DARJEELING WOKE up to a pleasant surprise and found the tarred roads snaking its way along the picturesque hill station covered in white. Tourists scheduled to leave the hill station cancelled their return. New arrivals thanked their lucky stars and prepared to dig their heels in (in the snow) and enjoy their holiday. Honeymooners were the ones who were the most enthralled and felt that this honeymoon would be one that they would carry as memories right through their lives with more fervour than is usual. Despite the extreme cold tourists took to the streets. Children and their parents gamboled in the snow picking up fistfuls and hurling it at each other. In short they had a whale of a time.

 

Those visiting Ghoom, the highest point in Darjeeling through which the heritage toy train snakes along and Tiger Hill to witness the awesome sight of the sun rising, took in the breathtaking sight in gulps. The entire hill range was engulfed in white. The pine trees all over the hill station had turned white with barely some green showing. The brilliant sunshine on a Sunday morning only added to the cold the boundless energy of itinerant tourist. A foreign diplomat visiting Darjeeling told the local media that though he had traveled all over the world he had never seen such a breathtaking spectacle. A honeymooning couple felt that they were in Switzerland.