It’s about eight in the morning and I’m sitting in an internet cafe in Glenary’s Bakery in downtown Darjeeling. I’m desperately trying to warm my fingers by writing you all an email. My fingers are frozen fish sticks. Its awfully cold here, the sort of damp cold that never leaves you except for a few sunny hours at midday. What is Darjeeling like? There’s a smattering of old gothic churches and Victorian homes and the sulfurous smell of coal fires hangs in the cold, misty air. Occasionally, the clouds part, revealing the teeth of the Himalayas, gleaming white with a new coat of snow.

It’s the holiday season so there are hordes of tourists from Kolkata walking around, all bundled up. Mother is wrapped head to toe in a shawl, father wears a ski mask and enormous puffy down jacket and the kids are all bundled up in fuzzy fake tiger skin jumpers. In Chowrastra, the main square at the top of town, Indian kids are led around on pony rides. The younger ones aren’t really sure what is going on. They are just fuzzy balls with hands and feet and I think that if one of them fell off a pony, he or she would roll quite halfway down the hillside and come to rest perfectly safe beside a tea stall. This morning I saw a kid dressed in a lone ranger costume riding a pony around the square, he even had a black mask and cape. Tea gardens surround the town, and the squat button-shaped bushes give the hills the appearance of being upholstered by a stuffy grandmother. That’s the nice stuff. Then there’s a million concrete hotels and trash everywhere. After dark, the streetdogs run the town. But we managed to have a pretty great Christmas and new years here and around, especially because it snowed for the first time in seven years!

Its been a long month since I’ve been in touch with most of you and I don’t really know where to start. When last I wrote we were headed out to Rajas than to ride camels through the desert and explore Jodhpur, Jaipur, Pushkar, Ajmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, and Udaipur. All the sandcastle cities in India’s parched western shoulder. So many forts, palaces, and castles. The old part of Jodhpur really is painted blue. All the buildings are a periwinkle color and its absolutely amazing. Then there is the temple of the rats. The other day Colleen and I piled into a government bus and headed to Karni Mata, also known as "the temple of the rats." The temple is about an hour south of the city of Bikaner at the edge of the Thar desert in Rajasthan. Legend has it that Karni Mata, a 14th century incarnation of the goddess Durga asked Yuma, the god of Death to bring the son of a grieving storyteller back to life. When the god of death refused, Karni Mata reincarnated all dead storytellers as rats, thus depriving Yuma of fresh human souls. There are hordes of rats crawling over the temple. One count is 20,000. There’s one albino rat that is the holiest of all. And you have to take your shoes off. Its considered auspicious if they walk over your feet. And some people even eat prasad (food offerings) that the rats have nibbled on. But even the Indians we saw at the temple seemed pretty freaked out. And then there was the temple of the monkeys…you get the picture.

I’ll save the whole camel safari and the rest of it for later, because I wanted to tell you about Christmas. Although we spent Christmas day in Darjeeling, the whole whoville/Charlie Brown Christmas thing really happened in little town of Kalimpong, which is famous for its flowers, cheese, and lollipops. The lollipop “industry” was introduced by Scottish missionaries more than a century ago. The business never really took off, perhaps because no one had ever heard of lollipops, or perhaps darker forces were at play.

The Scottish missionaries have long since gone, leaving behind schools and a vestigial trade in lollipops. The milk and sugar sweets can be found in storefront windows nestled between packets of waiwai noodles and baskets of churpi (yak cheese). These days, the cultivation of orchids and gladioli are the main business in the town. But like many other small towns in the West Bengal hills, Kalimpong is trying to siphon a few tourists from the masses that visit nearby Darjeeling. Although the town is totally charming and there are a few monasteries and other things to see, AND the weather is 10 degrees warmer than in Darjeeling, few tourists will ever make the 2 hour jeep ride to Kalimpong. But the people are undaunted. This week, a newspaper editorial asked the perennial question, “How Will We Lure Them to Kalimpong?” The editorial concludes, with disarming candor, that there is actually no reason why tourists would want to visit their town.

Enter Kalimpong WinterFest 2003, an eight day extravaganza dreamed up to promote tourism in the town and to lure a few of us from our coal fireplaces in foggy, cold Darjeeling to sunny Kalimpong. The eight day festival had everything. The town put up a big lopsided Christmas tree in the middle of mainstreet and decorated it with balloons and giant stryofoam bells. People were even leaning out of second-story windows hang garlands with long bamboo poles. Banners and lights and glowing stars were strung up everywhere. The bakery played jazzy Christmas carols around the clock. And every kid in town was pressed into duty as a volunteer for WinterFest 2003. I think that there were at least 200 volunteers with badges around their necks. The tourist information office was set up as the WinterFest control room. Pamphlets were printed with an ambitious schedule of events for the eight day fest. The only problem was, nobody came. We were the only tourists in town. Yet the brochures had been printed, the ribbons strung and everybody was ready to go. In the days preceding the festival, it seemed like nearly everyone we met asked if we were going to WinterFest, and then gave us a pamphlet. The mayor and the chief coordinator invited us. After a while, we simply couldn’t leave.

