Darjeeling
We pulled in to New Jiapuri train station about 7 in the morning. Not a very inspiring looking place, pretty dirty area. Saying it looks like a poor area is a bit silly while I'm writing about India!
We caught a Tuk Tuk into Siliguri town about 20 mins away and haggled a Jeep up to Darjeeling its self, about 3 hours ride up the side of the mountains (the Himalayas!)
The ride up was dramatic, huge forested gorges with massive drop offs.Zig zag roads. Everyone wearing thick clothes and Monkeys everywhere. My ears kept popping we were going up so fast. You could feel the temperature drop as we went up, it was getting pretty cold!!
The town has a working railway, the tiny train which is one of the oldest, highest and most famous in the world. Darjeeling is 6812 ft and the train has to go straight up hill sometime. Takes 8 hours though so we got the jeep.
We got to the town eventually, like Sapa in Vietnam but bigger and on a steeper ridge, perched over the Himalayas. You can see 4 out of 5 the world’s highest mountains from here but unfortunately we could not see anything except fog and cloud. This was the best time of the year apparently?
Our lazy jeep driver dropped us miles out of the end of town. To go anywhere you have to walk very steeply up or down which is painful with backpacks after the night train. We walked up to where he pointed us for a bit and the realized, shag this. Dee hurt her ankle where it had been hurt in Sapa so we decided to look for a taxi. We could not find a road let alone a taxi and ended up staggering around Darjeeling gasping for air like goldfish because of the altitude.
Eventually we stumbled onto the town square, Chowrasta and found a half decent hotel with free monkeys on the roof and pigeons in the drain pipes. We ate in a place next-door, had Mo Mo's, dumplings, fired or steamed. Went to the off license for a drink and crasheded out knackered for a few hours.
That evening we rose and walked around the town. The place is absolutely deserted at 8. Very early town. It’s absolutely freezing here, 4-5 degrees at night so the heavy clothes I been carrying around for months have come in useful at last.
Everyone here is very nice and it’s the cleanest place in India so far, feels absolutely like Nepal or somewhere rather than India, the people look different also.
We had some nice food and retired to the room as there was nothing else to do!
We caught a Tuk Tuk into Siliguri town about 20 mins away and haggled a Jeep up to Darjeeling its self, about 3 hours ride up the side of the mountains (the Himalayas!)
The ride up was dramatic, huge forested gorges with massive drop offs.Zig zag roads. Everyone wearing thick clothes and Monkeys everywhere. My ears kept popping we were going up so fast. You could feel the temperature drop as we went up, it was getting pretty cold!!
The town has a working railway, the tiny train which is one of the oldest, highest and most famous in the world. Darjeeling is 6812 ft and the train has to go straight up hill sometime. Takes 8 hours though so we got the jeep.
We got to the town eventually, like Sapa in Vietnam but bigger and on a steeper ridge, perched over the Himalayas. You can see 4 out of 5 the world’s highest mountains from here but unfortunately we could not see anything except fog and cloud. This was the best time of the year apparently?
Our lazy jeep driver dropped us miles out of the end of town. To go anywhere you have to walk very steeply up or down which is painful with backpacks after the night train. We walked up to where he pointed us for a bit and the realized, shag this. Dee hurt her ankle where it had been hurt in Sapa so we decided to look for a taxi. We could not find a road let alone a taxi and ended up staggering around Darjeeling gasping for air like goldfish because of the altitude.
Eventually we stumbled onto the town square, Chowrasta and found a half decent hotel with free monkeys on the roof and pigeons in the drain pipes. We ate in a place next-door, had Mo Mo's, dumplings, fired or steamed. Went to the off license for a drink and crasheded out knackered for a few hours.
That evening we rose and walked around the town. The place is absolutely deserted at 8. Very early town. It’s absolutely freezing here, 4-5 degrees at night so the heavy clothes I been carrying around for months have come in useful at last.
Everyone here is very nice and it’s the cleanest place in India so far, feels absolutely like Nepal or somewhere rather than India, the people look different also.
We had some nice food and retired to the room as there was nothing else to do!
posted by Fionn at 12:34 AM
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