#chowrasta

Darjeeling in the Eastern Himalayas, it has an average elevation of 2,045 metres (6,709 ft)  Kangchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain Its summit lies at 8,586 m (28,169 ft) in a section of the Himalayas. In the early 19th century, during East India Company rule in India, Darjeeling was identified as a potential summer retreat for British officials, soldiers and their families. The narrow mountain ridge was leased from the Kingdom of Sikkim, and eventually annexed to British India. The story of our fifteen-day stay in Darjeeling. We took the train from Guwahati which is our previous blog at https://neuage.me/guwahati As always (twenty-years + of doing these blogs); Narda is in italics and the other non-italics scribbler is Terrell! 07 April Sunday Guwahati to Siliguri – 7 hours – leave 11 am – 6.30 pm train on time – our own space for first couple of hours – taxi to The Loft hotel – 700 rupees – dinner there. Our translator girl and her boyfriend (it will be an arranged marriage, but she is working hard on her parents to make sure they choose him. This is not a given) took us to the Guwahati train station.  It’s a strange mix of cultures. She is at uni studying commerce, she dresses in western jeans, is constantly on her phone and yet she is not allowed to “go out” with him un- chaperoned. So they meet in secret. BTW she is 22 years old. This is a relatively short journey, 7 ½ hours. We still have a sleeper cabin. I get to take naps. Beats the “chair” trains. We got 2nd class aircon, no first class on this train. That means 2 sets of bunks facing each other, and two across on the other side of the aisle.  15655/KYQ SVDK EXPRESS 454 KMs. An older train without the extras. I recently read an interesting book “India  in 80 trains”, written by a young female journalist: excellent writer. It chronicles her trip from the southern tip of India to the northern tip and then the same west to east. Lots of great info about the train system and more. From that book I learned that the first two numbers of the name number (in this case 15655) is the year it was built. So that would 2015. I wanted a clean window so I could take photos/videos, avoid communicating with anyone in my cabin so on and so forth and lucky me who has a wife willing to go outside and clean the window and quick enough to hop back on board before it left the station an hour later. The usual long train… I rarely take naps on these things but got some reading done and a few photos out the window. We are hoping for a clear day to see the 3rd highest mountain in the world, Kangchenjunga at 28,169 feet. (Or 2,586 metres for you modern people) My personal opinion? Heights of people and mountains should always be given in feet. Anyway, back to the story. We stayed overnight in Siliguri in a nice hotel called the Loft. https://www.thelofthotels.com/siliguri.php This turned out to be a pleasant stay, we had a great dinner and breakfast and walked around Siliguri for a bit. Cows of Siliguri are happy we are vegetarian (disclaimer: next blog ‘DaliLama’ our stay at Yoga House in Mcleod Ganj, Dharamshala, Himalayas Narda was sort of attacked by an unhappy cow – and she may be seeking revange, now looking for an all-meat patty, made of cow) Next morning we waited at the train station for the toy train for several hours before it dawned on us that there was no train a-coming!!! We actually had screwed up the ticket and bought the wrong one……..long boring story. (not to worry, I will tell it). So, we braved the crowd and the jostling taxi drivers and settled on an older one who looked less aggressive. This road, up the Himalayas was narrow, winding and steep going from nice safe ground to 6,800 feet. Which is somewhat higher than our usual Ansteys Hill walks we do here back in Adelaide. At each hairpin bend the drivers would beep the horn on the blind corners, which was all of them. But we made it. 08 April Monday Breakfast at hotel (Loft Hotel) – walk around neighbourhood – taxi to NJP wai...

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