I cant see a bloody thing!

It’s a scam, a travesty and a complete con. Yet again I travel somewhere to see the Himalayas and every time I get there these blasted places are blanketed in cloud.
Darjeeling is well renowned for being the tea capital of India and im not at all surprised!
Any tea would taste good here, especially when its only 15c, the entire town is covered in a foggy blanket and it rains all the time.
Allegedly there are supposed to be mountains around here somewhere. In the shops you can find postcards that show a view that is probably 500 miles away, yet these pictures are used in an attempt to lure tourists to this miserable little town! Ive been walking around all week with a postcard in my hand, asking everyone I meet if they know where the place in the picture can be located.
I personally believe that Darjeeling is more than likely surrounded by 16 secret nuclear reactors and that the Indians keep up this continuous smoke screen just to keep everyone in the dark!

Ok, so im peeved that I turned up at the wrong time of year, I wasn’t initially going to come here anyway, so I will put the entire blame on to my esteemed travel buddy Heather, which at least makes me feel somewhat better!
The journey up was a barrel of laughs too, spending almost 2 hours standing at the border arguing over the price of a share jeep up to Darjeeling and then a further 3 hours inhaling wacky baccy and listening to our new hyper chilled out travel bud Luigi playing his flute…..
Our jeep driver must have also been smoking something as he zoomed through police checkpoint after police checkpoint giving the peace sign in the process…. I was just waiting for a hail of bullets to come flying in our direction ………. Ohh the joys of travel…..
On our arrival in Darjeeling we soon begin to realise that the entire town has been taken over by Indians who have left the heat of India for this damp and drizzly little place. So much for the “relaxing little hilltop town”!
Admittedly, Darjeeling does have some unbelievably good teas. Ive always been a 2 sugar and milk kinda guy, but some of the better teas on offer here are so smooth and great tasting that to contaminate them with anything else would be a travesty. One of the best teas available is a Ruby Arya, which at 600Rs (£7.50) for 100g is a bargain.
This small town winds its way (sometimes quite steeply) up to the top of a 2200m high hill. The drive up is unnervingly interesting although once you get up into the clouds, the sheer drops disappear into the fog and you tend to forget that the vehicle you are travelling in is perched sometimes only inches from certain doom! Alternatively there is a narrow gauge railway that is affectionately called “The Toy Train” which winds its way up and down the hillside at an astonishingly slow rate. Getting out of here on the train is nigh on impossible as in usual Indian fashion, everything is booked solid for months in advance. That said, the train does make short sightseeing trips down the hill. Also, at the time of writing, the central hub town of Sunauli has closed down and there is a general transport strike which means that I may end up staying longer here than I intially intended.... ohh well.....
There is a rather interesting botanical garden near the top of the hill which is very reminiscent of a typical “exotic” garden that bonkers people like myself have tried to create in the UK in the past. Its great to actually see Trachycarpus palms growing in their natural habitat rather than in a suburban front garden in Milton Keynes, however, while the climate does seem to be very damp and cool here, the fact that they are growing Pandanus and Strelitzia outside makes you realise that you are still actually in the sub tropics, albeit a mountainous area of them.
Ive got train tickets to take me from here and across northern India to Delhi before I head north again. But to be honest with you im really not in the mood to spend 3 days on Indian trains so I think I will simply just head back across the Nepali border where cleansiness and good manners reign supreme. I still have to come out at the other end but at least im that much closer to Mumbai and my flight out…….

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