December in Darjeeling often means overcast skies with cloud cover that removes the blue but still lets the sunlight through. When the clouds clear, however, the skies are a brilliant blue and the sun makes even 10 degrees Celsius seem warm. This is a shot of the town surrounded by greenery with its houses, hotels, shops and restaurants arranged along the steep hillsides. We are, after all, in the foothills of the Himalayas.

	We had been in Darjeeling for three or four days and had occasionally sat at one of the lookout points peering into the cloud cover for any sight of mountains. Looking about 5 degrees above horizontal, we could always see the nearest hills across the valley. Slightly higher, at maybe 10 degrees, there was a long line of something that I took to be another range farther off. So I adjusted my sight to about 15 degrees in an attempt to the see the next range. Nothing.
Finally, on the fourth day, we were walking back from Chowrasta when we looked up. And up. And a lot further up. What I had been looking for at 15 degrees was at 35 degrees. These incredible mountain peaks had just blasted thousands of feet up out of nowhere (as far as I was concerned) to replace the clouds. They were so high and so white that at first you thought they were clouds. The sight was so unexpected and so amazing that I just kept making gawping noises and pointing them out to Leela (lucky I was there, she might have missed them). No camera at the time, sorry, but fate decided that this was a sight to be remembered rather than recorded.
	After this, the skies were often clear and I took pictures of the same mountains from different parts of town, but never from the lookout point where we first saw them. When I was going through my slides, I saw them for the first time as you're seeing them now, as something to look at and admire. They're nice enough but nothing will have the impact of when the cloud parted for the first time to reveal the grandeur of these incredible peaks. You may never get to Darjeeling, but I hope that sometime in your life you experience something that inspires the same wonder and surprise that I felt. And if you can share it with someone, it will be even better.
Awesome discoveries make for monumental thirsts so it's fortunate we're in tea country. I couldn't very well take pictures of Darjeeling without including at least one of a tea plantation. So here it is. The tea bushes are in rows in the foreground of this picture and grow waist- to chest-high. The tea leaves are hand-picked several times during the year and later I'll tell you where you can find the best cup of tea in Darjeeling.

     
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