Kalimpong WinterFest 2003 began of course, with an address from the Postmaster General of West Bengal, who was visiting Kalimpong for the first time. We had VIP seats. He inaugurated Western Union service to the village on Christmas eve, and promised that postal workers, dressed as Santa, would continue to deliver the mail during the 8 day festival. WinterFest was off to a rollicking start. Santa came out wearing shades and throwing sweets at everyone. He has enormous booty. His butt was bigger than his belly. But then again, its not MY WinterFest. Then we were ushered over to town hall for more speechmaking including this gem: “Although Kalimpong WinterFest was thought of just thirty days ago, it has already become an eye opener and a trend setter. Many youths spent wakeless nights and totally ignored their families as they slaved to bring us WinterFest. This has come about only with the unconditional and unrelenting support of many nameless, faceless people who you might have bumped upon, I guess.”

Then came the ”I Love You Kalimpong Musical” presented by kids from a school in town. There were thirty kids in costumes to represent the different ethnic groups in town, and they danced around to a song called “I Love You Kalimpong.” The kids in little Nepali topis and fake moustaches were especially cute. There was a stamp show, a photo exhibit, a parade, a rock climbing exhibition, two picnics, more speeches, rafting, bungee jumping, volleyball, a bike rally (“If we can find the equipment,” a Winterfest coordinator reluctantly admitted to the audience.) There were musical concerts, there was a guy in argyle socks that eats glass AND caterpillars (the Winterfest coordinators passed around a collection plate for his medical expenses during the performance.) The Darjeeling Police band marched down main street playing Christmas carols and bagpipes. (The WinterFest brochure asked the redundant question, “Who says cops don’t rock?” Well the Darjeeling police band certainly rocked, jingle bell style.)

We were on local TV 4 times… I was interviewed about why Winterfest was such “an amazing success”…. After all that I was still blown away when the kids from the local kindergarten came out on stage of the town hall dancing to the thundering anthem “We Will Rock You.” Actually, dancing isn’t the right word. Each kid had a huge face painted on their belly and a shirt pulled down to their waist with a stick going through it to hold the arms out. And they had another shirt pulled up to hide their head and arms. Are you with me? The overall impression was that there was a troupe of uncoordinated midgets with giant heads stomping around to “We will rock you.” They rocked us. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. I have footage.

Just when we thought we’d had enough WinterFest 2003, we found a promising sentence in the brochure: “Say good morning to the bonny babies of Kalimpong during the baby show.” We simply couldn’t turn our backs on Kalimpong now. It was a baby show! So we filed into town hall early in the morning for the show. Actually, the baby show turned out to be a baby tournament. There were two divisions: 0-6 months and 6-18 months. Babies were judged on outfit, temperament, grooming, weight and a few other things. I really can’t even begin to tell you how cute the whole thing was, to be in an auditorium filled with more than a hundred of Kalimpong’s bonniest babies, all dressed up in the most adorable matching outfits: a crocheted lime green hat with matching lime green trousers, a Tibetan child in a panda suit. Anyways, despite the fact that the power went out twice, the prizes were eventually awarded. First prize went to fattest babies each category. So much for grooming, temperament, and outfit!

Anyways, the baby show announcer mentioned that snow was falling in the town of Lava, about 3,000 feet above us. So we hightailed it up there and made it by nightfall. It was the first time that snow had fallen in Lava in 5 years. So when I woke up in the morning everyone was going absolutely nuts. We spent almost the whole day throwing snowballs. Although it was a free for all, the snowball fights basically boiled down to villagers vs. monks. While the monks were outnumbered, they were much better organized and more ruthless. They would set up decoy monks and stuff like that. Whenever a monk came down the street the kids would yell “Lama aayo!!!” and we’d all rush to make as many snowballs as possible knowing it was a trap. We had tons of fun, and most of the tourists from Kolkata had never seen snow before.

We were back in Darjeeling for New Years, which was mostly spent in a pub called Joeys with a mix of Australians, Kiwis, and some Swiss guys. Well, should go, but I just wanted to wish you all a happy (belated) Christmas and new years and everything.