Day 5: One day in Darjeeling
Darjeeling is home to many small and beautiful tourist places, like Rock Garden, Happy valley tea estate, ropeway, peace Pagoda, war memorial, Mountaineering institute, mall road, monasteries, and last but not the least, the Toy Train which is also a part of the world heritage site.
Since we had only one day to visit Darjeeling, so we chose few places including a ride on the toy train.
Toy train offers many rides with varying distances and places, we opted for a round trip from Darjeeling railway station to Batasia loop and back, which is a 2-hour journey covering a total distance of 14km. This train stops at the Batasia eco Garden for half an hour, takes a U turn and go back to Darjeeling station. During its half an hour stop, you can visit the park and the War Memorial, build in the honor of great Gurkha Soldiers. From this place you can see the Mt Kanchenjunga mountain as well.
Entry fee for this eco-park is included in the train fare. Which is ₹20/person.
Toy train fare:
Our train got cancelled one day before the journey, we wanted to book ticket from the station window but our host advised us to book a cab instead and visit all places.
Places in Darjeeling are near by, we visited two places, Dali Monastery and Batasia Eco Park by walking and booked a cab for Rock Garden, Happy valley tea estate and mall road. The driver charged us ₹1600 for this.
Below are the details of these places:
Dali Monastery: