But I was there, in India. A country with a billion inhabitants often referred to as a continent as opposed to a country. From the north to the south and east to west, the people are different, the languages are different and the customs are different. After 24 hours and 870 km, I arrived in Calcutta, the capitol city of west Bengal with more than 12 million people.

I was in India, no doubt. Crowded streets, hundreds of Ambassador's (the most famous car in India, mostly used as a cab), people chewing betel nut as a stimulant and digestive (easily recognized by the red teeth and spitting), many little stalls on the sidewalks selling hundreds of items and delicious food. Hand-painted billboards show the logo of 'Thums Up' - without the 'b', India's version of Coca Cola. Unfortunately it is also the sight of many not well maintained and deteriorating 'colonial' buildings on which trees are growing and roofs are missing. Public toilets hardly exist and one often is confronted with disgusting odors or the sight of people doing their thing in the open.

India is one of those countries you can easily entertain yourself by watching the street life. Often I imagined myself in the beginning of the 20th century. I saw a fire truck driving by with high speed on which a fire fighter slammed a big brass bell. Huge lumps of ice were being transported in an open cart, pulled by a bicycle. In front of the State Bank I saw a guard with a huge 'antique' shotgun, chained to his body. It is the country where cashing a traveler check can take dreadful hours - sitting in the middle of huge stacks of brown/yellow looking account register books. It is the country where 'baksheesh' (like tipping but different) is paid to speed up bureaucratic procedures; from getting a bucket of hot water in the hotel or buying train tickets without standing in line. It is the country with great - vegetarian - food, often disturbing the western stomachs. With joy I often bought the typical Indian sweets which you find beautifully displayed in sweet shops in almost every street. After making the selection (I most often just took one of each) they were carefully packed in a beautiful decorated carton box. And what about Malai Kofta (cheese/vegetable balls in a rich cream based sauce), Tandoori chicken (chicken prepared in a clay oven), Massala Dosa - Indian fast food (paper thin pancakes made from lentil and rice flour, filled with spiced vegetables and often served on a piece of banana leaf) to just mention a few.

And yes life is cheap, according to our standards. For example 10 banana's will cost you (after bargaining) about US$0.40. A reasonable hotel room (nothing fancy and often no hot water) costs US$3 to US$8 per night. Indian Thali (a typical meal consisting of rice, a variety of curry vegetable, relishes, papadams - crispy deep fried lentil-flour waffles) cost you about US$0.50. A second class sleeper ticket on a stretch of 656 kilometers cost US$8. One liter of mineral water about US$0.30. A typical Indian newspaper (in English) US$0.04.

Calcutta, the city identified with the late Mother Theresa, with the only subway (metro) in India, with rickshaws pulled by man (no other city in the world has this kind of - inhumane - transportation), well organized labor unions and above all poverty. Calcutta is famous for being densely populated and polluted. Traffic is horrible, even the Calcuttans themselves complain about it. Nobody seemed to obey rules - if there were any - or care about the life of a fellow human being. If it wasn't for the superb metro system, one could hardly move in this city. The Lonely Planet travel guide said: "Calcutta is often an ugly and desperate place that to many people sums up the worst of India". I must admit that we sometimes were very negative about this city, although we really tried to understand and appreciate the things we saw and experienced. The poverty was sometimes beyond believe. People literary live in the trash of the street. It was sometimes very hard to see children walking around bare naked, dirty begging for food and money. At night many area's in the city looked grim; many people slept under plastic sheets or curled up in their cycle-rickshaws. Little fires were burning everywhere, making it the perfect scene for a war movie.

On the 9th of January I met Saske (my mother) at the Calcutta Int. airport. It was great to meet her. We both looked forward to the next four weeks in which we would explore parts of northern India. During the three days in Calcutta together, we visited the Eden Gardens (a huge lawn area and cricket field), St. Pauls Cathedral (providing us 'peace' and cool air), the Indian Museum (built in 1875 and perceived to be one of the best museums in Asia - we couldn't agree with that). We also visited the house of the late Rabindranath Tagore, India's greatest modern poet - the house now is a center for Indian dance, drama, music and other arts. At the famous Kaligha temple - an important pilgrimage site for Hindu's (the legend says that when Siva's wife's corpse was cut up, one of her fingers feel here). Here we were 'dragged' into an unwanted tour by a temple 'priest'. And sure enough we were asked for a 'small' donation of 1200 rupees (US$30) to cover costs of a 'small bag' of rice. This man soon discovered how cheap and smart Dutch are. With mixed feelings we left Calcutta on the 13th of January. Destination was Darjeeling, a popular hill station since the British established it as an R & R center for their troops in the mid-1800s. We boarded the night train, no. 3143 Sealdah New Jalpaiguri Darjeeling Mail. This journey of 586 km took about 13 hours. At 09:00 hours on the 14th we arrived at New Jalpaiguri railway station of Siliguri. From here we took a jeep with seven others to Darjeeling (we just missed the famous Toy train), a beautiful ride of three hours. And what a difference this was from Calcutta; fresh air, beautiful hills and views at the Himalayas.

