India -

reathe in. Breathe out. Each step up the faint track brings us closer to the stone cairns. The colourful prayer flags hang limp on their lines. Breathe in. Breathe out. The air is cold and crisp. Apart from the lack of oxygen, it is pleasantly invigorating. Breathe in. Breathe out. We are almost there. It's cold in the shadows, but the sun is bright enough to make you squint. I can feel its warmth through my jacket.

We reach the Goche-La pass at 4,900 metres. Beyond, just a few kilometres away, rises the snow and glacier-covered wall of Kangchendzonga, the world's third highest peak (8,596m), soaring in a smooth sweep to the summit far above, white against a blue morning sky.

We are alone in the sunshine. Not a breath of wind stirs. This is rare on Himalayan passes where howling gales and zero visibility are more common, especially this late in the year. But today the weather gods favour us. We pause to snack, drink and take photographs, as if it was a day at the beach.

The road to Goche-La is hardly straightforward, but it is well worth it for a very different experience of the Himalayas to the one you usually hear about in backpackers' bars. You start at steamy Bagdogra Airport in India's West Bengal state and then crawl up the twisting road from near sea level to the cool ridge tops of Darjeeling 2,000 metres above. Along the way the path crisscrosses the narrow-gauge 'Toy Train' that huffs and puffs its way up the same gradient.

Its name may suggest the sophistication of an English high tea, but Darjeeling is a vibrant, even chaotic community surrounded by scenes of unadulterated natural beauty. Mark Twain was quite carried away with it, calling it the "land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that away for the shows of the rest of the world combined." But despite Twain's attempt to sink the city under the weight of hyperbole, it remains a popular centre for trekking, mountaineering and rafting.

In late November the city was more than cool at night, making us think wistfully of the heat of Bagdogra. Fortunately, there was a welcome fire burning in the grate when we checked into The New Elgin Hotel. Perhaps there was something new about this establishment at one time, but not any more – unless the surrounding mountains are our yardstick of oldness. The New Elgin is one of the oldest inns in Darjeeling, replete with overstuffed armchairs, tiffany lamps and sepia prints of English pastoral scenes. Pre-Raphaelite beauties glance down from gilt frames. Everything speaks of the area's colonial past.

After a refreshing sleep we met Jamling Tenzing Norgay, who was to be our guide for the trek. Son of Tenzing Norgay, Edmund Hillary's climbing partner, Jamling is following in his father's footsteps in more ways than one by managing the tour company his father started in 1978, Tenzing Norgay Adventures. Though Jamling does not accompany every trek himself (that would be a bit much to ask) the company does have an excellent reputation, which we found to be well deserved.

Jamling invited us to his home to meet his family and view his private museum, which includes the many honours and awards showered on his father, and the four flags that Norgay tied to his ice axe for the famous summit photo taken on May 29. He left them there, where they were recovered by a later expedition. History remembers Hillary better than Norgay, which seems rather unfair, since it is unlikely the New Zealander would have made it without his trusty sherpa.

We were allowed a few days to acclimatise in Darjeeling. One morning we rose at 4.30 and drove through dark streets to Tiger Hill to witness a sunrise over the Himalayas. Unfortunately, clouds blocked the view but more than a thousand visitors, shivering in their silks and cottons, seemed not to mind and cheered when the red orb broke the horizon, even if this was hardly the sunrise "that all men desire to see."

Another excursion from Darjeeling took us to a tea plantation, where steep slopes draped in camellia sinensis dropped far down into the valley. This is the same plant that was domesticated in China millennia earlier. In India it grows wild in the states of Assam and West Bengal, and the British established plantations in the nineteenth century. After walking the slopes, we took a tour of the processing plant where the delicious aroma of old leaves, accumulated as fine dust, made the entire building an olfactory heaven. Later came the more refined delights of Nathmull's Tea Room (founded 1931) where packets of tea cost anything from a few rupees to hundreds.

Soon it was time to leave for Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim. Sikkim was a tiny Buddhist country ruled for centuries by kings, until in 1975 it was incorporated into India as its 22nd state. Strategically important for India, it borders China, Nepal and Bhutan, and lies on the shortest route between India and Tibet. With a population of just 400,000, it is a remote region of sprawling mountains, including Kangchendzonga on its western border.

Sikkim's tourism industry is where Nepal's was 40 years ago – unsophisticated – and this is no bad thing. The friendliness of the people and opportunities for fresh experiences more than compensate for the limited range of Mount Everest teatowels on offer.

Our trek to Goche-La began at the village of Yoksum at 1,800 metres. With yaks and horses loaded, we set out late in the season, on November 20. First the track climbs through warm jungle with waterfalls tumbling through dense green leaves, but by the second day we had ascended to the rhododendron forests above 3,000 metres. April is the best time to view these colourful trees, when the paths are strewn with brilliant flowers.

On our third evening we reached the alpine zone at 4,000 metres. Short dry grass and low juniper bushes offered little protection from the wind and snow, which enveloped camp the next day. We stayed in our tents keeping warm, emerging only at mealtimes. The sky cleared overnight and an early start the next morning found us atop a low peak where at 6.05am we watched the sun first touch the clear summit of Kangchendzonga, and later light up its many satellite peaks to the west and east.

Our sherpa trek crew, always quick to set up or take down camp, made especially good time that morning to leave while the weather was still fine. We crossed a broad shoulder from the Ratong Chu into the Praig Chu valley, at the head of which stands the perfect pyramid of Pandim (6,691m) which would dominate our horizon for the next week.

Snow fell most afternoons at the higher elevations, but the nights and mornings were generally clear. Our routine was to rise early, eat and then get on the trail as the light strengthened. Each day's trek was four to six hours, with a stop for lunch along the trail. Our meals were prepared by the young and energetic kitchen crew, who cleaned up breakfast after we had left then raced ahead as we hiked. At noon, rounding some corner, we would come across them, stoves roaring, food ready, and be greeted with a welcome mug of hot tea or warm lemon juice.

On the evening of November 25 we arrived at Samiti Lake (4,400m), where snowflakes drifted down from a dark sky. Supper in the mess tent was a chilly affair, with steam rising from plates and our breath clouding the view across the low camp table. The temperature inside dropped to -100C, but later the sky cleared – always a good sign.

The next morning saw us away at 5am, heading for the Goche-La some four hours away. It was a perfect dawn: the stars shone brilliantly and the glaciers on both sides of the valley glowed in the moonlight. Our boots crunched on the frozen ground. Breathe in. Breathe out. Put one foot in front of the other. Don't look up. Just focus on getting to the next bend in the path. Keep the rhythm steady. And at 9am we stood on the pass at the foot of a mountain giant. It was indeed a sight that all men might desire to see, if they only knew it – and in our case we felt we had earned the right.