Chandigarh &gt; Delhi &gt; Darjeeling

Matt, Joel, Timm, and I left for the Chandigarh airport only a couple hours after getting back from the wedding. Unfortunately, our flight to Delhi was delayed a couple hours which means we would miss the only connecting flight of the day to Bagdogra (the airport near Darjeeling). We bonded with a woman who was on the same flight and was equally annoyed by the inconvenience. Because we were going to miss our connection, we needed to figure out where to stay in Delhi. The woman recommended some areas to stay and eventually ended up negotiating a great hotel rate for us at a place she sends her musicians to stay. She used to host a travel show on BBC, but now makes her living as a professional musician.

After getting to Delhi, we headed to a really nice part of town to stay at our hotel. The service was great, and we killed some time walking around Khan Market and getting dinner.

After catching up on our missing sleep, we unfortunately had to leave Timm in Delhi and headed to the airport. The flight to Bagdogra was only a couple hours. The airport is run by the military and is really old. They do not have electronic signs to list the flights, and the baggage carousels are tiny. See photo below.

We got in a jeep like car and started the 3 hour ride up the hill to Darjeeling. There are beautiful tea fields immediately outside of the airport. We also saw many craftsmen carving the local Teak wood. The drive was very pleasant and had some great views. We went from an elevation of 413 feet to 6700 in Darjeeling (Tahoe city is about 6200). Our driver took us to a restaurant in Kurseong on the way which had excellent momos. Momos are a Tibetan food that are essentially Chinese dumplings.

Once we made it up the hill, the weather was much nicer. We checked into the Dekeling Hotel where they brought us welcome tea and allowed us to check in whenever it was convenient.

Some photos from the drive up: