Hotel Traveller Inn Darjeeling

Today, we had a faith day, so we broke into teams of 2 or 3 and just prayed and followed God's leading. We also led an after school program in the middle of the day, and then just continued our faith day. Each team had so many awesome things to share when we returned. Probably the coolest thing was just the friendships with others that we ...

... and what a place. Darjeeling is by far the best place we have visited in India. Its like being in a different country. High up on a ridge at 2500m, its more like a english climate than India. Its almost like a refuge and I think plenty of other travellers feel the same way when getting to Darjeeling. Our time here was fantastic, from the top end you could catch fews of Kanchenjunga, the worlds 3rd highest mountain. I couldn't stop ...

... to Glenary's restaurant for lunch. I order malai kofta and am delighted to see that plum pudding and brandy sauce is on the dessert menu. Sadly my malai kofta comes out cold in the middle. I stop a friendly waiter and ask if they are supposed to be cold. 'Oh yes ma'am, they come straight out of the freezer.' 'They're not freshly made?' 'No, not possible ma'am.' 'But you don't even heat them up?' 'Yes ma'am.' 'Okay, but they are cold.' '......' 'And the ...

... It leaves at 9am So we would miss this, but maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, the Jeep ride is only 3hrs. Then we got to a station, I didn't have a timetable so couldn't work out how late we were (and there is nobody to tell you) but I got out my map. We were, using the width of my thumb to measure against the scale, at least 250km away from NJP. We couldn't average much more than 40km/h so we were going to be very very late. We finally arrived at ...

... around and getting our bearings. Darjeeling is a good place for gen**aly ambling around and at times it felt like I was back at home in Surrey. The British clearly left their mark with houses that wouldn't look out of place in the nic** parts of Surrey. Aft** lunch, we wand**ed to the Botanical Gardens. I say wand**ed but it was more like lolloping down the mountain. That is the downside of Darjeeling - ev**ything is on the side of a mountain. My knees are taking some ...

... have been more dangerous, and we were grateful it wasn't, but again, there was a lengthy wait for the help to arrive. By this point, no views were going to raise our mood. I was still feeling unwell, and we were pretty fed up of the journey by then. Its a shame, as the train rumbles along the road in parts, through the villages, and the better views were to be enjoyed from higher up, by which time we missed it all as it was dark! So we eventually got to ...

... way, so we had to take a "share jeep". That basically means that you shove as many people into a jeep as possible and then drive. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and I was pretty irritated with the whole situation. There is no concept of a person bubble here what so ever, and after the whole trek, I was pretty fed up with it all. At one point the girl sitting next to Andrew thought it was perfectly decent to just ...

... le 5h00, il disco del sole piano piano si faceva strada tra l'umidità ed arrivava fino a noi per svegliarci. Darjeeling ha anche un'altra caratteristica: non c'è molto da fare. Una volta visitate le piantagioni di thè ed un templio buddista, c'è solo da passeggiare lungo il suo piccolo centro. Con Lenka, per tre giorni ci siamo trascinati da un bar ad un altro, per leggere e guardare il panorama quasi sempre nascosto dalle nuvole; ed in quel caso, guardavamo il ...

... We then headed north to Darjeeling on the overnight train. It was a little shock to the system when we arrived as it was cold and everyone was in their woolies - we were in our flip flops! Darjeeling is beautiful but can't escape the traffic and the crowds that are everywhere in India. Non the less the pace did seem slower and lots of tea drinking was had. We of course visited a tea plantation and sampled lots of the local stuff accompanied by various cakes along ...

... bearable really! We arrived at New Jalpaiguri 'transport hub' in the middle of the monsoon (Claire's delectable yellow poncho made a crowd-wowing appearance), and undertook, for perhaps the only time in our lives, to paddle across a footbridge. We face a dilemma - depending on the weather, we may head north into Himalayan Sikkim province, or remain a little longer in Darjeeling before heading back down into the plains for Kolkata. See you there...