Just like when I spent Christmas in Bolivia two years ago, the biggest difference that I found between Christmas in Darjeeling and in Ireland is that here it is just a one-day event. Unlike Ireland, my life here immediately returned to normal after the 25th. This meant going back to work, and back to playing cricket with the boys.
And as in Bolivia where I spent New Years in the obscure city of Oruro, I counted down to 2012 in the equally unattractive city of Siliguri (by the way, the New Years in between was spent in Ballincollig). A big group of us had a fun night of watching our friends' band, dancing in a rocking bar, and singing at a house party - sometimes life in India isn't too different from Ireland.Siliguri, which is the commercial and transport hub for this region, is a three-hour jeep ride but a world away from Darjeeling. It is warmer (as it is down in the plains) and a lot more hectic, with rickshaws zooming around the busy streets. In other words, it is like all the other places that I've been to in India, apart from Darjeeling. Going to Siliguri showed me how used to life in Darjeeling I have become.
I spent the first night of 2012 in Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, where I went on an elephant ride and saw a few wild one-horned Indian rhinoceros.
A train and a jeep ride brought me back up to Darjeeling, where the "Tea and Tourism Festival" was still in full swing. That meant that in one afternoon I was at a dog show, I watched a tartan-wearing, bagpipe-playing Gurkha band,
and, most bizarrely, I went to the "Himalayan Classic Bodybuilding Competition".
It was a hectic but fun start to 2012 - the final year of my career break!
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