We woke up early, worked our way back to the train station and waited patiently for the little diesel train to arrive. Today we are heading to Darjeeling on the UNESCO Heritage Himalayan Mountain Railway!
The route is often closed due to land slides and only opened again a few days ago. The traditional steam train (toy train) no longer takes you all the way from NJP, but does a short loop called a joy ride near Darjeeling. Our little diesel train takes us all the way from the bottom to the top!
We were travelling first class. It sounds very fancy but there is no choice as they don't attach any other type of carriage! The train is tiny, a little engine to haul us up and a couple of carriages. It has a special platform, separate from the other trains because it travels on old narrow guage track. Also this is the reason it doesn't go very fast.
The train passed along the road, in fact it quite often zig zagged across the road, tooting it's horn to warn the traffic to stay clear. It tooted it's horn a lot! Many cars and bikes tended to ride alongside the train and often people would stop, wait for the train to catch up and then pose for 'selfies' with the train as it passed.
We passed through many small towns. Yes, straight through the middle of them. You could have put your hand out of the window and take anything from the shop you liked!
The train often stopped, reversed, and the points on the track were changed manually with a lever. This sent us off on new track up the mountain. People hung out their washing to dry on the track and everyone stopped and
waved as we passed by.
Lunch was collected at a little station part way up and eaten on the train. A traditional Indian meal served with poppadoms and pickles, which were hot!
As the journey progressed the scenery just got better and better. We left the urban streets behind and replaced them with spectacular mountain vistas. We saw tea plantations, some huge recent landslides and about 88km of track. It took us about 10 hours to reach Darjeeling. We stopped a lot. Drank chai a lot and had a fantastic leisurely adventure! What an amazing experience.
We arrived after dark and walked to our homestay which was just outside of the main town centre.
The route is often closed due to land slides and only opened again a few days ago. The traditional steam train (toy train) no longer takes you all the way from NJP, but does a short loop called a joy ride near Darjeeling. Our little diesel train takes us all the way from the bottom to the top!
We were travelling first class. It sounds very fancy but there is no choice as they don't attach any other type of carriage! The train is tiny, a little engine to haul us up and a couple of carriages. It has a special platform, separate from the other trains because it travels on old narrow guage track. Also this is the reason it doesn't go very fast.
The train passed along the road, in fact it quite often zig zagged across the road, tooting it's horn to warn the traffic to stay clear. It tooted it's horn a lot! Many cars and bikes tended to ride alongside the train and often people would stop, wait for the train to catch up and then pose for 'selfies' with the train as it passed.
We passed through many small towns. Yes, straight through the middle of them. You could have put your hand out of the window and take anything from the shop you liked!
The train often stopped, reversed, and the points on the track were changed manually with a lever. This sent us off on new track up the mountain. People hung out their washing to dry on the track and everyone stopped and
waved as we passed by.
Lunch was collected at a little station part way up and eaten on the train. A traditional Indian meal served with poppadoms and pickles, which were hot!
As the journey progressed the scenery just got better and better. We left the urban streets behind and replaced them with spectacular mountain vistas. We saw tea plantations, some huge recent landslides and about 88km of track. It took us about 10 hours to reach Darjeeling. We stopped a lot. Drank chai a lot and had a fantastic leisurely adventure! What an amazing experience.
We arrived after dark and walked to our homestay which was just outside of the main town centre.