Shrine of the Holy Mother in Dantolingi

In Dantolingi in northern Ganjam district, near the border of Kandhamal, stands a hilltop shrine to the Holy Mother Mary. Legend has it that an elderly Hindu woman was returning home over the hill with a load of firewood, when she became ill and faint. The Virgin Mary appeared to her in a vision and led her to a spring which had never flowed before. The woman drank and regained her strength. The Roman Catholic Church investigated the miracle and consecrated the site of the spring. Each year since, on February 11, thousands of Christian pilgrims visit Dantolingi and climb the hill to pray at the shrine and wash in the spring, which is believed to have remedial powers.

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Chilika Lake

Chilika is the largest brackish water lake in Asia, measuring about 1000 square kilometres. The NGO I’ve been working with, PREM, supports development in 153 villages around and nearby the lake, where the population is mostly comprised of Fisher People communities whose social status is essentially equivalent to Dalit (formerly “Untouchables”). 

Himalaya Redux

Khangchedzonga (8598m; 28,200ft), south face from Thangsing valley, 12 Oct 2010.
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A Tuque in India

Ah, December. A line of no retreat for Winter. A season of snow and slipperiness. A time for Tuques. In Canada, anyway. 

Your humble Tuque Souq blogger left Canada nine months ago for India with a twosome of tuques in tow; since then Tuque No. 2 has enjoyed hibernation in a desk drawer wrapped around a camera lens. 

Tuque No. 1 had the mildew--omnipresent here in the sauna that is the state of Orissa--washed out of it in September to make the journey north to Himalaya in Sikkim, on a trek up to Goecha La, at the base of Khangchendzonga--"Mountain of the Five Fingers of Snow"--the world's third highest peak.

Khangchendzonga: 8600m (28,000ft) friend of the Tuque

 

Aside from these adventures, the mighty tuque seems to have little utility in India.

But at long last, Winter has arrived in the coastal jungles of Orissa. It's a nose-numbing 21 degrees Celsius (74F) in the frosty moonlight. At night, now, we sleep with only one fan blowing directly on us. In the dry chill of the early morning we must don t-shirts to survive. One of these days we may get desperate enough to wear socks.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Indeed, here in this vale of shiveriness, even our friends and neighbours are wary of Winter's unmerciful blitz. A land that previously we considered--back in the days of 44 degrees C--to be infertile ground for anything fleece or woolen, is in fact coming to life with ripe tuques!

Well, at least one!

The Virgin Mary's Getaway Motorcycle

Now that I have your attention, here are some other sites of Gangtok, hillside capital of the Indian state of Sikkim, our next stop on our holiday up north.

Fat Monkey Screams in Darjeeling

 

Whoa!?

Yikes!

Oh, I get it.

Breakfast in Ghorkaland

Greetings from Ghorkaland. Land of the Ghorkas, mountain men and women of the Himalaya, so famed for their ferocity as soldiers that the British military dubbed them a "warrior race" and conscripted as many as possible to fight their battles (even as recently as the Falkland War). Quipped one British field marshal, "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gorkha."

And what does a warrior race eat for breakfast? Not sure; probably something like oats and blood. (Actual Ghorkhas enjoy potatoes, garbanzo curry and dumplings.) 

But what does a visitor to Ghorkaland eat for breakfast, a visitor who's eaten naught but scrawny fish and sickly chicken, when any meat at all, for eight months?

Meat. (That's 3 kinds of pork on the plate above; you know, for those of you who keep score of these things.)

But I digress. Ghorkaland is the semi-autonomous, proudly quasi-independent region of northern West Bengal whose unofficial capital city is the idyllic hillstation of Darjeeling, non-quasi-official global capital of tea, where our holiday began after a 27-hour train ride and a 3-hour 4x4 jeep ride.

The tea was okay, the meat was delicious, and the views at breakfast were divine.

The Inconvenience Caused is Deeply Regretted

Six words. The voice is female, vaguely sympathetic and comforting, a bit like Mary Poppins with an Indian accent; yet also robotic and decidedly curt, as though a light scolding. "The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted." 

At any of India's 3467 official railway stations, dotted along the country's 64,000 kilometres of passenger track, these six prerecorded words comprise the postscript to the inevitable announcement that your train is late.

Having spent the last four weeks travelling in the north of India--Darjeeling area and Sikkim--your humble blogger has been significantly tardy in attending to this blog. It was inevitable. Please accept our vaguely sympathetic, decidedly curt, Mary-Poppins-meets-Indira-Gandhi apology:

The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted.

(Stay tuned: In the coming days, blogs galore about the trip.)