After a long and eventful journey that I’ll expand on in a moment, we have reached Darjeeling, the most eccentric and eclectic place I’ve ever visited: imagine that somebody decided to build an English seaside town 2900 metres above sea level (tea shops, shops, teddy bears, donkey rides, a bandstand, chilly weather) , then somebody else dumped India on top (water towers, stray dogs, riotous colour, dilapidation, curry houses), then somebody else threw around a load of Buddhist prayer flags and invited Tibetans and Nepalis to run the show. We absolutely love it, especially the views of seven of the ten highest peaks in the world, including Everest.

Getting here was equally eccentric but less fun: in a moment of complacency we got on the wrong train in Agra and were unceremoniously thrown off in a little suburb 20 minutes later with 5 hours to get to Delhi and catch our very expensive connection to Darjeeling. ‘Don’t panic’ I said. ‘Too late’ said James’ expression.

The station name translated as ‘Arse end of Nowhere’ and the fast trains didn’t stop there so we got a rickshaw back to Agra at break-neck speed and managed to get 2 unreserved tickets for a fast train to delhi at 9.15 (it arrive at Agra half an hour late, giving us 4 1/2 hours to make a 3 1/2 hour journey). Indian trains have 7 classes and unreserved is the lowest (it’s a bit like sitting in a stinking, overcrowded oven on a bed of nails) but it was completely full  anyway, so we were forced to sit on the floor in the vestibule. When the ticket man came he kindly pointed out that we should be in cattle class and forced us to pay 300Rs for the privilege of sitting in squalor. He also kindly told all the his mates that we’d missed our train so they could have a good laugh at the silly tourists as we paid up.

Two hours later we had almost lost faith with the Subcontinent altogether and were discussing whether to fly straight to Kathmandu if we missed the connecting train, but redemption appeared in the form of two Sikh teenagers who invited us to share their seats in sleeper class. Grateful to escape the stench of piss we meekly followed them to their seats, where the other 19 (I’m not exaggerating) members of their family excitedly squeezed up to make room. The last hour of our journey was an absolute joy. They fed us sweets and sandwiches, told us all about Amritsar, invited us to stay with them, blue-toothed dodgy videos to James’ phone and generally treated us like royalty. ‘Singh is King’ their T-shirts said, and we were inclined to agree – now seriously considering a detour to Punjab after Nepal.

 

The train reached Delhi with 15 minutes to spare and, after emotional farewells, we threw ourselves off and began to hare round the 3,586 platforms trying to find our train. Luckily platform 18 was the winner and we made it with a comfortable 36 seconds to spare.

The following day, almost on time, we pulled up in West Bengal and shared a jeep with a family almost as big as the Singhs up the 2900 metre ascent to Darjeeling, passing through a narrow valley that sandwiches this remote part of India between Bhutan, China and Nepal – our next destination. More on Darjeeling later, we’re off for high tea at the Planter’s Club.