Getting to Darjeeling

So our bus from Janakpur arrived at the border on time, and we completed the effortless formalities very quickly (no queues at all). The next problem became how to move on to our next destination - Darjeeling. I had thought we could get a shared jeep from the border direct to Darjeeling, but everyone was telling me we had to go to Siliguri first.

Of course, you can never, ever trust the information taxi or bus-drivers give you, but after checking around a bit (and changing the last of my Nepali money into Indian), I decided to hop into a nearly full jeep that was clearly leaving for Siliguri immediately. I think you do have to get to Siliguri first, and our jeep, although crowded, was quick and not too uncomfortable.

At Siliguri I started asking around for another shared jeep to take us to Darjeeling, and initially it seemed that it was too late in the day (being about 4pm). I checked across the road at the local bus terminal, but it was definitely was too late for a bus, so I checked around a bit more, and I found a couple of jeeps advertising Darjeeling. So after the usual nonsense over the price, I went back to get Sarah (who was looking after the bags), and we hopped into another jeep for the trip up to Darjeeling.

Again this jeep was quick and fairly comfy, although unfortunately the weather quickly turned very cloudy as we climbed the mountain roads, and so any views were obscured. It was just before dark when we arrived at the famous hill station town of Darjeeling.