World India West Bengal Darjeeling

Cryssa's RTW Trip

Darjeeling Dec 31, 2006

Darjeeling is a hill station town in the Himalayas. It is really charming with a bell tower in the center of town and cute cafes and stalls selling Tibetian goods and hats and pashminas. I was there for New Year's and I went to this pub called "Joey's" and there were a bunch of other travelers there, which was fun. I had momos for the first time. They are from Tibet and kind of like Chinese dumplings. They are so good and are usually served with this spicy sauce. I am also loving the tea or chai. They boil the milk with the tea leaves and hot water and it is so good. Darjeeling is known for their tea and on New Year's day I went to the Happy Valley Tea Plantation. It was closed because is closes every year from Dec. - Feb., but I still got a tour from one of the local guys who works there. It is so pretty because the plantation is on these steep hills and it is just so beautiful. I really wanted to go trekking in Darjeeling, but it didn't work out, which was actually not too bad because it would have been too cold. The temperature was in the 40's during the day and the low 30's at night. It was so cold, and probably the same temperature in my room, where I could definitely see my breath! There was no heat anywhere. Even in the restaurants, you would just sit there with you hat and jacket still on because it wasn't any warmer inside. Darjeeling also has some cool gompas (Buddhist montesaries), which I checked out. The monestaries here were very different from SE Asia because of the Tibetian influence here. This really cute old man gave me a tour of the Bhutia Busty Gompa for free, which was a nice change. It was built in the 19th centuary by Tibetian monks and still had all the original paintings inside.

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