Tea Darjeeling

Rumtek is the seat of the Karma Kagyu lineage outside Tibet. Built in the 1960s by the 16th Karmapa. The main prayer hall has a copper-and-gold stupa in the inner sanctum. Photography is forbidden inside. The monks chant at six and again at five; the older lamas will explain the lineage if you sit down with them after.

Tshangu sits at 12,000 feet and the road up from Gangtok is a permit zone. You carry your ID. In January the lake is partly frozen and the yaks at the edge let you sit on them for a photograph. The chai stalls run to about three in the afternoon. The army post above has a small Shiva temple that the soldiers maintain.

Kalimpong was a Bhutia trading town in the 19th century. The wool and silk from Tibet came down through here. Durpin and Tharpa Choling monasteries sit on opposite hills above the bazaar. The teak market at the bottom is full of medicinal plants and the tibetan-school furniture makers. The town is quieter than Gangtok.

Tiger Hill is a four o'clock wake-up. The jeep collects you, the road is dark, and the platform fills with about three hundred others doing the same thing. The first light hits Kanchenjunga before anything else; the mountain turns pink and then gold for about three minutes. After that everyone walks back to the jeep for chai.