Click here to go to the homepage of Africa & Asia Venture
Itinerary - Gap-Experience-Darjeeling - Africa and Asia Venture
Page Content Navigation
- Primary Navigation
- Secondary Navigation [sector related information]
- Main Site Content
- Footer with further Navigational links
- View Sitemap
Quick links at top of page
Itinerary - Gap-Experience-Darjeeling - Africa and Asia Venture
Itinerary
We fly, to Calcutta or Kolkata, where we meet Tendup Lama, who is AV’s representative in Darjeeling. Depending on the timing of flights, we will normally have a day in Calcutta. We may visit:
- The Victoria Memorial
- The busiest bridge in the world (over the Hooghly river)
- Mother Theresa’s ‘Mother House’.
That night we catch the train. Calcutta stations are fantastically busy and bustling and quiet periods are like rush hour at Waterloo. Your sleeper berth takes you to New Jalpaiguri, the station for Siliguri and the Himalayas, in time for breakfast. But Indian trains are good fun, sociable and interesting and you could find yourself holding the baby for the family next to you, listening to musicians, watching the cobbler at work or talking to transvestites! After that, dull moments are sometimes welcome.
From Siliguri we take a bus to Teesta and the Wayside Inn, where we do the Orientation Course. In a stunning steep-sided valley with the town of Kalimpong about 3000ft above us, we discuss:
- Nepali (the standard language in these parts).
- Nepali customs and culture.
- Safety, health and security.
- Teaching techniques for teaching English (and practise on each other!).
We usually visit Kalimpong to check the emails, and to visit the clothes shops for Kurta Pajama (made to measure in 48 hours!).n
After the course we will take you and your partner to your town/village home for the next three months.
To get there we go up through the tea plantations to about 7000ft before descending to around 6000ft for Mirik and Rangbul, or 4000ft for Kalimpong
If living with a family, you and your partner will have your own space within the house, each of which has a loo and a shower. Your hosts will cook for you and you will usually eat with them.
If living in a flat, there will be bedrooms, showers and loos, a communal kitchen and living room. You will cook for yourselves (normally on a roster where you take it in turns to cook for everyone) and shop in the local market. School will usually give you lunch.
You teach for about 12 weeks. There will be a long weekend break around half term.You and your teaching partner will walk (in one or 2 cases by bus!) from your house to your school each day in time for the start of school (around 8.30 am).
Most schools are primary schools, but may grow into middle schools up to aged 16. Schools are a mix of small, old traditional schools, mostly in wooden buildings with quite small classes, and newer schools with concrete buildings and larger classes. Most classes are between 15 and 30. There are few sporting facilities – the hills are too steep to carve out many football pitches – but there are often basketball-sized courts and cricket or football being played in any open spaces. Towns have pitches for use at weekends and you will be very popular if you arrange inter-school matches.
In most schools children are taught in Nepali, but you teach English in English. For some older classes you may be asked to teach other subjects in English. We aim for you to teach 2-4 periods (45 minutes) each day, but you will often be in greater demand.
Most children return home at the end of school but you would be popular if you can help with some games or music.
The headmaster or headmistress will be your main ‘friend’ but other members of staff will also have enough English to become friends.
At weekends you may take part in school activities (picnics are good fun) or go to visit other AV houses or Darjeeling scenery, or perhaps see a bit of Sikkim.
The safari has two parts and the first part two options – you choose:
- Part 1 Option 1: Six-day trek into Sikkim, to Dzongri La, at around 15000ft, on the slopes of Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain. This is a stiffish trek, but not as fierce as it sounds. 3½ days to get there and 2½ to get back. Your rucksack goes by Yak.
- Part 1 Option 2: Four days in East Sikkim, based in Gangtok and visiting by jeep monasteries, gardens and other landmarks, then two days in West Sikkim viewing scenery and some very important monasteries
- Part 2. All together now! 2 days rafting down the Teesta, a fairly gentle river, camping overnight beside the river.
Now is your chance to explore India – this vast and varied sub-continent – although you are also close to Bhutan and Nepal. The list of things to see is endless, but how about:
- Watching the dawn come up on the Ganges at the holy city of Varanasi? Or at Rishikesh, where the Beatles meditated (and there is said to be good rafting nearby)
- Seeing a Bengal tiger in the wild – quickly before their threatened extinction – in Kipling country where he wrote the Jungle Book? Or perhaps Snow Leopard in Ladakh?
- Visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar?
- Looking at one of the many carved temples – at Mahabelipuram, Khajurao, Ellora or many others?
- Floating down the backwaters of Kerala on a houseboat?
- Being an extra in a Bollywood movie?
- Basking on a beach in Goa?
- Riding an elephant up the path to a castle in Jaipur, the ‘Pink City’? Going on a camel trek in the desert at Jaisalemeer, spending the night in the desert under the stars.
- And of course visiting the Taj Mahal? You cannot really leave India without having seen this extraordinary monument to love.
Of course, if you run out of time you can always extend you insurance, change your flight (your ticket will be flexible) and give yourself more time. As long as you keep in touch and travel with someone else we will do what we can to support you.
Your ticket is booked to fly out from Delhi, so you do not need to go all the way back to Calcutta. Spend your last night in Delhi, a good place for shopping for those last minute presents. In Delhi are shops from each Indian state, silks, silver, gold, saris, jewels and more ordinary things. Enjoy!
