Wed - arrived in Cooch Behar|
- The main reason I went to Cooch Behar was cos some local Couch Surfer saw from the CS webpage that I was in Darjeling so he sent me a couple of emails inviting me.
This was a surreal CS experience as the guy who invited me, never showed up, Because I was leaving Jaipalguri early before I left we phoned the CS host who had been inviting me to Cooch Behar, but whoever answered the phone hung up and switched off the phone ever since.
- arrived in 2.5 hours at 5pm
- run around finding the tourist office. Lodge phone not being answered so...
- rickshaw 1 to lodge ... Cheapest room 440Rp
- rickshaw 2 goes past Ashram walk back .. Directed to
- rickshaw 3 took me 100m to temple next to Ashram
- 60Rp bed , but it's a 45 minute check in procedure .. 2 copies of passport and visa required .. - What a contrast to Nepal and the hills here at night instead of everything being shut by 8pm theres a night market till 10pm.
| Thu - Cooch Behar : Raja Bari Palace|
- put my radio in for repair.
- raj_bari1z
- Palace has 100Rp foreigner price, but it said $5 (250Rp) on the ticket so that's not so bad. It's about right as it's like a minature rundown Castle Howard, which costs 1000Rp to go in.
- walked around past a huge town square demonstration.
- This town has about 20 rundown British built government heritage buildings, which must have looked great before.
- Internet work.
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Fri- internet - horticulture show
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- Another Marshalls Engine manufactured near my town in the UK
- sad_cow - If cows are supposed to be sacred then why do i see so many unhealthy ones on the streets eating garbage ?
- There was an amateur horticulture show ... It was interesting to see that the root crops grow quite huge here ... But crops above ground like cauliflower suffer from the sun and low rainfall.
- Some politician was supposed to open it, but as ever was late .. So I left.
| Sat- big walk to Ghoom
- sweet dahi a yoghurt which tastes like condensed milk - normal dahi is a bit bitter
- Useful Bengali phrase : Thuuii Bandhorr You're A Monkey
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Sat- Walk East -|
- moved from the Ashram to a hotel it was booked.
- This town is crammed with 100 yar old British designed buildings that now mostly look dilapidated. This doesn't make me feel proud, but sad that the buildings the locals have put up since have no character being mostly just concrete shells... Come Indians build something nice.
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Sun - walk west and south
- 4 tiny pieces of mutton for 30Rp, I am give up on Indian restaurants and just eat bread and my own food like instant potato powder. Yesterday I told them not to put any Chili or Daneer (Cardomen), but of course it came with both in they just can't help it.
- On Friday I met someone who spoke good English "is there a river near here ?", "No it's about 6Km away".
- today I walked 3 blocks west or the main square )a pool called Sagar Digi) and I came to a huge mostly dried up river bed which sweeps the South West of the city. - Directly south of the square the road goes straight across the river bed to 2 dry season bamboo bridges. On the other side I didn't see much and it was getting dark so I walked straight back.
| MOSQUITOES - big water tanks
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- After Siliguri all these plains towns Jaipalguri, Cooch Behar, Guwhati, have tanks : block size ponds spread across the downtown area ... So guess what ? They all have masses of mosquitoes ... Surely these "tanks" act as breeding growns for mosquitoes .. Why hasn't something been done ? Like keeping the water circulating or stocking the ponds with fish which eat mosquitoes ?
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