a bit, and honestly I think it might have felt like a more fun, genuine experience if everyone didn't seem more than a bit tense and weird.  


Now - I have to make a small addition to my story, and I can't verify it's truth.  In fact, its 100% here-say, since I wasn't present for any of the events.  So, unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to gossip.  Shocker.


It seems that Anke and Arne were down in the streets of Yuksom earlier in the day and overheard an argument between Raj (our guide) and the cook and porter.  If you'll recall, the cook and porter were originally a part of a separate group and we all got merged together because we couldn't secure a full staff.  Anke and Arne asked someone what was going on, and what they were told was that Raj didn't want to give the money that was owed to the cook and porter.  There was some problem with the brand new tent that Raj had us using, evidently now sporting some rather large holes, which no doubt was going to cost some money to fix.  Anke and Arne didn't stick around to find out how it all worked out, but Rohit reported that the police actually had to be called.  I can only assume it all ended equitably. (Done with gossip!) We'd discussed it over our own drinks at Rohit's house, but since no one was really sure of the whole story, it didn't get a whole lot of table time.


To make a long story short (I know, too late) - I blame all of this mess with the cook and porter and police and onlookers for the tensions in the Restaurant Paradise Bar that night. I'm sure all the guys in the room were totally on Raj's side, but I doubt anyone was really sure whose side Sarah and I were on.  Raj bough Sarah a beer (I refused the offer, as I'd already had a lot of tumba).  And he talked.  And talked.  And talked.  


Finally, I had to stand up and basically insist I was going to bed in order to stop the discomfort.  Everyone was a total gentleman, and no one tried to stop us, but we couldn't help but feel like we'd escaped an uglier scene.  Can't say why - just a feeling.


It was now very dark and quite late (at least for the schedule we'd been keeping for the last weeks).  As we crossed the street and approached our hotel, the proprietor was sitting on the stoop - also waiting for us.  I am quite certain he was embarrassed about it, but he had to ask us to pay for our room for the night.  We'd been told back in Gangtok that our dinner and our room the last night was included in the price of our trek, but the inn keeper told us that Raj had paid for his own room, but instructed him to ask us for our rent.  


It was 35 rupees - about $7.  Sarah and I briefly debated going back and confronting Raj about it.  But neither of us wanted to go back into that bar or do any 'confronting' with a drunk and reportedly belligerent son of a Gurkha soldier.  So, we dug out the cash and figured that if we'd only been cheated out of one night's hotel fee and a dinner in our whole time in India, then we were actually doing rather well.  

Super Strong Hit...Not the end of the story!

We crawled into bed with that shivering anticipation that comes from a long-awaited pleasure, such as a softish bed after 10 nights on the ground.  We were just about to doze off when a commotion started upstairs.  


I believe I might have mentioned that the whole hotel was under renovation.  We're not talking about a new-paint and bedspreads kind of thing but a gutting walls and putting in new doors kind of renovation.  While the work was happening, much of the hotel was completely open to the outside.  So open, in fact, that a nest of birds had been created in the main hallway, the eggs of which hatched while we were on trek, so we got to see the babies upon our return.  This open, unfurnished blankness meant that even the smallest noise carried throughout the building.  And the noise of 3 men unloading a truck full of tiles - well, that just reverberated like a brass band.


We patiently waited it out.  Afterall, these men had to make a living, right?  Who were these rich tourists to tell them they couldn't work? 

Then they started cutting the tiles with a power saw.  And hammering them into place.  and dragging boxes from room to room.  Sarah finally sits straight up in bed and says one word: "Really?"


I'd had it with being polite and sweet and trying to make a good name for all American tourists.  I got out of bed, opened the door and called into the hallway,"Are you going to be working all night?".


There was a long pause before the answer, which I heard but couldn't understand.  Sarah said that I was much nicer than she would have been, so I told her we'd step it up next time and let her at them.  The work did stop almost immediately, for the most part.  We still heard the occasional bang and clatter throughout the first part of the night.  Or, at least Sarah did.  I had fallen thankfully and blissfully asleep after one of the more interesting single days in my recent life.