Darjeeling
The original plan for Darjeeling was lots of long walks to take in the fantastic views of the Himalayas, but we made one major mistake, we assumed it would be nice weather… We stayed there for 5 days, each day hoping that the rain and clouds would disappear but we had to give up on the 5th day and go somewhere else (funnily enough, the day we decided to leave the weather had cleared a little and we got our first view of the Himalayas, see rubbish picture below!!!)

For the time we were there we did try and make the most of it (and as the whole place was deserted by about 9pm, catch up on Lost!). We went on a few short walks, mainly 2km back and forth to a fantastic café that served really good Chai – well worth the walks in the rain!

We had decided to go to Sikkim after here which you need a separate permit for, another ordeal in itself… You first go to the Magistrates Office about 2km out of the main part of Darjeeling, you fill a form in here and then you have to take it 2km back to the Foreigners Registration Office to get a stamp, and then finally back to the first place to get your piece of paper saying you can go – why they can’t do it all in the same building is beyond us but we were in India after all!!!

Pelling and Yuksom
With our permit at the ready we headed off to Pelling in Sikkim; after 4 hours in a very cramped jeep we arrived with no idea of where we were going to sleep or what we were going to do – as usual…Luckily the weather was much better here and we were able to go on much longer walks and see a lot more of the Himalayas (finally got to take some pictures!)

The first full day we were there we decided to just start walking, might add that this was at about 3pm which isn’t really the best of times to start a walk if you don’t know where you’re going, hindsight is a useful thing! The walk took us through what can be best described as jungle at either side of the ‘road’ and gave us some great views of Pelling when we got for enough away, plus it was all downhill which was nice (we weren’t thinking about the walk back at that point…) After a few hours of walking and about 7km later we getting a little concerned that we had no idea where we were and we couldn’t make it back before dark but decided to keep following little concrete signs to what we thought was a town; this all came crashing down when we asked a local how far it was to the next town and he replied “what town?”. Loaded with this new information we carried on in the vain hope that someone would give us a lift, and luckily for us we managed to get a lift back in some locals car (for a hefty fee we might add!). Quite a day looking back!

The following day we decided to figure out where we were going first to avoid the panic of the previous walk – and with this in mind we set off to one of the oldest monasteries in Sikkim, Pemayangtse. It was only a short walk compared to our previous one and when we arrived we managed to see the resident Monks chanting and playing instruments which was strangely hypnotic and appeared to be tiring as many of the younger ones looked like they were about to fall asleep! We also bought a card which will apparently protect our lives and bring good luck for the bargain price of 5 rupees (8p to secure the protection of your life didn’t seem too bad!)

Later that evening we met up with two guys, Ben and Steve, and hatched a plan to do a short trek the following day – namely getting a jeep to Khecheopalri Lake and then trekking to Yuksom, an apparent 9km which turned out to be nearer 14km once we got there! Although it all seemed to be uphill and was hard work it was well worth it, you can’t really complain about trekking through beautiful hills, crossing rivers, seeing local village life and shoving your head under a fresh mountain spring when it all gets a little too hot – plus poor Ben was carrying his Backpack too so we had it easy in comparison!

After arriving in Yuksom, it seemed a shame to get a jeep straight back to Pelling so we decided to stay overnight and catch some views in the morning before getting a jeep back. This plan paid off and we woke to see a perfectly clear view of the highest peak in India and the 3rd highest mountain in the world, Khangchendzonga.

Gangtok
This is the new Capital of Sikkim (the old one was Yuksom) and we have no idea why they changed it…Gangtok was the dirtiest place since Varanasi, all the locals tried to rip us off and there was nothing to do, but as lovely as it sounds (!) we decided to leave the next morning and try a new Country – Nepal.

Earlier in the day we met up with an Israeli guy called Nir who was also on the tedious hunt for a place to sleep, and after lots of messing around trying to find somewhere, we decided to all share a room as everyone was charging more than we all waned to pay. For the one evening we had there, we all went to a really fancy restaurant (it even had complimentary slippers for the cushioned area!), had some good food and talked mainly about amazing films that we had all seen, it was a really nice change from talking to Jon (he he, only kidding!) and Nir was as sarcastic as me which was fantastic!

Our time in India had come to an end and we were more than ready to get to Nepal, and after about 6 hours of a shared jeep, 2 immigration offices and some walking we’ve made it, a new country with more experiences awaiting…