A short flight on Yeti air from Nepal and we were into India and the foothills of the Himalayas and off up the mountain road after we fixed the puncture! This is a pretty hairy road with steep drops and lots of vehicles crashed against the cliff face, quite obviously ones that had brake failure and chose to run into the cliff rather than drop off the side! Darjeeling was covered in cloud most of the time but we did get to go on the Dajeeling Hill Railway which was fun. It’s amazing how the railway trundles along beside a frenetic road jam-packed with traffic – it’s all a bit crazy really. On our last morning the cloud cleared and we were fortunate enough to see Kanchenjunga and the rest of the range which was a wonderful sight. We went to the local zoo to see the snow leopard and red panda and also visited the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. We then had another hairy drive over a mountain pass to Sikkim. En route we got yet another puncture – the roads are pretty grim but the scenery we saw was well worth the long drive.
