Sikkim and Darjeeling: Tea Gardens to Yumthang

Met at Bagdogra and driven 70 km up through Kurseong, about three hours, the road running alongside the toy-train rails the whole way. Reach Darjeeling by late afternoon, drop bags and walk to Chowrasta, where the Mall benches face the Singalila ridge. Climb Observatory Hill for the prayer flags and the Mahakal shrine, then eat pork momos and drink a pot of second flush at Glenary's on Nehru Road.

Leave at half past four for Tiger Hill at 2,590 metres, where the first light hits Kangchenjunga's 8,586-metre summit and, on the clearest mornings, Everest shows as a small dark tooth to the west. Stop at the Batasia Loop war memorial on the way down. Later, the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute founded in 1954 with Tenzing Norgay as field training director, and the zoological park next door, which breeds red panda and snow leopard.

A morning at Happy Valley, planted in 1854, walking the rows with a plucker before a tasting of first and second flush in the factory office. Then down to the Teesta and up again to Kalimpong, about 50 km and two and a half hours. Afternoon at Dr Graham's Homes, opened in 1900 on the Deolo slope, and among the orchid and cactus nurseries the town has supplied to India for a century.

Start on Durpin Hill at the Zang Dhok Palri Phodang, consecrated by the Dalai Lama in 1976 and keeping 108 volumes of the Kangyur that came out of Tibet in 1959. Then 75 km along the Teesta to Gangtok, three hours, with permit formalities at Rangpo. Evening on MG Marg, closed to cars and to smoking, for a plate of chhurpi and a slow tongba, millet beer drunk hot through a bamboo straw.

Permits are checked before the climb up the old Silk Route road, 38 km and two hours, to Tsomgo Lake at 3,753 metres, iced over from December to March and ringed by yaks in ribbons. Indian nationals continue to Nathu La at 4,310 metres to look into Tibet; everyone stops at the shrine to Baba Harbhajan Singh. Back by afternoon for Rumtek monastery and the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology.

A long, spectacular drive of about 118 km and six hours through Singtam, Mangan and Chungthang, where permits are stamped again and the Lachen and Lachung rivers join to become the Teesta. Waterfalls come straight onto the road at Naga and Bhim Nala. Lachung sits at 2,700 metres among apple orchards and wooden houses; the evening is short, cold and best spent by a bukhari stove with thukpa.

Out by seven for Yumthang, 24 km and an hour up, a flat grazing valley at 3,564 metres where the Shingba sanctuary holds two dozen rhododendron species that flower from late February into May. Cross the little bridge to the sulphur hot spring, then return to Lachung for lunch and take the long road back to Gangtok, arriving after dark. It is a big day; the scenery repays it.

About 115 km and four and a half hours west to Pelling, through Ravangla if the weather is kind. Walk the pine ridge to Rabdentse, Sikkim's capital from 1670 until 1814, now roofless walls with the whole Kangchenjunga range as a backdrop, then Pemayangtse monastery of 1705 for its seven-tier wooden model of Guru Rinpoche's heaven. Finish on the Sanga Choeling skywalk below the 137-foot Chenrezig.

An early run to Khecheopalri, the lake locals say no leaf is ever allowed to rest on, with prayer flags along the boardwalk and the water absolutely still at that hour. Back for breakfast, then the descent of about 135 km and five hours to Bagdogra, watching the temperature climb twenty degrees as the tea gardens flatten out into the Dooars.