Touristy places (The standard tour Day 2 - Continued)
(Quick Links to the Darjeeling Travelogue : Part 1 - Part 2 - This is Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5)From the Tenzing rock, we went to the ropeway. The queue was about 3 hours long to get in. So we ditched it and went to the tea plantations
Happy Valley Tea Plantations
I expected to see a plantation, a processing factory, some tasting, factory shop for purchases etc. It was a complete let down. They took us to some corner of it where Tourist could dress up as locals and take photos as if they are picking tea.
It was a let down. To put in context, what Juhu is to Beach after you've seen Marina Chennai. MaPro Mahabaleshwar and Ooty Tea gardens do a wonderful job of showcasing the tea /local produce experience
Buddhist temple and peace pagoda
Our last stop was Buddhist temple and peace pagoda. This place is quite interesting. They had some chanting and we were allowed to participate by drumming. See my out of the world pics of Buddha with a natural halo below.
On the way back to the hotel, we booked the tickets for Darjeeling to Darjeeling - I think there a 4 trains that do the round trip every day - 2 are diesel (costing about 650 per ticket) and 2 are steam (costing 1100 per ticket) - Very steep considering that its about 2 hrs, the scenic ride is spoilt by awful illegal constructions throughout the way, they serve nothing or explain nothing - Please try to book in advance - I was just plain lucky. You can try online, but for some reason I could not get any booking.
Day 3 in next part
(Quick Links to the Darjeeling Travelogue : Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5)
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