Our last breakfast at the Windamere is followed by a gentle stroll through Darjeeling. At last R finds the shops that she is interested in open for business. Having made various merchants rich men we proceed in an orderly fashion towards the railway station where the 10.40 a.m. Joy train to Ghum awaits us. Because this is a service train rather than a charter we all have to have allocated seats. Orderly boarding is not assistede by the ladies selling shawls who crowd into the tiny carriage and are very persistent.
Our seats are in the rear facing observation car so we get good views of Darjeeling as we climb and we are simultaneously bombarded with tiny specks of coal as B Class no. 804 "Queen of the Hill" hammers away towards the summit. A splendid piece of North British loco building. We paused for 10 minutes at Batasia loop where many of the classic DHR photos are taken showing the Himalaytas in the background. For us it was not to be so we will have to photoshop them in later.
At Ghum we had a quick look at the rather sparse DHR museum and then it was onto the boneshaker coaches for the trip back to Siliguri via a different route. This took us along the ridge that is the India-Nepal border and was rather better maintained than the way we went up. We passed through many colourful villages and saw how the locals travel. Arriving back at the Cindrella felt like coming home.
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