Darjeeling & Tiger Hill

Darjeeling sits on a Himalayan ridge at 2,042 metres in northern West Bengal. The British developed it as a sanatorium and tea-growing centre from 1835 onwards — the Darjeeling Hill Council and the Lloyd Botanical Garden both date from the 19th century. Most famously, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (the 'toy train') opened in 1881, climbing from New Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling on a 2-foot gauge with B-class steam locomotives. UNESCO inscribed it in 1999 as the first Indian railway World Heritage Site. Tiger Hill, 11 km south of Darjeeling at 2,567 metres, is the standard sunrise destination — on a clear morning the view stretches from Kanchenjunga (the world's third-highest peak) on the left to Mt Everest on the right, all turning gold as the sun rises behind the viewer. Inside Darjeeling town, the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park, the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, the Happy Valley Tea Estate (one of 87 tea gardens around the town), and the Ghoom Monastery round out the standard 2-day itinerary.