This post is late, I'm behind, I know I know.
We spent 4 days in Darling Darjeeling, a high altitude mountain town, where we ventured without hesitation, exploring the steep paths, shops, post office (my favorite) and other hidden treasures. Darjeeling is known for it's expansive valleys of tea plantations, it's Toy Train, and Tiger Hill, a point in which you can view four of the five highest peaks in the world. Oh yes, we did it all, Jusfa styles.
Instead of opting for the conventional "Jeep" route to Tiger Hill (a 45 minute drive) I asked the buddy who runs the pony stables: "Hey, hey buddy, can we take some ponies to Tiger Hill tomorrow?"
"mmmmm, yes, I think we can do that, but you will need a guide"
"of course, yes, a guide. ok ok"
"alright, you be ready at 3AM"
"3AM?!?"
"Yes, ok, no problem, 3AM"
"ok, 3AM it is"
After a 2:30AM rise we were ready at 3AM and waiting. Of course, we forgot about the offical "Indian time" lag and we set out in the dark for the stables where we found some ponies but nothing else. Another 20 minutess later we werer on our way clip-clopping up to the peak. The ponies were small but it was worth every penny as convoys of Jeeps rolled by us, wide-eyed and amazed at our boldness. The pony route is clearly not done often, if ever. The sunrise, although not the clearest, was spectacular and for a brief 10 minutes we marveled at the monstrosity of the huge mountains. They need a better word then 'mountain', it just doesn't cut it, these peaks are far beyond mountains. We left the ponies grazing and hiked further up the hill to the highest lookout point where Indian families exploded out of the Jeeps wanting to take their picture with us - weird and kinda rude to say the least. The place was littered with plastic tea cups, batteries, general crap - not a garbage can around - another "no-system" example. Amazing to see nonetheless but also hard to seperate the beauty from the utter chaos that is happening around you. We returned to our guides only to find them pimping our ponies out for rides and pictures - 20 rupees. Typical. This disqulified them from getting a tip from us as they clearly pocketed plenty from the pimping. By the time we returned back with really really sores asses we snoozed and enjoyed to cool Darjeeling air.
The following day we hitched a ride on the (apparently) spectacular Toy Train ride around a loop at the top of the city. It was cloudy and in my opinion not amazing at all, somewhat of a waste of time but can check it off the World Heritage to do check list. We didn't see much you couldn't have seen from walking, I found it slow and boring and short. But the latter tea tasting part of the day was just great. I (heart) tea.
The ride back to Siliguri was the opposite of the train. The same jam-packed type Jeep took us down in the absolute pouring rain, one flat tire right off the bat then we U-turned down a short cut - down only, one way lane, zig-zagging along the side of a mountain. Saw a few crashed cars and managed to get the bottom where the surrounding tea plantation valley was just lush and beautiful... but not as great as our second flat. We had no time to waste as we had another 2 busses to catch so we flagged another Jeep and made it into town. Hours and hours and hours later, and many horror stories past we made it to Nepal! I can't possibly discribe the bus ride. Think pigs, pigeons, people on our laps, not working buses, and everything else chaotic. I've blocked it from memory, it's better this way.
