Darjeeling Tea: 29 Dec - 2 Jan

Spent New Year's Eve & 5 divine days in the archetypal Indian hill station of Darjeeling, at around 2,100m. The derivation of the town's name has a cute story to it & highlights the seamless blending of Buddhist & Hindu faiths that characterizes the region - being inherently Indian, but so close to the Nepal, Tibetan& Bhutan borders. The town was named after Dorje (a Buddhist deity) and the linga (a representation of the Hindu god Shiva) becoming Darjeeling!
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We visited their cute little zoo - which boasts heaps of red pandas, several highly disgruntled big cats & the impressive claim to fame that it is the highest zoo in the world!

We visited a couple of famous tea gardens & sampled their brew, learnt a little about the different grades of tea & which leaves they come from (smallest, newest leaves = highest grade) & that they are manually separated by cheap labour. Buy fair trade tea!

Although New Years Eve itself was spent with a total lack of champagne & only cheap petrol passing for wine (India being a country devoted to hard liquor - their whiskey is their pride), our New Year began spectacularly watching a glorious sunrise over the majestic Himalayas at around 2,800m. Talk about feeling on top of the world!