magic

darjeeling = magic.
this morning, jojo and i took a taxi down to ghoom, the next town south of here. we walked back up 11km to darjeeling, stopping at gompas scattered along the road. in one of the monasteries, we met a graduate of CIHTS, and he invited us to have tea with him. we chatted about sarnath, and tibet, and the institute - he was incredibly friendly and happy to hear that we were enjoying ourselves in the girls' hostel.
on our way to another monastery (that was built in 1850 and is absolutely gorgeous), we wandered past a prayer hall and could hear monks chanting. an old tibetan man with prayer beads in his hand smiled and motioned for us to come in. apparently today was some auspicious day, and there were about two dozen monks sitting in the hall reading pechas. five or six old, OLD tibetans motioned for us to sit down, and they forced massive quantities of tea and cookies on us.
after wandering around to just south of darjeeling center, we stopped to take a photo of a gigantic shiva linga on the side of the road. some nepali boys were sitting down the hill at the base of the temple, and motioned for us to come down. we wandered down and they handed us chairws and offered us more tea. today was a hindu holiday as well, and one boy who spoke good english explained the images on the temple and the meaning behind the holiday. then an old lady came by and gave us tikkas (hindu blessings on our foreheads made with colored rice), and told us to call her "grandmama." after we thanked the family and headed back up the hill, the boy gave us his phone number and told us to call him if we ever had any problems while we were in darjeeling.

people here are so incredibly friendly, it's amazing.