The moment I knew that I will probably never forget Darjeeling was when I opened the curtians of my hotel room. The scene that greeted me is to the right.

The journey from Gangtok to Darjeeling was all but familiar… we were retracing our steps back to Baghdogra and stopped at Rangpo. This little town is right after the Sikkim border and we stopped there grab our lunch… For the first time in the trip we found a place which sold South Indian dishes. The best part was not the idly/dosa it was the Rasmalai. The sweet was given in matkas and was the best I had ever tasted (Btw this has been my favourite sweet ever since I can remember).

My only regret from this trip is that I did not hv enough of Bengali sweets :(

The ride up the mountains was beautifully scenic(as usual ;) ). We stopped along the way again to allow our car to be washed. At the place we bought some plums which were delicious… I mean they just melted in your mouth(my mouth waters just thinking of it). The fruits and veggies in this part look so healthy and delicious that you just want to bite into them :)

As we entered Darjeeling a huge traffic jam greeted us. It seem there was a conflict earlier in the day between a policeman and a taxi driver and it resulted in manhandling and the drivers decided to strike. It took us 2hrs to cover a distance that would normally take like 2 mins. We were dropped off at the raliway station and told to use porters to transfer our luggage. These guys hv amazing strength and carried half our luggage supported by their forehead.

The bad news did not stop there… The strike meant that the vans needed to transport water to the hotels and homes did also not ply… So there we were in Darjeeling the place we wanted to be and hating every moment of it. Thats when I went to my room and opened the screen I knew it was clearly worth all the trouble :)

The strike made us chage our plans, we decided to interchange the itenary for the next two days as one of the days we needed to leave at 3:30 am this would be difficult to negotiate with all the drivers off on strike :P. So the next day we headed off to a full day Mirik Lake excursion.

The lake was beautiful beyond words… It was amazing that even though there were mountains around we could hardly see them from the tree cover. The flowers were amazing not to mention animals were in galore.

On the way back we stopped at a market… The unique thing about the market was that it was well… in Nepal :P. So I for the first time crossed over the Indian border(Another first I did this trip) I always remember that ad on tv whose tag line is “When was the last time you did something for the first time”

This market was amazing… we had everything from blankets(local stuff) to digicams and other electronic stuff. We were totally unprepared for this sort of a market and having a 1 hr deadline to get back(our driver always seemed to be in a hurry :P) we could not get much shopping done. My mom and aunt were in literal paradise and were enjoying every moment of the bargaining and stuff. An idea of how cheap stuff there were I overheard one man tell to another that an Ipod was available for Rs 5k… not sure which sort of model but I think it was one of the mid range ones.

On the way back from the market to our hotel we had to stop again coz my uncle’s driver had not shownup. I took the nice chance to snap up a few more pics :)

The next day was the one I was looking ahead to for the entire trip :) We were supposed to leave at 3:30 in the morn and I was ready by 2:45 am… A trick Im not sure how i did ;). The early morning rise was to catch the sunrise on Tiger Hill and to watch the sun bathe Mt Kanchenganga… ofcourse I was excited

By the time we reached the top of the hill there were people all over the place. I had almost given up hope as the sky was almost blue and that usually means that the Sun is over the horizon. What I very soon realized was that here there are 2 horizons unlike most places… the earth and the clouds… The sun has to be over the clouds(covering the hills) to hv fully risen. We had enough time :)

We had to all purchase a ticket to enter a building which allowed us to get elevation to view the event. When we reached there the room was already crowded but we managed to get a place from where we could eazily see out the window.

The light was slowly but steadily getting better and all of a sudden a guy to my left screamed and started shouting saying he saw it… he saw it. I was like wtf and there was chaos everywhere… ppl did not want to miss it and the sun was still not clear. I realized that this must be the guys first ever viewing of a sunrise and was laughing on the inside… by now ppl knew it was a false alarm and sat down.

A few mins later the sun did come out from the cover of the clouds… They say pictures speak a thousand words so here they are…

The above pic shows how many people had gathered there… And that was just the ground level.

We then headed for the Ghoom Monastery. For some reason the most wonderful experiences in this trip were the monasteries. I some how loved being inside one and always someone had to pull me out(very different than getting thrown out :)) )

Next in queue was the Batasia loop… a War memorial created to remember the valiant troops that gave their lives for our great country. The memorial is in the form of a soldier standing in front of an obelisk. The mountains in the background just made it perfectly pictersque.

After breakfast we headed to the Padmaja Zoological Garden. I dont actually like zoos that much(believe that animals must roam freely and must not be caged) But this place also had the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and a Mountaineering Museum. I was not allowed to take pictures inside but could take a few pictures of the resting place of Tenzing Norgay(One of the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953)

As we stepped out we decided to drink a cup of tea and stopped at a chay-shop. There i saw this amazingly cute pup :) Man was he brave not at all scared when I picked him up (If I feel that any animal is scared when I pick it up I usually keep him down and step back so as to stop scaring the poor animal) I spent a few mins petting him and playing with him. He even was kind enough to pose for a few snaps

During our sight seeing we passed by a rock named after Tenzing Norgay. This rock is used to train amatuers mountaineering.

And the place Baichung Butia got his training before he became captain of India.

The next day we moved to the final destination of our vacation Kalimpong. The mist in Darjeeling the day we left was the highest in the entire trip.

This place is not in much elevation compared to either Gangtok or Darjeeling but this was the rest phase of our trip. What this meant was that we had a few hours of sight seeing and had 2 days for ourselves to relax :).

We visited the Cactus garden, a beautiful assortment of cacti…

The last pic in the above set was a cactus whose thorns did not hurt… they actually felt like cotton :P. We then went to the Zang Dhok Palri Phodong monastery… Again ppl had to pull me out :P I was particularly interested in the lamps which had an intresting form of oil keeping it running(I think now that it is just ordinary oil but became so coz of the cold :P ) And took some pictures of the Stupas which I thought served as tombs of temple masters.

We stopped again at a garden which was covered in the mist and cleansed by the morning dew. I got some truly beautiful pictures of the dew drops on the leaves and one prized scalp of a spider web :)

We also went to a garden higher in the mountains but hardly anything was visible over the cloud cover and the mist…

Then it was time to head back… The flights were non terbulant and I was partially exhausted by the time I reached home but I was so happy with the trip that I hardly cared.

Its wonderful when I look back and wonder how those 8 days just flew by… I guess it will be another year before my next vacation… I think the plan is Singapore but I want to see more of India, Let me see if I can convince them to do Rajasthan and its beauty next year :) (Deep down I wanna scuba dive… Well that can be arranged in a trip over the weekend so guess that will be sooner that later :) )

Some more random pictures from the trip:

These were from my cell cam:

Veggies anyone:

Earth and the Sky:

Read the first part of this trip: A Walk In The Clouds… My Sikkim Trip