DARJEELING, India – All steep, misty mountains, bright green tea plantations, and ornate Buddhist temples, Darjeeling is best told in photos, so I’ll keep it brief.
Geographically in India, but culturally straddling Nepal and Tibet, Darjeeling is a welcome relief from the heat, filth and hassle of lowland India (though I loved India, despite India). I even had to wear a jacket, a novelty after three weeks of relentless sweat.
Darjeeling is a former British tea colony about 7,000 feet up in the Himalayan ‘foothills.’ Unlike most coffee-growing regions I’ve visited, where Nescafe is invariably the restaurant drink of choice, Darjeelingites drink their product and so did I again and again.
Feeding the fire on the "Toy Train."
Geographically in India, but culturally straddling Nepal and Tibet, Darjeeling is a welcome relief from the heat, filth and hassle of lowland India (though I loved India, despite India). I even had to wear a jacket, a novelty after three weeks of relentless sweat.
Darjeeling is a former British tea colony about 7,000 feet up in the Himalayan ‘foothills.’ Unlike most coffee-growing regions I’ve visited, where Nescafe is invariably the restaurant drink of choice, Darjeelingites drink their product and so did I again and again.
Our search and spiritual journey to seek out the mystical snow leopard, queen of the Himalaya, comes to an end - at the zoo.
Foggy days in Darjeeling.
Picking tea on the road to Darjeeling.
Backroads of Darjeeling.
An elderly Tibetan spools wool at the Tibetan Refugee Center, a safe haven for thousands of refugees for several decades and a thorn in Indo-Chinese relations.
The Darjeeling Limited or, to be accurate, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, an actual working steam locomotive that plys a steep winding route through the mountains at a (very) lesisurely pace and was part of the inspiration for the movie. It still runs on the same extremely narrow guage track that it did 130 years ago. One of the coolest train rides I've ever experienced, even though there was no sweet lime.
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