Day two is an arduous and long uphill climb, with our inability to find a teahouse serving lunch compounding our misery. Hungry, tired and irritable, I am acutely conscious that my regular rest stops are holding everyone back. I set myself mini goals: I will not stop before the next turn in the road, I will take a break only after reaching the third tree.
The route feels isolated, but the wide, paved path tells a different story. It traces the border between India and Nepal, occasionally straying into the latter. Along the way, we encounter a handful of heavily fortified border posts manned by bored-looking soldiers, who barely look up from their card games to check our papers.
The following day is a shorter climb, but significantly steeper. However, it has the added bonus of being our goal, the 3,600m Sandakphu Ridge, and by the time I get there, via a seemingly endless path of steeply zigzagging bends, I am ready to drop to my knees and kiss the ground.
After a freezing night that features snow and lightning, we emerge in the pitch blackness to see the sun rise over the mountains. I’d love to say something on the lines of how I was moved by the majesty of the sun warming the peaks of the mighty Himalaya, turning them from icy blue to warm orange. However, all I really remember is the bone-aching cold and icy winds buffeting the lookout point.
Luckily, it warms up by the time we start our descent, and initially all seems well. I’d been looking forward to heading downhill, expecting it to be easy. As it turns out, down is harder than up, and with each step I feel the skin on my big toes pulling away.
The Spanish Inquisition could not have come up with a more fiendish form of torture. In the end I trade my hiking boots for open-toed Birkenstocks. They slow me down, but it means I can enjoy the ever-changing scenery: from thickets of cedar forest, to a dry riverbed where we skip between white bleached rocks. On the other side we find ourselves cloaked by rainforest.
The next day, back in Darjeeling, my legs have turned to stone. I struggle to hobble up the handful of steps to the main house for breakfast. It’s even harder to walk down the steps to the main road. At some points I have to turn sideways and massage my stiff thigh muscles into action, something I try to conceal from my hosts. If they notice, they’re too polite to mention it.
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