Darjeeling

"Life is a mirror and will reflect back to thinker what he thinks into it” – Ernest Holmes

Climbing up to Darjeeling 

One of my biggest dream for this bicycle journey was, and still is to cycle on Himalayan mountains. Pitch my tent next to fast running rivers and wake up with sunrise colouring the snowy mountain peaks.

After Assam, I turned my bicycle towards Darjeeling, which is a beautiful hill station in Himalayas. I was surprised, how easily the 75km of uphill up to 2000m went. The road crossed forested national park, followed the famous toytrain railway and passed cute old villages.

I am not sure what I was the most amazed of: the smily and hassle free people, the amount of the prayers flags that crossed all the towns, the ever growing mountain scenery or the fact that I was able to cycle the first Himalayan hills. 

The contrast to dusty and warm lowlands was so big that I could not stop smiling. I stopped having lunch at a roadside restaurant and the didi who gave me huge plate of noodles didn't charge me any money, she just said that its important to fuel women in their journey of life. 

After lunch, I continued and was invited to two homes to drink chai (local milk tea) and learn about the area and its people. Both of the families invited me to stay overnight, but I wanted to cycle a bit more, because the following morning I was supposed to meet Jacob and Katy and continue cycling together to Darjeeling. When the sun was setting, I saw a church and asked locals whether I could sleep in the church that night. The priest, who had the keys for the church's was not around and one of the locals invited me to stay with him and his family for the night. I had wonderful overnight homestay with family of Ramandeep, thank you! 

The next day, I met Jacob and Katy and together we climbed the rest of the road to Darjeeling. I decided to give myself some rest and treat my stiff body with morning and evening yoga. From Darjeeling, I got my permit to enter to Sikkim and  after four days of rest, I was ready to continue cycling.