Darjeeling is a wonderful place. Obviously the tea that we sipped on all day was very fresh but it was the contrast between the heat and humidity that we have experienced so much of and the cool, alpine atmosphere that we found even more refreshing. Darjeeling is a small town in the heart of the tea growing region. At just over two kilometres in altitude you are quite literally living in the clouds and the cool and atmospheric environment was one of the highlights for us. Sadly we have had to catch a train to a neighbouring town and then catch public transport to Darjeeling itself due to the incompetence of our freight forwarder resulting in our car not being released from customs for ages. This is another story in itself, see the Kolkata entry for more details on that sad instalment. This is such a pity because the drive to Darjeeling itself would have been fantastic. Scary, but very memorable. The road itself isn't that scary but it is heavily populated with Indian drivers and that makes the shear falls and the blind hair-pin bends quite challenging. With the car we could have stopped and really enjoyed the scene at regular intervals whereas on public transport you can't. You also can't pull over when you're feeling sick which for me would have been nice. I don't travel particularly well in buses and three and a half hours of hairpin bends with an Indian driver was almost more than my stomach could bare. There is a strong Nepalese ethnic presence here. You can see it clearly in the peoples features. Much of this is due to Tibetans fleeing Chinese persecution. They also look so much happier than the other Indians we have seen and the women seem to have much more freedom to express their femininity. Even the dogs looked happy and we haven't seen that since Australia!

A nice hotel can make or break your stay and we where very fortunate with the Dekeling hotel. It had such a warm, cosy and homely feel about it and great staff. These sorts of things seem to rare in India. It even had warm water which we haven't had in weeks. The view over the township was impressive I watch many a cloud roll through the town while sipping hot tea and researching places to see in this cosy room. Nice :)

Many of the houses are quite quaint in an India/Nepalese sort of way. Others however remind you that you are in India. The infrastructure is poor as always. There is a picture of the generator that was providing power to the block that our hotel was on. You could hear it from humming away through the window. It also died frequently and you could hear it struggling, coughing and then either catching itself or there would be silence and all the lights would go out. Although not clear from the picture, it's simply sitting on the road near a hairpin corner with a tarp over it and someone sitting next to it to keep it's small fuel tank topped up and restart it when necessary.