Darjeeling or Delhi?

Neither city has anywhere to swim, which is no surprise for a hill town 2,000m up and a capital on the northern plains. What differs is how much you miss the water. In Darjeeling's cool air hardly anyone goes looking for it. In Delhi's heat before the monsoon, a hotel pool is worth choosing a room for, and travellers who want the sea usually add Goa or Kerala to the trip.

Delhi is one of India's great food cities, and the gap here is wide. The lanes around Chandni Chowk sell stuffed parathas, nihari, kebabs and jalebi, and chaat carts are everywhere. South Delhi adds regional kitchens from Kerala to Kashmir as well as refined modern Indian tasting menus.

Darjeeling's choice is narrower but has its own pleasures. You can taste first and second flush tea where it is grown, eat thukpa and momos in small family kitchens near Chowk Bazaar and linger over breakfast in a colonial-era tea room. Anyone after variety or fine dining will run out of options within a few days.

Delhi was built as a series of capitals, and it has monuments enough for a week: the Red Fort, Humayun's garden tomb, the Qutb Minar, Jama Masjid, the Lodi tombs and the imperial avenue that leads to Rashtrapati Bhavan. The national art collections add more. The catch is distance, since the sights are spread across a huge city.

Darjeeling's heritage is smaller and closer together, a mix of the Raj and Buddhist monasteries. It has the UNESCO-listed toy train, the old Yiga Choeling monastery at Ghoom, St Andrew's Church and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute with its history of Everest expeditions. Two or three days are enough to see it all.

Delhi does offer a night out, though it means taking a taxi between areas. There are rooftop bars in Hauz Khas Village, pubs under the colonnades of Connaught Place and bigger clubs out in Gurugram, all at their busiest at weekends.

Darjeeling has almost none of this. The evening is a drink by the fire in an old hotel bar, the streets are quiet by about ten, and most visitors go to bed early for the Tiger Hill sunrise.

This is where Darjeeling is strongest. Kangchenjunga fills the northern sky on clear mornings, and the tea terraces and the oak and rhododendron forest begin at the edge of town. Serious walkers come for the Singalila Ridge, which climbs through red panda country to Sandakphu. The monsoon is the drawback, bringing leeches and cloud.

In Delhi, the outdoors means gardens and birds. There are early walks in Lodhi Gardens and Sunder Nursery, the scrubby Ridge forest and winter waterbirds at Okhla and Sultanpur. Even these are limited by the heat, the monsoon and the smog.

Delhi has the stronger list of day trips, led by Agra. The express train takes under two hours, and the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort make an unforgettable day. Fatehpur Sikri, the Krishna pilgrimage towns of Mathura and Vrindavan and the hilltop fort at Neemrana add very different outings.

Darjeeling's day trips are to nearby hill towns that feel much like it: Kurseong with its old schools and tea estates, Mirik on its lake near the Nepal border, and the monasteries of Kalimpong across the Teesta valley. The roads wind and the going is slow, and Gangtok needs at least one night.

Darjeeling has the edge with children, thanks to its cool climate and a few strong attractions: the toy train, pony rides on Chowrasta and the zoo's red pandas and snow leopards. The steps, steep lanes and twisting drive up from the plains mean it suits older children better than buggies.

Delhi has more places built for children, from the steam locomotives at the National Rail Museum to the water parks in Noida and Gurugram. Summer heat, winter smog, chaotic traffic and stomach bugs make it harder going with little ones, and late winter is the easiest time to bring them.

Delhi has the metro, and it makes a big difference. It is clean and air-conditioned, has signs in English and an express line to the airport, and stops near most of the major monuments. Autos and app taxis cover the gaps, and cycle-rickshaws handle Old Delhi's lanes, though the city's size and its jammed roads still make for long days.

Darjeeling is small but steep. The car-free ridge of Chowrasta and the Mall is a pleasure to walk. Everywhere else means steps, or shared jeeps and taxis on the congested Hill Cart Road. Even getting there is a drive of three hours or more from Siliguri or Bagdogra.

Delhi gathers crafts from all over India. You can shop at Dilli Haat and the fixed-price state emporiums, wander Old Delhi's specialist bazaars such as the Khari Baoli spice market, and browse Indian designers in Khan Market and Shahpur Jat.

Darjeeling does one thing very well: tasting estate teas and buying them loose by weight along the Mall and Nehru Road. