Sikkim & Darjeeling — Gangtok, Tsomgo Lake & the Tea Hills

The pedestrian spine of Gangtok — no vehicles, no litter and no smoking, with benches down the middle and shops and cafés on both sides. It is where the town comes out to walk in the evening.

• Walk the length of the promenade
• Buy Sikkimese tea or handicrafts
• Sit out with a coffee and watch the evening crowd

An oval lake held in a bowl of bare ridges, about 38 km from Gangtok on the Nathula road. It freezes solid in winter and the surrounding slopes carry snow from December to around May. Yaks wait at the near shore and a small cable car runs up the hillside above it.

• Walk the paved path along the shore
• Ride the ropeway for the view down on the water
• Hot maggi and tea at the stalls

A shrine kept by the Indian Army for a soldier of the Punjab Regiment who died in the area in 1968 and who troops posted here still hold in great regard. It stands high on the road towards Nathula and is run entirely by the army.

• Visit the shrine room
• Look through the memorabilia the army keeps there
• Tea at the army canteen

The border pass on the old Silk Road at about 4,310 metres, with the Indian and Chinese posts in sight of each other. It needs a separate permit, is closed to foreign nationals, and does not open every day of the week.

• Walk up to the boundary fence
• See the war memorial on the way up
• Photograph the pass from the steps

The seat of the Karma Kagyu school in exile, rebuilt in the 1960s about 24 km from Gangtok on the far side of the valley. The main shrine hall, the golden stupa and the monks' quarters sit inside one walled compound, and there is an ID check at the entrance.

• See the main prayer hall
• Walk up to the Golden Stupa
• Look back across the valley at Gangtok

A research institute founded in 1958 holding one of the larger collections of Tibetan manuscripts, thangkas and ritual objects outside Tibet. The museum on the ground floor is small but worth the time.

• See the thangka collection
• Look at the ritual objects and masks
• Walk the wooded grounds

A white stupa built in 1945, circled by rows of prayer wheels that people turn as they walk clockwise around it. A monastic school stands alongside, so there are usually young monks about.

• Walk the circuit and turn the prayer wheels
• See the two large statues of Guru Rinpoche
• Sit in the courtyard for a while

Two small ridge-top stops north of town. Tashi looks straight up the valley to Kanchenjunga on a clear morning, and Ganesh Tok is a tiny shrine reached by a flight of steps with a wide balcony round the back.

• Kanchenjunga views from Tashi on a clear day
• Climb the steps at Ganesh Tok
• Tea at the viewpoint stall

A white stupa on Jalapahar hill built by the Nipponzan-Myohoji order and finished in 1992, with gilded reliefs of the Buddha set around the drum. Drumming and chanting are held in the temple beside it morning and evening.

• Walk the upper terrace
• Sit in on the drum prayer
• Views over the town and the ridge

The flat open square at the top of the town where the Mall roads meet — no traffic, a bandstand, bookshops and old tea rooms round the edge.

• Walk the Mall loop round Observatory Hill
• Browse the bookshops
• Buy first-flush tea to take home

A hilltop at roughly 2,590 metres, some 11 km from town, from where the sunrise lights the Kanchenjunga massif before it reaches the valley. There is a tiered viewing tower and, in season, a long queue of vehicles on the road up.

• Watch first light on Kanchenjunga
• Look west for Everest on a very clear day
• Hot tea from the stalls at the top

Batasia is the spiral of track where the toy train turns through a full circle to lose height, laid out with a garden and the Gorkha war memorial in the middle. Ghoom Monastery, a few minutes further on, is one of the oldest Tibetan monasteries in the area and holds a large Maitreya Buddha.

• Watch the train come round the loop
• See the Gorkha war memorial
• Visit the Maitreya statue at Ghoom

The institute set up after the 1953 Everest ascent, with a museum of expedition kit and Tenzing Norgay's memorial in the grounds. It shares an entrance with the high-altitude zoo, which breeds snow leopards and red pandas.

• See the expedition gear in the museum
• Look for the red pandas and snow leopards
• Walk to the Tenzing memorial

A garden of about 175 hectares just below the town, planted in the mid-1850s and one of the highest tea estates in the district. When plucking is on, roughly March to November, you can watch the leaf being withered and rolled in the factory.

• Walk down through the bushes
• See the withering and rolling floors
• Taste and buy the estate flushes

The two-foot gauge line built between 1879 and 1881 and listed by UNESCO in 1999. The joy ride runs the short stretch from Darjeeling to Ghoom, the highest station on the line, and back, pausing at Batasia Loop each way. Steam and diesel services both run, and seats are sold to a published timetable.

• Ride up to Ghoom and back
• Stop at the railway museum at Ghoom station
• Watch the engine take on water

A long, narrow lake in a bowl of tea gardens and cardamom about 50 km from Darjeeling, with a footbridge across the middle and a pine walk down one side. The drive out passes some of the best-known gardens in the district.

• Walk the path round the water
• Take a boat out on the lake
• Stop at a tea garden viewpoint on the way

Terraced gardens cut into the hillside about 10 km below town around a stepped waterfall, with a second park a little further down the same road. The road back up is steep and slow.

• Climb the terraces beside the falls
• Boating at Ganga Maya
• Photograph the valley on the way down