Moving Day Lucknow to Darjeeling

Very early start, 5:30am cab to the airport, then flight to Bagdogra for Darjeeling via Delhi.

Flights took most of the day, leaving a warm Lucknow 28c and landing in a more chilly Bagdogra but still pleasantly warm.

The airport is a military base also used for passenger air craft and so the facilities were basic to say the least (as well as having loads of soldiers).

The drive from the airport to Darjeeling takes around 3 hours and climbs up into the mountains to around 2500m.

The people in the region have different features from the rest of India (more Nepalese)

The temperature in Darjeeling was around 10c - a bit of a shock but justified the fact I've been lugging a big jumper around India for the last month!!

Spent the flights listening to podcasts and the new Cure album (not normally a Cure fan but the last album is brilliant).

As per normal the transfer was a cockup, 2 large SUVs turned out to be 1 SUV with faulty seatbelts and and a small taxi with no seatbelts, after some heated discussion decided no other options available so given the drive is through the mountains we decided to split couples across the cars just in case 🤞

The drive is picturesque with Tea plantations along the way as you start the climb up the mountains, as we continued it became dark and we hit clouds that made visibility very poor.

Much to everyone's relief we arrived in one piece and hit the bar, the hotel is like something from the days of the Raj.

Had dinner in the hotel.

Lastly forgot to say that on the road to hotel a lady stood in the middle of the road stopping traffic and demanding money or she would hit the car with a stick, driver said she was a but nuts and has been doing it for a few years. 😆Leggi altro