Sorry to leave Darjeeling

11th Nov, 10th day of trip

Left Darjeeling with a tear in my eye, said farwell to Raj and Olmer, good guys even for Kiwis, they certainly made my stay so much more enjoyable. I salute them for their friendship.

Caught mountain train back from Darjeeling to Kurseong, the track is a little more than 3ft wide and is pulled by a box like deisel. But the inside the narrow carriages (1st Class) are pretty velvet lines cilings, held in place by hard wood strips, very ornate. We travel with the door open, crazy when you think that there is a drop of nearly 1000ft sometimes on one side or the other. Sometime the mountains are this side sometime on the other. Its cool and sunny the visabilty is clear I can seemiles and miles of mountains alldotted with small villages.

The locallanguage is Tibetan although most can speak a dialect of Hindi.

The train passes through smalltowns, stall holders have to move their wares as the train approaches.

Sorry but the keyboard has virtually all the letters missing on the keyboard and I am typing blind.

I arrive at Kurseong, there was a delay while they removed a building block that has somehow got stuck under one of the wheesl.. A bright young man comes up and asks if I want a taxi to New Jalpaiguri, he has a brand new Susuki whatever, the fare is 1000 rupees, what a deal (15 pounds for a 3 hour journey). We gently roll down the steep hills onto the smoothest road in India, for 50miles we wind through jungle mountains with fabulous views.

I type to while the time away, I still have 3 hours to wait for the Kolkota train.
So not know when I will email againin the next few days, hopefully fromBarka Kana, the eye clinic that I am visiting.