Kalimpong

Kalimpong sits at about 1,250 metres on a saddle between the Deolo and Durpin hills, low enough to grow oranges and orchids and high enough to see Kanchenjunga on a clear morning. The town belonged to Bhutan, then Sikkim, then the British, who turned it into the terminus of the mule trade to Tibet. Until the border closed after the war of 1962, caravans came down the Jelep La with wool and went back with cloth, and the go-downs around Tenth Mile still carry that memory.

Dr John Anderson Graham founded his Homes here in 1900 for the children of tea planters, and its stone chapel on the hillside remains the most photographed building in town. A day in Kalimpong is unhurried. Start at Deolo Hill, the highest point at 1,704 metres, for a view down both sides of the ridge into the Teesta and Relli valleys.

Drop to Durpin Hill for the Zang Dhok Palri Phodang, consecrated by the Dalai Lama in 1976, which holds 108 volumes of the Kangyur brought out of Tibet. Spend the afternoon in the nurseries, where growers have been breeding cymbidiums and anthuriums for a century, then walk the Tenth Mile bazaar for Kalimpong cheese, lollipop cheese and the soft local churpi. Evenings are cool and silent in a way Darjeeling no longer is.