Tea Time in Darjeeling

Trip Start Sep 25, 2008
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Trip End Apr 01, 2009


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Where I stayed
Andy's Guest House
(Darjeeling hotels)

Flag of India  , West Bengal,
Friday, November 21, 2008

I probably woke up at about 7am.  I had a vague recollection of the man in the seat opposite getting of at about 4 which meant we were running late because he said he expected to be getting off at 2.  2hrs late, not so bad I thought, we were due to arrive at 8:20 so at the worst perhaps we'll be there at 11am.

We'd been booked on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway from New Jalpaiguri (NJP) up to Darjeeling, a journey of about 80km that takes about 8hrs!!!  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 Testing the new camera!
Testing the new camera!
 .  We couldn't average much more than 40km/h so we were going to be very very late.

We finally arrived at 3:30pm, 7hrs late.  This made us appreciate how good the trans siberian was, they managed to get a 6 day train to arrive within 5 minutes of its planned time!!!

The jeep ride up the mountain started in the afternoon heat of NJP train station and ended in the bitter cold of evening in Darjeeling, cold that one way or another we'd have to get used to over the next few days.  We found our way to our hotel, dumped our bags, changed out of our wholly inappropriate shorts and T-Shirts and ventured off to find somewhere warm to eat.

The next day we woke up at some ridiculously late hour and went to investigate the town.  It was a bright sunny day and T-shirts were back on the cards, although to wear shorts as well would be foolish. 

Darjeeling, being a hill station, is quite hilly.  The roads are a series of windy streets all joined together by other windy streets but it's relatively easy to find your way back to the middle, it's just quite tiring Testing testing!
Testing testing!
 .  You can't help but notice a huge difference in culture to that in Varanasi, which I assume is more typical of the rest of India.  Here you aren't hassled by the locals or the shop keepers every minute trying to part you with your money.  There's a very relaxing vibe and we decided to stay for a few more days than we had originally planned.

On that first day we went to the Natural History museum which was surprisingly enjoyable and well worth the 7p entry fee!!!  In the afternoon we came across a cinema showing the new James Bond film, in English!  So with nothing better to do and it starting to get cold in the late afternoon we bought our tickets and took our seats.  Popcorn was really cheap too!

Next day we visited the zoo and finally got to see some Tigers!  It is always sad to see animals confined, but the 3 tigers at this Zoo we all saved from a circus and wouldn't survive back in the wild.  It is also the only place in the world to have bred snow leopards which is quite an achievement.  Other animals included lots of Deer and some Red Pandas which are tiny little bears with dozy faces, very cute.

On another day we finally got to take the railway some of the way down the hill Looks weirdly like a tube sign in London!
Looks weirdly like a tube sign in London!
 .  The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway was built in the 1800s as a means to get potatoes (and presumably other things) up the hill quicker than the day or so it currently took by horse and cart.  It's a pretty amazing achievement and is still very much necessary today, for post and for all the people who's train from Varanasi isn't late.

We got on the special tourist train, pulled by a steam engine rather than the Diesel from NJP.  The trip takes you to Ghum which is the 2nd highest train station in the world where there's a little museum.  The trip is enough to give you a feel for what the journey up the hill is like, without having to spend 8 hours crammed into the little carriages.  The track is on 2 feet wide and mainly follows the route of the road, often crossing over from side to side and at times passing ridiculously close to people's houses and shops.  It's certainly a unique experience!

By the third night in the hotel we had taken advantage of their offer of a hot water bottle, quite why it took us so long I don't know, the first two nights really were freezing.  It was also by this point that we both had streaming colds!

On our other days in Darjeeling we spent a day watching England get beaten at cricket, made an unsuccessful trip to find a tea plantation but found some nice botanical gardens instead, and then made a successful trip to find a tea plantations (this time with better instructions!)

The plantation was Happy Valley, who have recently signed a deal to supply Harrods Mountain views from Darjeeling station
Mountain views from Darjeeling station
 .  The plantation is very close to town and dominates the hill side.  We walked down through the tea bushes to the factory where we went on a brief but very interesting tour to see how tea is turned from the waxy green leaves growing here to what we drink everyday back home (although proper Darjeeling tea is a million miles from Tetley!)  All of the machines still in use in the factory today came from England around 100 years ago.  We of course bought some tea (10% of the price it'll be in Harrods) and went on our way.

On our last morning we checked out of the hotel at 6am and walked off to find a Jeep to take us back to NJP.  Our train was at 10:30 and we wanted to leave enough time for breakfast.

We needn't have worried.  We arrived at the station with an hour to spare, sat down for breakfast and around 10am I went to find the station manager to find out what platform our train to Delhi would be leaving from.  He took my ticket, looked long and hard and finally spoke.

'Five hours late' he said.  Great, the journey is scheduled for 31 hours, this was the 2nd stop and already it was 5 hours late!!!! 

We bought ourselves a timetable and worked out there were two trains to Delhi between now and when ours would arrive, we had Indrail passes which give unlimited travel so as long as there is space we can get on either of them Temple at the station
Temple at the station
 .  And they were both faster to Delhi than ours!!!

The system on the Indian railways is like this.  If you want a bed then you need a guaranteed reservation, like on a plane.   If when you buy your ticket there are no beds available you join the waiting list and then as and when the beds become available they get assigned to people with wait listed tickets.  Then just before the train arrives a piece of paper gets stuck up saying who got beds and who didn't, if you didn't then you can get on the train but you're going to be sitting in the unreserved section which is a free-for-all, or just about any other spot you can find including the aisles and the bits between carriages.

It was too late for us to get wait list tickets, we'd just have to hope there was space on one of the two trains.  The first had hundreds of people on the wait list and the second only a handful, so we thought we'd try our luck on the second. 

When the train arrived I stood with the bags and Sarah went to find the ticket inspector who'd know if there was space.  Hundreds of people shoved on and off the train and we only had 5 minutes to get on it.  After about 4 minutes I decided to walk up the platform to find Sarah, as someone had told me we should just get on and they'd find us a bed later.

I spotted Sarah running back down the platform, we had bed numbers but just had to find them in coach HA1, the first coach as the ticket inspector had said.  So we rushed up to the front of the train to the first coach, which was full....of letters.  As was the second and third coach, where was HA1?  The postman pointed back down the train, back where we'd come from so we raced back down expecting the train to pull away at any minute.  And then we found it, and our beds, and they were empty and it was cool and air conditioned!!!  We set ourselves for the long journey to Delhi.....
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