Darjeeling Day 1

Woke up to a beautiful view from the room (picture below), after breakfast went for a walk, just up the hill we crossed over the top ridge to see a range of snow capped mountains!

The hotel is lovely, old and quirky,, very colonial and the staff are great too, so friendly and cheerful. Like most hotels / India in general we had two power cuts last night, both short.

Looking at the map were close to Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan which is reflected in the food.

Today we took the "Toy train" which was built in the 1800s and runs along the side of the mountain beside the road, its powered by steam / coal and kicks out loads of smoke and pollution (tbh felt a bit bad about taking it as pollution is such a problem in India ).

Following that we went to a Buddhist monastery, the main temple was beautiful, we stayed there for coffee and then went shopping and lunch, then back to the hotel for drinks and dinner.

Early night planned as leaving to go to see the mountains (Himalayas / Everest) at 4 am tomorrow for sunrise ( fingers crossed it's clear)

Added a pic of the local stray dogs which are everywhere across India ( though no cows or monkeys here as too high), though there are (allegedly) tigers, panthers and elephants in the surrounding hills!!Read more