My grandmother was born in Darjeeling back in 1926 and always said to my brother and me that if we ever got chance to go, we should, so, realising it was a tall order to get there in a weekend, thought I’d give it a go! Set off early Saturday morning and flew to Calcutta (Kolkata) then waited on the plane and continued onto Bagdogra, the airport is an Indian Airforce base and was quite basic, but served the purpose of got off the plane, and headed out to a taxi. The taxi driver was clad in a black breathing mask (which is quite common given the pollution) and drove off, maybe half a mile and stopped, then got out of the car and walked off. Felt a little bit nervous expecting a group of people to come back, but he emerges minus the mask and holding a coat saying it gets cold up here and we set off.
The start was how I imagined India, lots of little markets, cows, noise, colour etc but this quickly gave way to tea plantations
Bit blurred as we were going rather fast, overtaking very overloaded vehicles. After about 10 minutes we got to the mountain roads, which were a bit scary, especially in a tiny little car bouncing over pot holes and cracks. 
Also saw monkeys, so I was happy. In the first picture, you can just see the toy train track running along side Hill Cart Road. This is really quite amazing. It continually crosses the road, and the train is equipped with a horn that drowns all other noises out. Was still running between Kurseong and Darjeeling so did see it twice, but I couldn’t get a good picture.
The driver introduced himself as Mr Binod and spoke excellent English which he said he’d learnt from tourists, he also assured me he spoke Hindi, Nepali and 4 other local dialects but wasn’t keen on teaching me any! He was really good and even stopped somewhere in Darjeeling so he could give me a lift to the airport the next morning (apparently the drivers like to be paid on each journey and don’t like heading back down empty. I’m also guessing he paid considerably less that I did for a room).
The hotel was lovely, very old fashioned but full of old colonial stuff, like this guy and his Orange slacks
Was dark when I finally arrived, by this time I was togged up in down jacket, woolly hat and thick socks (oh how they laughed in Bangalore, where it was 35 degrees)
Sadly, the mist was in, so didn’t get a lot of photos
Next morning it was up early, and sadly the cloud hadn’t lifted, so headed back to the airport. The road was even more terrifying in daylight, but wonderful scenery, just a shame the Himalayas weren’t visible, but always next time!
On a final note, I noticed this on the aeroplane safety card, how much fun do they make an emergency landing look?