At an elevation of 2134 meters, Darjeeling was surrounded by tea plantations. The weather was much better than expected. It was not very cold. The only unfortunate fact was that clouds and fog kept us from having nice views at the Kanchenjunga (the 3rd highest mountain - 8598 meters) and other eastern Himalayan peaks. Unfortunately darjeeling itself is not much different from any other town in Northern India; noisy, not very clean and hardly any atmosphere. However it had some interesting places which were worth visiting. Glenary's Bakery was one of them. With fresh brown bread, great banana pancakes and good tea, it soon became our favorite breakfast and lunch stop. Darjeeling was also the home town of the late sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who conquered Mnt. Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953. For many years he was the director of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI), he died in 1986. The attached Mountaineering Museum was a very interesting place to visit. It had a great collection of historic mountaineering equipment and superb photo's of different expeditions.

Tibetan refugees also settled in Darjeeling, many of them work at the the Tbetan Self-Help Centre, a 30 minute walk down hill. As Darjeeling is most famous for its tea we took our chance and visited a plantation. Darjeeling has 78 'gardens', employing over 40,000 people and produces almost a quarter of India's total tea crop. Although the season runs from April to November, it was an interesting visit. We were guided by a woman who lived at the plantation. She showed us the factory, the fields and she also made delicious Orange Pekoe tea for us at her home. One of the oldest and best hotels in Darjeeling, which gave us a good feeling of the Raj (= rule of sovereignty and referred to as the period from 1850 until India's independence in 1947), is the expensive Windamere Hotel. This hotel has been owned since the 1920s by a Tibetan lady, now 95 years old. Saske and I drank tea, ate cucumber sandwiches and homemade cake in this beautiful hotel. For sure it was the best tea I ever drank. The old black and white photo's on the wall - of good old times -, the wood fire and old furniture made it a visit never to forget.

Sikkim, the province north of West Bengal and until 1975 an independent kingdom, was our next destination. It is a very remote area famous for its spectacular mountain terrain, varied flora and fauna and Buddhist monasteries. To enter Sikkim, foreigners need a permit which is valid for 15 days (can be extended). To get this A4 size piece of paper, we had to face the typical time consuming and bureaucratic procedures. First we went to the District Magistrates (DM) office, where we got a piece of paper on which we had to write our names, intended duration of our stay in Sikkim and passport details. With that same piece of paper we had to walk 30 minutes to the Foreigners Registration office. They copied all the information by writing it in a huge book and issued a stamp. Next we had to walk the same way back to the DM office for the final selection of impressive stamps. After two hours we were officially allowed to enter Sikkim.

In Darjeeling we hired a driver who brought us to Gangtok (1500 meters altitude), the capitol city of Sikkim. The drive through the mountains and hills of the Upper West Bengal and Sikkim was beautiful. We had a great driver, who stopped at several view-points and surprisingly, used his brakes more than his horn, which is rare in India.

About 24 km before Gangtok we visited the Rumtek monastery, which is the seat of the Gyalwa Karmapa, the head of the Kagyu-pa order of Tibetan Buddhism. We expected to find a peaceful gompa, which wasn't the case. Hundreds of people gathered at the main square of the monastery as well as many policemen. It soon became clear to us that the monastery organized a ceremony to welcome the 17th Karmapa Lama who, just a few days earlier, fled Tibet. Because of this festivity we were not allowed inside the monastery. Gangtok was a pleasant little town on a hillside. During our stay we visited a big stupa and two monasteries as well as the very interesting Tibetan Language Institute & Museum. The museum which was in his final stages of construction, had a beautiful collection of Tibetanb art, like thangka's (rectangular Tibetan paintings on cloth), masks and sacred objects. They also exhibited rare manuscripts and old prayer books.

We also visited the Phodang Gompa, a monastery two hours drive north of Gangtok. One part of the road, which was washed away by a landslide in 1997, made it almost impossible for our little van to pass. After some nerve wrecking moments we were able to continue our journey. We drove through villages and beautiful forests. At several spots we passed many white colored prayer flags on long bamboo poles and huge prayer wheels set in motion by water power. Despite the fact that Phodang was being renovated, we enjoyed a nice ceremony held by 15 monks. It was a ceremony in which prayers were read and music was made - with huge beautiful brass horns.

On the morning of the 19th we left Gangtok for Siliguri, a four-hour drive by local bus. In Siliguri - a very unpleasant town - we bought our 2nd class sleeper tickets to Varanasi. Fortunately we were able to leave that same night at 22:50 hours with the Dibrugarh Delhi Brahmaputra Mail. Because of our late departure that day we stayed at a cheesy hotel near the railway station. That night we were confronted with the unpleasant aspects of rail travel in India, long delays. Around 22:00 hours that evening we arrived at the railway station and were told that our train had a delay of five hours. As staying at the station wasn't a pleasant option, we decided to return to our hotel. However, when we returned at 03:00 hours, we were told that the delay was eight hours. Finally, after drinking a lot of Chai - it was freezing cold -, eating chapati's and watching the moon set, our train arrived at 07:30 hours. Tired we fell asleep in our bunks, dreaming about the city between two rivers: Varanasi, 849 km to the southwest of Siliguri.