Darjeeling
(photos are up on Flickr, go to 'My Photos' over to the right)

Greetings from Darjeeling, West Bengal's best known hill station!

The night train from Kolkata brought me 10 hours North to Siliguri which sits at the base of the Darjeeling hills. Tumbling out of my 2nd class bunk I crowded on to the platform and as is usually the case here was swept along in the crowds, over the footbridge to the bus and jeep stand.

In some countries public transport is pretty well organised with the bus for destination X always leaving from platform Y, at time Z. Indian road transport however is organised a little differently... Pouring out into the crowds the best thing seems to be to start shouting the name of your destination. Pretty soon you'll find someone else shouting the same destination, at which point you haggle over the price a bit then climb into their jeep. They then go off looking for other passengers until the jeep is full (or overfull) at which point its time to leave. This may not sound incredibly organised, and at times it feels a little haphazard but it works incredibly well, and so just minutes after leaving the station I was bundled into a jeep at heading for the hills.

Darjeeling is a pretty popular destination so we joined a convoy of jeeps racing up the S-bend slopes, skipping over rocks and spinning out on loose gravel. The drivers obviously know the roads well and given that their revenues depend on how many times they can make it up and down the hills in a day there is constant jostling and overtaking on the tight turns. Our driver was, I'm pleased to say, a fast yet capable driver so only 4 hours after leaving Siliguri we'd climbed up the 2000m through the fog and mist, past tea plantations and Darjeeling spread out across the ridge in front of us.

I'd chosen to come to this part of the world specifically as November is the season of clear skies and cool temperatures, therefore providing great conditions for trekking. Darjeeling however was shrouded in damp, clammy mist and my first impressions of the town were nothing to write home about. I'd not come to mooch round town but rather to trek and so I set out to find other travellers who might be interested in joining me for a few days. I'd just stuck a note on a hostel noticeboard when I met Tom. Fancy going on a 5-day trek I asked... "Uh, OK" he replied. Bingo, I had a trekking buddy. Later than night Rob who was staying in Tom's hotel joined our group.

The Singalia trek is one of the most popular in the area and seemed like a good warm up hike to get me started. I have to admit I was pretty nervous about my fitness level given that I've done zero sports in the last months and Rob was just back from a 1-month trek in Bhutan and Tom runs 1,000 miles races, for fun. We got started at a good pace and made our way up from Manebhanjang (2130m) to Sandakphu (3636m) over the course of 3 days. The going was easy and the route was speckled with chai stops and trekkers huts so it was pretty luxurious really although the weather was far from great with cloud, mist, the odd spots of rain and low temperatures at night. The route zig-zags over the India-Nepalese border and so we were regularly pulling out our passports at border controls and Indian military checkpoints, the majority of whom would have to stop their cricket match or card game to log our details.

On the 4th day we awoke at 0530h to our first clear morning, and there in the distance stood the mighty Kanchenjunga mountain. At 8598m its India's highest peak and dominates both the Darjeeling and Sikkim skyline. As the sun rose the frost melted and the mountain turned slowly pink then grey. In the distance, on the border between Tibet and Nepal, Lhotse (8516m) poked up through the clouds and next to it the summit of Everest caught the morning light.
I can't explain why but being in the mountains and being at altitude feels incredibly liberating and after 10 days of travel I sat down, took some deep breaths and finally realised I was on holiday.

The route back took us through some beautiful forests and as we followed the river down the flowers bloomed in the sunshine and we were finally blessed with those clear November skies we'd been promised.

Back in Darjeeling after 5 days of trekking a shower (hot!) and some clean clothes were high on the priority list, closely followed by tea and cake to make up for our meager chai and dal trekking diet. Our arrival back in town coincided with Hindi new years, Diwali's festival of light, and the city was alive with candles, fireworks and firecrackers. Since then the sun has shone and the forecast for the next couple of days looks good so I'm packing up my backpack tonight and heading further North to Sikkim tomorrow in the hope of getting closer (both vertically and geographically) to those beautiful peaks.

xxx

ps. For some better photos of Sandakphu and the mountains take a look here: http://www.sandakphu.com/