Greetings from the rooftop of the world

Hi there. I am currently sitting overlooking two of the tallest mountains in the world. Darjeeling is an amazing place and very different from the other parts of India that I have seen so far. It's very very hilly and my legs have been given an amazing workout (don't need to feel bad about not having been to the gym for a couple of weeks).

To get to Darjeeling you have to go through a 3 hours jeep ride around some of the windiest,steepist and most narrow roads that I have ever seen. We were being tossed all over the place during the ride. The driver kept laughing at me whenever I bumped my head or came off my seat. The jeep is meant to carry 10 people, we had 12 squeezed into ours. My friends and I were crammed into the back. I usually get carsick but thankfully I didn't this time -I think I was too scared to be. The view at the top made the journey worthwhile though.

We visited a Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre today. It was amazing to see first hand what goes into making rugs and blankest that we take for granted.

We also visited the zoo and the Himilayan Mountain Institute. Being a kiwi I thought it was important to see things about the great conquest of the summit of Everest by HIlary. During the tour I quickly came to realise that SirEd Hillary is not considered the main man in these parts. It's all about Tenzing (Darjeeling was his birthplace). They don't even mention the fact that Hillary is a New Zealander!! It was brilliant to see some of the equipment and clothing that they used for the climb.

Before coming to Darjeeling I spent two days in a safari park. This included an elephant trek where we came across three rhinos and a bison. It was incredible (and quite scary).

We then caught a commuter train from the park to Silaguri where we caught the jeep. The train was slow and basic but we got to see quite a few of the locals andsome tea plantations close up. It's amazingwhat we in the west complain about considering the basic commodities that the people in this part of the world have and appear tobe happy with.

Well it's almost dinner time and my 4th cup of tea of the day.

Till next time...

ps- see I didn't mention the rugby this time - I thought I'd mentioned enough about a kiwi being on top of the world.