DARJEELING – QUEEN OF HILL STATIONS - LAND OF THUNDERBOLTS

Darjeeling, a piece of paradise, is more a hill station and less a town at the average elevation of 2134 meters in the Indian state of West Bengal in the Shiwalik Hills of Lower Himalayan.
In the Tibetan language the Darjeeling means the land of thunderbolts.
The culture and history is inter-woven with British, Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan.
Darjeeling has always the pleasant temperature rarely exceeding 25 c.
Although Darjeeling is famous many monasteries and close view of Tibetan culture, the most noteworthy is Toy Train and Tea plantations.
Tea plantations were started by British in 1841 in this region and the success spread everywhere all around this town. The Darjeeling tea is the best in Black Tea category and is very popular in UK and other former British Colonies.
Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, carrying few steam engines, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The curvy railway tracks carry the toy train from Siliguri (80 kms) thru the hills, streams and cold breeze is such a pleasant experience that people do not care for the time and the slow speed of this toy train.
Apart from these two things, there are number of attractions for the visitors.
Ghoom 6 kms from Darjeeling is famous for Yiga Monastery where images of Maitrya Buddha are preserved. There are also many palm leaves and papers manuscripts in Tibetan scripts.
Mirik Lake in the valley regions with cool air, tea plantations and smiling Gorkha people makes one spend here forgetting the time.
Darjeeling mall is famous for typical sweaters of Himalayan wools, Tibetan styled paintings and Tibetan antiques and of course Darjeeling teas. People usually carry loads of tea bags as memoirs of their visit to Darjeeling.
Darjeeling has flourishing tourist business and there are numbers of hotels catering the needs of all sorts of people of all nations.
The nearest major railway station is Siliguri which is connected to all major cities. The nearest airport is Bagdogra that is 100 kms away. The bus and taxies are however always available from Siliguri at all the times.
The local taxies here provide guide services as well as covering all site seeing points.
The local people Gorkha are very co-operative and always smiling, a unique feature of this region.