After a long night on yet another sleeper train myself and Jules arrived in Siliguri where we had to pick up a shared jeep for the remaining 3 hour journey up to the hillstation which is Darjeeling. Got a seat each in another cramped vehicle and set off on the journey. About 30 mins into this journey the jeep got a puncture and we had to sop while driver changed the wheel. I saw the one he took off and the tyre was bald, it looked like a formula one super slick tyre!! We headed a few mins back to the nearest town, where the punctured tyre was repaired and the car was jacked back up and this super slick was put back on. Perfick I thought to myself a super slick tyre on a jeep about to take us up some narrow rocky moutain paths to the top of the hill, still at least with some super slicks on the car we might get there faster!!! About 10 mins into the restarted journey there was a sound coming from this rear wheel again. I looked out the window as this was directly below me and could see that the nuts had not been tighthend back up and the wheel was shaking about....... Driver pulls over has a quick look around vehcile opens and shuts boot and continues journey! At whcih stage in his thinking did he think opeing and shutting the boot was going to cure the horrific noise coming coming from the back wheel, nice one pal. As we set off and built up speed I shouted again, the wheel comeing off, the wheel coming off.... At this stage an indian family realised what I was saying and translated to driver. Oh my days, my heart cannot survive too many more of these journeys on this kind of transport!!! Got stuckk in traffic jam and another crash had occured whereby a truck had sent a little shack whcih I assume was a shop or a house over the edge of the hill to meet its peril. Yet another horrific windy hill trip from hell.

Got ourselves a nice clean modern guest house upon arrival and this place was extremely cold after the warm days of Kolkata it was certainly a shock to the system. Back to wearing the old trusty fleece I had buried to the bottom of the bag in recent days! Went and had walk around in evening and wandering along a pathway a local says 'watch out, wild mokeys ahead, dont look them in the eyes'. As we continue up road there is an absolute bombardment of monkeys, 'dont look them in the eyes'?? Why will it upset them if they thnk we are staring at them?? what ever this guy was blabbing on about I was not sticking around to find out as these look like evil little sods.

That night back at hotel found a pile of blankets outside room on floor and decided to help myself to one as was a little chilly. Woke up in night itching like hell and found myself covered in red rashes. Turned out this blanket had some kind of animals living amongst it and belonged to one of the lowly workers here, so probably had not been washed in a long time in fact ever!! Thought it smelt a bit funky when I picked it up, still lesson learnt.

Following morning we went and booked two tickets for the 'toy train' to Ghoom. This is a 7km journey whcih takes one hour on the steam train which has received heritage accrediation. Proper old fashioned english style steam train and it was clear that this place was and old english hill station just from this. Good fun journey although not a lot to be seen in Ghoom when arrived there. Headed back to Darjeeling and went for a walk down to the Happy Valley Tea Plantation, which is where some of the infamous Darjeeling tea orignates from. Walked all way down these steep hills to find the production factory being re-built when arrived there, gutted, especially since I now had to get a sweat on walking back up this hill!!

All in all not a lot was done here and missed out on what are supposed to be truly fantastic views as for the two days spent here the air was full of heavy thick mist. Decided over last few days to Leave India for a week or so and head over to Nepal to go and check out Kathmandu for a while. Really looking forward to this as there appears to be some rafting and trekking to do whilst here som my kind of place.

I will say my final farewells from India for now and meet you on the other side in Nepal, home of the infamous Mount Everest!