Following the touring we completed the six day Sandakphu trek along the border of Nepal and Darjeeling, India. Unlike the treks in Bhutan, which are wilderness treks where you have to camp each night, the Sandakphu trek was a cultural tea house based trek. While the terrain for the Sandakphu trek was much easier than the trekking terrain in Bhutan, the Sandakphu trek was really enjoyable because of all the interaction with the local people along the way. Our very experienced guide, Dawa, seemed to know someone in every village and we were welcomed into people’s houses wherever we went, which was very special. This experience was all the more heightened as we trekked during the Diwali festival period and got to participate in the different traditions on each night of the festivities. The views over the Nepali, Indian and Bhutanese Himalaya were amazing and the sunset and sunrise walks when staying at Sandakphu were stunningly beautiful.

After a good clean up at the terrific hotel in Darjeeling we spent the remaining few days of the journey touring Darjeeling and surrounding areas, which was really interesting and great to experience a place written about by so many. Knowing that the journey was over, the transfer to the airport in West Bengal was perhaps the worst part of the adventure.

The Wind Horse team in Sikkim and Darjeeling was as supportive as the Wind Horse team in Bhutan. It was great to meet Sonam, the local manager, during our time in Gangtok. Our guide during this stage of the journey, Dawa, is an extremely well experienced mountain and culture guide who had an enormous amount of knowledge of the areas we travelled to. He is a wonderfully funny and compassionate person who continuously went out his way to make sure that we had a wonderful experience.