I have been twice to this beautiful place in the east of india, once when I was very small around 12 yrs of age and the second time in final year of my college, with my friends....I will describe both of them one by one....
~The first time when I went there with my family, it was the summers, may or jun, I dont exactly remember but everything we did there is still fresh in my memory. We statyed there for three days and for the first two days it did not stop raining :-() too bad.
~The third day the sun made its way out and we moved out of our hotel for the first time...we went to the nepalese market there first and bought some kewl stuff and bad luck again rain again.. and we had to get back to the hotel, that was it the first time....we could not stay there as we had to go further to gauhati and manipur to complete our trip.... But the trip was not complete and I decided I would certainly come back to this place once more for sure........
~I got a chance in my final year in college when some of my friends and myself were looking for a faraway get off from the college after our 7 th sem exams..... and we chose darjeeling.... It was feb and it was supposed to be offfseason, so we hoped to get a lot of things very cheap there, as well as very cold, but there is clear climate this time of the year.... And hence we started from delhi...Rajdhani Express(Gauhati Rajdhani)
~It was a 24 hours journey to new Jalpaigudi from delhi..... Reached there in the morning and set of for darjeeling by a sumo...the next full week was so good that we never came to know when it got over...we visited each and every place in darjeeling, By taxi, on foot, We travelled around 5 km to reach Tenzing rock from our hotel and 5 back on foot, from the midst of darjeeling which probably no other visitor would have seen.
~Apart from the scenic beauty darjeeling offers, I became a fan of the buildings, the people and everything I saw there(Especially a British time post box--It was super cool)
~The temples, the mountains, the train(One of my friends was obsessed with it). darjeeling according to me is an ideal place to be for a lot of people. But this time also my trip remained incomplete, two days we went to see the sunrise after getting up 3 in the morning to the tiger hills, but both times as luck would have it, a dense cloud cover of clouds(Which at other times would have looked a lot beautiful to me) stole the show, no sun and the third day we decided to quit the idea......:-(((
~One more thing I would appreciate there is the attitude of people, they are so friendly and ready to help, one guy actually walked with us for 1 km when we were lost in darjeeling streets to show us the way So that was it 7 days over, we had to go back and we chose the toy train as our vehicle back....
~It was super cool getting on and off the train, the train stopping on the road for the trucks and people waving all over to the cameras..... The train back to delhi was also good..and we enjoyed a lot.. There are somethings which people should do during their stay at darjeeling...
1. Always have something to eat in ur hotel room, like bread jam etc, because shops and restaurants there close pretty much very soon.
2. Not take the train to go back to Jalpai gudi, but take the ticket for half the distance and from there take a cab....(It gets really boring after a station whose name I dont remember, but its almost halfway),
3.though you cannot do anything about the weather do try to visit when there is clear sky.....
4. Try to negotiate a lot, do not take taxi from the hotel you are staying in, there are a lot of associations(Taxi) which offer you taxis at cheaper prices..But it is always better to take packages they offer and not try to decide on itinerary. But better take short duration packages(Like half days) and keep some time for urself.
That is all from my side, , , , But still I want to see the sunrise......