India, It's a wrap! - April 2026

 

Teesta River

We left Darjeeling by jeep from the central station.  The journey followed the river for quite some time before plunging quite steeply downhill.  The roads all have metal grips built into them to stop slippage.

We got off the jeep in a wee village called Teesta Bazaar where we were intending to fish for a few days.  Our homestay was just the ticket!  We had been upgraded to a self contained flat with a balcony onto the river.  

As there was a shortage of gas due to the war in Iran we were unable to use the cooker but it was great to be able to do some washing.

We enjoyed watching the rafters from our balcony

The next day we took a walk around the village and sussed out where we would go fishing.  The track to the fishing spot had fallen into the river but we were pleased to note that it wasn't too deep to skirt around that part to the other side.  We decided we would come more appropriately dressed the next day.

And that was the end of that! James woke up sick the next day and spent the next four days in bed.  Fortunately we had some slack built into our schedule to fly to Delhi and extended our stay here to five nights.  There seemed no better place to rest and recouperate.

Cheeky monkey

Looking back toward the village.  This bridge goes
to Kalimpong.  We never made it there.

Again it came time to leave and our homestay host arranged another jeep to take us to Siliguri where we stopped for a bite to eat before ordering on an electric tuktuk, using the online Rapido app, to take us to our final Indian destination of Bagdogra.  From here, we would fly to Delhi the following day.

Urban bovine problem.  They are sacred
and unable to be managed appropriately.

Flying into Delhi

When we arrived in Delhi, we thought we knew what we were doing as we had arrived here earlier in the year.  Umm, NO!  We arrived at a different terminal and got a wee bit lost finding our hotel this time.  It all came to pass, as it always does in India, with a bit of resistance, and then a bit of help, from the locals.  It didn't help that the temperature was 40C during the middle of the day!

We spent three days just gathering our thoughts.

These melons were delicious

Never before seen Snake cucumber

After six months travelling, mostly overland by bus and train, through eight countries - Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Greece, Lebanon, Qatar, India & Nepal - we were on the brink of heading back to the UK.  We sure had an amazing time and discovered some truly surprising places. Armenia and Lebanon would be the standouts for us as places we would like to explore further.  It's just a shame about the war.  As much as we had enjoyed our travels we weren't sorry to be returning to a modicum of familiarity where we would be able to fully understand what the heck is going on!

We flew Fin Air.  We were originally booked with Emirates via Dubai but the war scuppered those plans.  We had already committed to a couple of sits in the UK and really needed a reliable way back.  At least Finland was far away from the troubles.