Darjeeling update

Wow, so just a few hours after writing my last update there was a big rainstorm in Darjeeling. It poured down from about 6pm in the evening, and then throughout the night, and it was so windy that some of the power cable came down causing a major powercut.

At around 8pm we put on our waterproofs and prepared to battle through the weather to get us some dinner. What fools! We got literally twenty paces down the road from our hotel and gave up - not only was it too wet and windy to walk, there was no power anywhere! We ended up having an improvised dinner of crisps, chocolate and biscuits, eaten by torchlight whilst playing hangman. Who says romance is dead? Actually, we did start off trying to play I Spy but this didn't work out for obvious reasons (the dark).

Even though this meant our last night in Darjeeling wasn't at all what we'd expected, the next morning made it all worthwhile. The rainstorm had cleared the majority of the fog that had settled on the town for the past few weeks, and we woke up to clear views across the hills. After breakfast, we strolled over to the aptly named Observatory Hill and lo and behold, there were the Himalayas - finally!

Admittedly they were quite far away, and they weren't as clear as they normally are at this time of year - they looked at bit like jagged-shaped clouds in the distance. We tried to take some pictures, but I don't think they really do them justice.


Also, at the tea plantation the day before we'd been disappointed at not getting the chance to see any actual tea-picking, because we'd arrived during their lunch break. Luckily, our jeep ride back to Siliguri (where we'd catch the train to Calcutta) drove past a few other tea plantations, so we did get to see some picking after all. Hooray! No pictures though, I was too busy trying not to fall off my seat - I swear, the road down from Darjeeling has more craters than the bloody moon!