We took an overnight train to Darjeeling in 'sleeper class' (the lowest reservable) which had apparently been overbooked as i 'slept' the night with an Indian man curled up at my feet.
It seemed that we were never going to get there, as despite there being some beautiful landscapes and Indian transvestites on the train, the mountains were nowhere to be seen until suddenly we were amounst them.
Darjeeling, being in the Himalayas, is a very hilly town so despite the fact that we did no trekking (due to ankle) our legs still got some good exercise! Slightly disappointingly, the weather was very cloudy during our stay so we missed out on the mountain views and the sunrise over Everest, but we were still surrounded by the now familiar friendly Tibetan faces, not to mention the tea plantations - some of them actually grow on cliffs - they must absail to collect them.
Our departure from Darjeeling proved difficult, as the train waiting list didn't go our way and we missed out on a 3 day train down south (we love those trains) and had to take a combination of jeep, rickshaw, plain and train before arriving in what seemed like a different country.
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