Still in Darjeeling

Well I'm still here in Darjeeling and I'll probably stay until Sunday. I've been fighting a cold the last 3 days so that has sucked. I think I picked it up in Varansi, getting some meds for it was interesting. On the streets here they have all the shops selling clothes and shoes and meds. I went to Popular Pharmacy mainly because of the name. I just pointed to my head and said that it hurts and that my nose wouldn't stop runnning. So he handed me some pills. They were sealed still so that was a relief. So I got 8 pills for RS30 which is like 80 cents, I took them and then went to bed. They seemed to work and I didn't die or starting having a huge drug trip so I'll consider that a success.

Money: One Canadian dollar is about 45 Rupees(RS). A bottle of water is anywhere from 15rs to 25rs depending on where you are. A bottle of pop is about the same price, every place has pop(coke, mountain dew, sprite) A main dish in a restrauant is about 100RS to 150RS but the depends on where you are. I've ate a lot of chicken and rice in the last couple days, the rice is about 20RS per plate. So a whole meal can cost about 4 or 5 dollars Canadian.

Apparently I had the best cup of tea in the world yesterday. At least that's what I was told by the lady at the Happy Valley Tea Estate. This is the finest tea in Darjeeling and it was 50rs to try one cup. Which is a lot when I got a whole pot of "normal tee" for 40rs. The tea didn't live up to the hype and just tasted like normal tee that you would drink at home. It was a big let down.

That's all for now because the interet cafe is closing for the night. It's about 9pm here and that is when most places shut down. So I'll write more tomorrow morning.

Andrew