leaving Darjeeling

we got back from white-water rafting mid-day -- time to do a bit of laundry and repack to leave for our next adventure.

we still cannot enter Nepal, so will be spending some more time in India -- have two more times that we can reassess the situation and do parts of what we had originally planned in Nepal -- we are all still hoping that the situation will settle down so that we are able to either do the trek or the other activities that were planned [national park, biking, canyoning, etc]

our next segment takes us to Nainital, a resort area where we will plan some events prior to 1st of May, then an alternate trek if we still can't enter Nepal... a 10-day to Nanda Devi glacier, if weather permits

Three of our group decided to travel independently -- they have flown to the southern tip of India and will travel up the western coastline. They were already acting like they were not a part of the larger group before the Nepal situation, so perhaps it is for the best.

mood of the team is pretty low -- we are tired and homesick and sorry we can't do our original itenary -- we had definitely geared ourselves up for a new experience/country -- but the news makes us glad we didn't get ourselves INTO Nepal and then find ourselves dealing with shortages/ violence [right before the rafting, we had a 12-hour bandh here in Darjeeling -- a strike where most everything shuttered -- definitely makes the life of a tourist "interesting"-- and this strike was because a local official was murdered and his party didn't think that the police were working fast enough to apprehend the murderer]

out of time, so that's all for now!