Wednesday morning and all was not well. Gareth and Craig were looking like absolute baggage, Cate was in a bad state and Na was in a flat spin heading out to sea. Our bravery with local foods for lunch stops appeared to have caught up with us. This was another split day as the plans for the final legs saw Nelly and Chav getting away at first light to attempt an assault on Darjeeling whilst we; Leo, Simba and Tiger, opted to push ahead. By mid-morning we were in real trouble. Smally had followed Na down the black hole and the Twins were far from recovered. Out of the four, Na was suffering the worst effects and we were making regular ‘emergency stops’ as her body worked overtime to vacuum pack itself from both ends. With her and Smally out of the running it was left to Paddy and Dickie to suffer a full day at the helm – exhausting stuff. Eventually we could slog on no further and certainly didn’t want to face a night drive in our collective shambolic state so we stopped in a small town called Falakata. As we unpacked the bags Na could take no more and collapsed on the front steps of the hotel with a temperature running up high enough to give the mosh pit at a metallica concert a run for its money. She was carried to the room and sprawled out under the icy blast of the air con unit to begin some sort of recovery in yet another little ‘Hotel Paradiso’. Once settled in with mozzie killers and air con working overtime it wasn’t so bad. The girls crashed out and the boys, with a little help from the hotel porter, headed in to town to grab some supplies for the next day… and a beer of the Bhutan variety, which weighed in at an impressive 8%. We received word that the split team of Dickinpants and Bad Cately had made Darjeeling safely and we retired.