No fast-track journey

In recent response to a concerted campaign of grammatical pedantry, Tesco is changing signs at fast-track checkouts from ‘10 items or less’ to ‘up to 10 items’. So, one fewer affront to English grammar, but has life for those lost in UK Plc’s supermarket of life become any less of a conveyer belt? Dragoman Overland offers a 28-night opportunity to jump the queue and check out India’s Darjeeling & Eastern Horizons travelling through the tribal lands of Orissa, Darjeeling and Sikkim.

Meet aboriginal Bonga mountain tribesmen, cross the temple scattered Gangetic plains and discover a higher meaning in Buddhist Nepal – the Chennai to Kathmandu overland next departs Chennai 22nd October 2008. (Trip code XCK48).

From Chennai (formally Madras), journey overland through the agricultural heartland of Andhra Pradesh. Here, visit the Temple of Lord Venkateshwara at Tirupati, where travellers are often asked to renounce whatever faith they may have, swear allegiance to Vekatshwara and enter the temple's inner sanctum...

It is said that this God has the power to grant the wish of any follower who come to the temple. In Orissa, meet aboriginal Bonga mountain tribesmen before relaxing in the town of Puri, one of the four holiest cities in India. Visit the coastal town of Konark and the magnificent Temple of the Sun God - built in the shape of a chariot it took the 1,200 sculptors 16 years to complete.

Next, Usthi Foundation Children’s Project in Kolkata, directly supported by Dragoman, the Swiss charity benefits children and employs local people. Explore India’s largest and most enigmatic city, Kolkata, which beyond the poverty, remains a great trading centre with much evidence of its colonial past.

On to West Bengal via the crowded Gangetic plains for life beyond the tourist trail. Take a two-foot gauge ‘toy train’ rising switchback style from the crowded plains of Siliguri to the cool heights and tea plantations of Darjeeling at 2,134m. Situated on a high ridge surrounded by terraces of rice, tea and fruit trees, Darjeeling is a collection of villages linked by steep steps and lanes offering spectacular views across to Mount Kanchenjunga - even to Mount Everest on a clear day. Travel north, into the Himalayas and beautiful Sikkim.

Here, discover another India, one that borrows tranquillity from the Buddhist influences of Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal. Cross in to the ‘terai’ lowland foothills of Nepal before concluding in medieval Kathmandu.

The tour costs £695 plus kitty of $360 (~£203) including transport aboard Dragoman’s customised Mercedes-Benz truck and toy train, hotel and camping accommodation (60%/40%), all camp food and the expertise of Dragoman’s two person crew plus local guides. Flights are not included but are available through Dragoman Overland.

For more information, log on to Dragoman.com.