Day 24 to 29 Darjeeling - West Bengal

Namaste,

another highlight is waiting because, as mentioned before, my train to Siliguri is very slow. However, the next morning around 6 o'clock, after countless stops at numerous train stations or random stopping points, I finally leave this train. And I immediately start looking for the next ride to Darjeeling. I quickly find one and only have to decide. Do I take the bus or do I take a jeep? In the end, I decided right, namely for the jeep. For 130 rupees, it climbs the mountain with around 10 passengers in 2 hours and 45 minutes to the final destination in Darjeeling on the outskirts of West Bengal. At an altitude of 2185 m, I am now in the Himalayan region. And here, it doesn't matter where you move, uphill or downhill. The walk to my small hotel logically always went uphill to what seemed to be the highest point in the town. But you were compensated with a magnificent view. On this day, I strolled through the town a bit and visited a tea plantation incl. tea factory.

The next morning, it really started. No more walking, it was time for trekking for the next 3 days. Early in the morning, we started by car to the starting point about 20 km away to Mane Bhanjang, where we had a good beef momo breakfast. Then we registered with the border police there (and did that several times in the next 3 days, sometimes on the Indian side and sometimes on the Nepalese side of the border). And then we started hiking, our destination for today and the first day was 12 km away. The place/mountain was called "Tonglu" and was located at an altitude of 3070 m. Here we admired a great sunset.

On the following day, after a rich and rather Western breakfast consisting of toast with jam, porridge, and Nescafe, we started day 2 of the hike. With today's destination, the mountain "Sandaphu" in the Singalila National Park. At first, we walked downhill for a few kilometers to the destination, which was a total of 19 km away, and then it was only uphill, yes, really uphill. The last stage was 3.5 km with a difference in altitude of 400 m. Our destination for the day was at an altitude of 3636 m and offered us a spectacular view of the surrounding area, especially the next morning. The highlight was a clear view of Mount Everest, amazing...

Then it was hiking on day 3, and today it was almost exclusively downhill, and I wouldn't have thought it could be more exhausting than uphill. Our destination for today was 22 km away at an altitude of 2286 m, and the place was called "Rimbick" and marked the end of our hike. From here, we drove back to Darjeeling by jeep, about 80 km in about 4 hours.

The next day, it was time to say goodbye, not only to Darjeeling but also to India entirely this year. A few days ago, I decided to end my wonderful journey today and start the journey home. And this was another long march. First, I took a taxi for 3 hours down the mountain to Siliguri, or rather directly to Bagdogra Airport. From there, I took a domestic flight to Delhi in 2 hours, had a waiting time of nearly 10 hours there. Then the flight via Abu Dhabi to Frankfurt.

Now I look back on the last 4 weeks and once again have to thank the many people who I met on my long way. From Delhi to Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Puskhar, Jaipur, then on to Agra, Varanasi, Rajgir, and Darjeeling. I also know that I promised you a few more places at the beginning. But as a traveler, you simply feel when it's time to return home.

Now I want to thank all those who followed me visually here again, and I hope we will meet again next time on another future journey.

Namaste... ;-)