Kalimpong specials

Our guest house in Kalimpong was also up the hill (generally, I think this is where good places tend to locate). Deki Lodge was one more family run guest house with a few rooms in wide price range of rooms, beautiful garden, yummy food and a very helpful family.

We made it to Kalimpong on Wednesday as I wanted to see the Haat, the local market where villagers come and sell their fruits, vegetables, spices, nuts, herbs and anything else they grow or make. We got to see brown-and-dark green balls which when open resembled unripe avocado, short fat bananas of cream color inside (called butter banana), reddish long massive bent carrots, long and thin aubergines.. and lots of things I had no idea about.

The list of the discovered peculiarities was extended the day after: when we were visiting the monasteries we discovered a ground where long thin and slightly curly tubes of rice noodles were hanging on the parallel ropes and drying. Nearby the same monastery a window we were looking in got opened and a smiling man invited us to come in. He was operating an interesting wooden press akin to a mincing machine: the man was putting some red elastic substance in it, and then was pressing a long leverage with his whole body so that long thick vermicelli was coming out. A lady was taking the vermicelli, stretching them on the table and cutting them into equally long pieces. The smell at the workshop was so familiar, yet I could not make out what it was. Next day, studying the content of the shelves in some shop I realized those were incense sticks made of sandal wood.