Darjeeling - Queen of the hills!

Ok well its been a long time between drinks and am now in the holy city of Varanasi (more about this place in the upcoming blogs). I'll try to 'backlog' some of the great adventures i've been having starting with Darjeeling..

After the crazy holi festival in Sanitiketan it was with relief that i jumped on a night sleeper train to Siliguri in the north. The 2nd class sleeper is pretty basic and after performing some acrobatic/yoga feats i was able to get into the upper bunk (there is 3) and had a great sleep as the train speed through the night..

From Siliguri it was straight into a jeep for the hills of darjeeling..The jeep sounds very 'Indiana Jones' but is a very cramped form of transport (and cheap) for getting around the place. Though at one stage we took a detour from the windy mountain road via some steep track that had my fellow indian passengers praying!

Anyway arrived in Darjeeling some 4 hours later and it was freezing! About 8 deg...brrrr!
Meet a great english guy living in NZ..(hi Richard) and we managed to find the hotel aliment after a short scenic detour. Have to say here that Darjeeling is built on the side of a mountain (literally) and is a great place to train for treks as u are constantly climbing up and down..

Aliment is a great place run by a nepalese family that has a restaurant and rooftop mountain view area..see pic...Meet some great people there...Most amusing were my fellow dorm mates form chech republic who were cornflake addicts - cornflakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner - i kid u not! And were talking about a place where most meals are 0.50 cents to $2...!!

Anyway highlights of Darjeeling:

• Gleanary's bakery - chocolate donoughts to die for.
• Tea plantations.
• The himalyan mountaneering institute.
• The tibetan self-help centre.
• The darjeeling toy train - cute.One of the highest narrow gauge railways in the world. Hitched a ride on puffing billy that kept needing to have 'rest stops'.

Actually it was a bit like going out of india - no touts, no diarrhea, not so much beeping and fresh mountain air.

Next the Singralia ridge trek...