My Incredible India Discovery

It was 7 am by the time we returned back to the Hotel after our early morning excursion to Tiger hills. We were preparing to check out from the hotel today. Our driver was dot on time to pick us up and take us for the last round of sightseeing in Darjeeling. As we settled bills we bumped into every person who, in some way, served us and helped us have a good stay. With a big smile on our faces and good experiences we said good bye to the hotel.
Today's agenda was no different from yesterdays - sightseeing! We dropped by at the Batasia Loop/Eco Garden, Dunggon Buddhist Monastery and headed towards "Triveni view point". Before I jump to Triveni there are few things about Darjeeling worth mentioning. I found the town to be extremely charming with very friendly people and beautiful sceneries. It is a typical hill station one would like to visit for taking a break from the usual schedules. Like I already mentioned in my previous posts, we found the people having the same sense of dressing. Young guys with spiked gelled hair, bright color mufflers and smart caps and to compete with them were the round-face, fringe-cut, small- eyed girls with heavy eye makeup and dark lip color contrasting their complexion. I am totally motivated in getting a fringe cut myself (Not yet done!). So, Bye Bye Darjeeling, It was nice to meet you :) Here we come Triveni!

Yaaaawnnnn! Its 3 am and I am sooooooo sleeeeefy! Vishnu woke up promptly and got ready and i was still feeling lazy. Woke up quarter to 4 and managed myself to look presentable. By the way, today Nov 3rd is pati dev's birthday too! What a way to celebrate hubby's birthday (I thought!). Our super punctual ram bhaiya was already waiting for us and I had no clue why we had to go to some place this early in the morning! It was pitch dark at that time and ram bhaiya was driving at 45% angle (climbing up). He showed his driving skills on extremely steep curves, where both Vishnu and I would almost say our last prayers and Ram bhaiya will zoom with ease..phew!
In 45 mins we were at "Tiger Hills" - There were lots of tigers here at one point (During British rule) and that’s why the name. It is the highest point in the Darjeeling area with a smashing height of 8000 ft above sea level. We were here to watch the "Sunrise". Being in Chennai I have always enjoyed sunrise sitting at the marina and was hoping an equivalent experience. We were the first enthu-patanis to get there and by 5 am the place was packed! The temperatures were at an all time low and the swift breeze made my teeth chatter!
Though it was cold, the sky was clear and grey. We had the Kanchenjunga on our left, a small tip of Mt. Everest behind, the China border in front of us and the sun on our right! We kept circling around the hall to capture the beauty of all of them. The silver moon was still glittering in the sky like a beautiful bindi and as the first sun rays showed their presence, the grey sky was turning into a golden yellow. The mountains were changing colors too. From grey, to orange to yellow to silver to bright white! The clouds above the sun had a "Golden lining" and were shimmering with pride as the sun finally showed his face to us! It was like a huge diamond ring popping out from far. A Picture perfect - Mountains, Sun, clouds and few birds chirping high above the sky. The most beautiful sun rise i had ever witnessed. The crowds cheered loudly as the sun rose and the noise had suddenly turned to a "wow" in chorus!
Waking up so early in the morning and going through the dangerous ride was simply worth it! What a start to this day!
We couldn’t capture the beauty into the camera (we didn't have the right lens) but captured it in our eyes :) ...This is just the beginning of the best birthday Vishnu could ever have. More fascinating things happened to us today and watch this space for more updates :)

Its day 2 in Darjeeling. We woke up to see a beautiful view outside the hotel room. The weather was cooler than last night and I could find the need to grab a sweater :) Our driver - Ram bhaiya, was exceptionally punctual. He said he will be picking us up at 9:45 and he was there sharp! We ate a hearty breakfast and set out for our first day of sightseeing in Darjeeling.
Our first destination was the "Peace Pagoda". Let me mention to you that I am not a "History" person, so I personally did not try to find out the meaning of a Peace pagoda or the reason for its existence. But honestly, the pagoda was a masterpiece. It depicted the 4 main parts of Buddha's life and the sculpture was gold plated. Amazing indeed! We got into our usual photography mode, took loads of pictures :) and yes, the beautiful Kanchenjunga was more clear that day.
Our next destination was the famous "Rock garden". Very well built and a beautiful picnic spot. i have never ever been to a rock garden before and this was my first, so whatever I saw was bench marked as the best:) The entire place was filled with tourists but we had enough space for ourselves to strike some real funny poses :) We spent more than an hour there walking a complete big loop of stairs around the falls. With a kutti trek we completed our excursion to this refreshing place :) and then Ram bhaiya signaled to go for the next "tourist spot" of the day


We fought our way to a busy bazaar on the Darjeeling roads, apparently it was school disperse time and we were blocked by far too many school students. I should mention that he was busy watching the gals and I was busy watching the guys :) We did notice similarities in dressing sense amongst the crowd and were wondering if the schools had specific classes teaching the same :) After all the noise and traffic we landed at "Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park" and "Himalayan Mountaineering Institute". The zoo was very impressive. A well maintained, nicely organized zoo :) One place where both Vishnu and I became kids and jumped for every creature we spotted. Some of them we loved watching were the Snow leopards, Indian Tiger, Red Panda, Clouded leopards, Himalayan Wolf, Black Bear and pheasants. After this visit, we called every dog on the street - "Wolf", cat - "leopard" and monkeys - "langoors" hehe. Nevertheless, the place was worth seeing :-)
Inside the premises of the zoo is the HMI (Himalayan Mountaineering Institute). We visited the museum which had the list of legends that have ever climbed Mt. Everest! It was interesting to see the tools and the equipments the mountaineers use, pretty fascinating. The HMI canteen offered some good soup and fried rice for the poor starved souls (us) with live music. Yes, the cook was apparently a part time musician and he played the guitar! Some lovely Hindi songs (yes Hindi again!) and a nice short and sweet lunch just made the trip to HMI a memorable one.
As we came out of the HMI and zoo we were hoping that this was the last destination for the day, cos our legs had started to ache (remember the walk and trek in rock garden). Our bodies had gone through too much of exercise and wanted to just relax. Alas! The driver bhaiya didn’t feel the same and drove us to the famous tea gardens. As usual, the photographer and the model started their session and completed pretty quick with a piping hot tea :-)

We reached the hotel soon, and decided to attack the "mall road" a little earlier than yesterday (so that I can get some shopping done, of course!). The mission was successful. We shopped handbags, sofa covers, Buddha table piece..blah blah blah and Vishnu was already worried that the lugguage we got was not enough to fit in the new stuff;-) And yeah, he also kept reminding me that we had more places to go during the trip where I can shop and stopped me from buying more stuff! GRRR..We returned back to the hotel, had an early dinner and slept early as our driver bhaiya was gonna come at 4 am next day! Yes! 4 am!! (The only time I woke up at that time was to eat during Ramzan fasts and tomorrow will be an exception!) So, see u tomorrow @ 4am.. Good night!