Never Coming Back

We start our morning in the middle of the fog, which wasn't a very good sign for our trek. But we had breakfast at Glenary's Bakery, which was amazing eggs, beans, and toast, while Andrew got eggs, sausage, and bacon (sausage wasn't very good though). We walked down the street to the trekking office and met our guides Neema and Vicki. We then started out on our adventure with a 45 minute taxi ride to Maneybhang, a tiny little town on the border of India/Nepal. DAY 1 TREK Manebhanjang to Tonglu-distance: 6.83 mi/ 11 km elevation change: .57 mi/ .92 km At Manebhanjang (7053ft/2150 m) we had to get our passports checked and write down our names. The trail dips in and out of Nepal, so while we didn't need a visa, we still had to be documented every time we went in and out. This is one of the other reasons why all foreigners must have a guide to do this trek. Other than getting lost, they want to make sure people aren't smuggling in and out of the border. That day we we...

We had breakfast at Khana Khazana-which turned out not to have a breakfast menu so ended up having tomato soup and french-fries. We then hurried over to Silliguri Junction Railway which was across the street from our hotel (Hotel Mountain View). The train ended up being half an hour late, so the Andrew, Eric and Will amused themselves by putting 1 Rs coins on the railway and trying to get them run over, until beggar children tried to steal the coins off the tracks.<br>   We had First class tickets on the toy train, which was a lot of fun. It basically meant we got cushioned personal seats instead of a plastic bench seat and a funky decorated train car. The tickets were 250 Rs each, about $5. It left at 10:30am and we arrived at around 5pm in Darjeeling.    The train did switch backs up the mountain, so most of the time we actually ended up going backwards. The train ride went through about three different types of terrain. We started in Silliguri in a flat plain ...

Sometimes it really is the journey, not the destination. We started off on our two week vacation prepared for anything. First-Aid kit, locks (lots of them), pillows, and sunscreen. We didn't realize that even the train ride would be so exciting. We took 3 tier AC. Which means that there are berths, and each berth has 6 people with foldable beds. In each car there are 5 berths. It's air conditioned, there are pillows, blankets and sheets. They even have outlets to charge your cell phone. When we first got on, I was a bit weary because the last time we had been on a train was our trip to Varanasi when our bag was stolen. Needless to say, every bag had two locks on it. After locking down everything, I walked down the aisle and noticed that somebody was charging their iPhone, and had just left there. There was nobody else in the car. Obviously, the person trusted 3 tier AC people enough to leave their iPhone sitting there, with no protection at all. As I was marveling at this sens...