There’s a very interesting older British couple here at the Hidden Forest Retreat hotel that have a very interesting history. They are in this area in order to visit Darjeeling for the first time in 50 years. As a boy he went to boarding school in Darjeeling while his British father was in India to build steel manufacturing plants. He will be visiting the boarding school that he went to, which is still an exclusive school, and he had some of the original pictures from that era that he showed us from the late 50s. Actually a very fascinating story, and they’re interesting folks, but I tried not to raise my eyebrow when they said that some of their servants are from India. It is an interesting world, people live on all levels of the wealth spectrum!

Also in conversation with them and Paul, we talked about the current global Buddhist controversy that I had only peripheral knowledge of. The incarnate of the Buddha recognized by the Tibetan people is not the same one as recognized by the Chinese. This is a huge global dispute and we will see some of that play out during this trip. On our biking adventure, we will visit two major Sikkim monasteries, Enchey and Rumtek. Enchey recognizes the Tibetan determination of the Buddha incarnate. But Rumtek recognizes the Chinese determination, and apparently it’s more like an armed fortress to protect from attack from the majority of Buddhists who disagree with the Chinese forcing their own “spy” on Buddhism. Very interesting!!

It is raining again, though much of today it stopped and that was nice. In a few hours we will probably meet the rest of the group, a couple from either Germany or Denmark, and two other individual guys, for a total of six. That is a very manageable group size, and we will easily be able to get into local restaurants each evening which from my many bike trips, the larger the group is, typically the more bad the food is. In most countries, you can’t just walk in with 15 people and expect to get good food! The smaller the group, the better the food! Anyway, we’ll be on the bikes for at least part of tomorrow and have one more night at this same hotel before we actually depart this area enroute to Darjeeling.

Been talking now, or more listening, to a former French ambassador to India for five years. What an interesting guy, but I know waaaaaayyy more about him than he does about me! If you know what I mean… Has a summer home in Normandy. Says he needs three things; passport, airline ticket, a place to go. Has been so many places! And seemingly has mentioned most of them to me already! But still an example of why traveling is its own catalyst for discovery…