After breakfast in the hotel we made it to Darjeeling’s train station, to catch the famous toy train for the 7km trip from Darjeeling to Ghum (India’s highest train station).

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway was built back in the late 19th century, it is narrow gauge (with a gauge of just 61cm/ 2ft) – and part of the UNESCO world heritage Mountain Railways of India (as is the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, I took back in 2014).

We were going by tourist train – pulled by a steam train of 1899 vintage. The trip started – following the German Railway playbook – with a delay due to technical problems. The issue got resolved eventually and we were on our way up towards Ghum. After a re-watering stop, we made it to the Batasia Loop with some time for us to enjoy the views and check out the Ghorka soldier war memorial. From here a quick drive got us to Ghum – where after a short walk we were back into the cars, to get to the first monastery of the trip – the Yiga Choeling Monastery (aka. Old Ghum Monastery).

Two notes on monasteries and temples: in this region photography is (with very few exceptions) not allowed inside monasteries and temples, occasionally it is even forbidden in courtyards … as such, you won’t see such photos here – where possible, I try to include a link with photos (such as above link to wikipedia). These references will also provide more background on the monasteries, temples and (later in the trip) zhongs visited – to me things eventually turned out fairly confusing and blurry … too many sects, incarnations, gurus and stories …