Sunrise on the Himalayas

The warm shower which is the second I've had in the last two months (the hot water tank at my placement never worked), along with a very comfortable mattress at the hotel allowed me to have one of the most comfortable sleeps I've ever had in India. A piercing ring of the alarm interrupted my sweet dreams at three in the morning and tempting thoughts of sleeping in crossed my mind. But how can I? In a few hours, I would experience one of the most incredible things I have ever witnessed in my life: the sunrise over the Himalayas. I reluctantly got out of bed, and with a few other volunteers walked through the silent streets of Darjeeling to the jeep that would take us to the famous Tiger Hill.

45minutes and 40 rupees later, we were in the Super Deluxe Lounge which is the top and third floor of a building full of lounge chairs facing large windows revealing nothing but darkness. We got our seats in the second row but soon realised that it's no good sitting. The room was filling up fast and a tourist already set up his camera and tripod in the middle window blocking the view of many. A local man got pretty angry and started a fight, a little bit of entertainment before the main course. Because of those blocking the view, a few of my friends and I decided to jump out the window and sit on the window ledge instead. At first I was pretty scared (I'm terrified of falling) but when I looked out into the hills, valleys and the Himalayas slowly emerging from the darkness, I forgot about how high up I was. I watched the sun rise out of complete darkness. It was pitch black, then lines of dull orange emerged turning into pinks and yellows and suddenly out of nowhere, a bright orange line of the sun emerges from the horizon. Everybody gasped and pointed. It was absolutely spectacular! The sun rose quite quickly from a bright blood orange line to an orange crescent to a pink semi-circle and then a blinding orange circle. It was insane.

And the mountains! The largest mountain in view is Mount Kanchanjunga, the third largest mountain in the world, which is 200m smaller than Mount Everest. I witnessed the peak of Mt Kanchanjunga light up pink as the sun rays hit the Himalayas. Slowly, one by one, the peaks of the Himalayas glowed like candles. The whole scene looked fake. Especially since the bottom of the mountains aren't visible because of the clouds; it seemed like the mountains were floating in the air. From that position, I was able to look into Sikkim (the northern state of India), Tibet, Nepal and China and see the first and third largest mountains in the world (from my point of view, Everest was pretty unimpressive compared to Kanchanjunga).

By six o'clock, the sun was pretty high in the sky and it was a beautiful bright morning. My toes and my bum was frozen but it was definitely worth it! I can't explain how amazing, majestic and absolutely incredible it was. Even now as I look back on it, it's completely surreal. I don't think any piece of writing can ever bring justice to the view of the Himalayas so all I can really say is, fly here now and experience it for yourself. You will not regret it!

The first glimpse of the sun.

The sunrays hitting the peak of Mount Kanchanjunga

Panorama of the view

On the window sill

Himalayas in the backdrop of the war memorial

Close up of the mountains