I managed to meet Brady by leaving an email for him arranging to meet at the local tourist pub for the Iran / Portugal game. He’d taken longer than me to get up here the day before, so was waiting for me a couple of hours after I actually arrived. He’d actually managed to get through the youth hostel security but balked at staying in what he described as a haunted house when he found it didn’t have any hot water.
Darjeeling is at about 2000m, close to the height of Thimphu, but it’s not high enough to breach the clouds and it’s wet, misty and miserable. That doesn’t make it a bad place. When the clouds clear enough to glimpse the steep valleys with houses tumbling into their depths and the gaps a patchwork of tea trees, it’s spectacular. I went for a walk down the mountain yesterday before I met Brady and watched a group of children playing soccer on a flat patch of dirt with a backdrop of mist. Soccer has become a craze here now and most Indians are watching the World Cup rather than the cricket match the Indian team is playing in. What happened to national loyalty? They’re not even going for England who most of them look on fondly, but fly flags of the team they think most likely to win – Brazil.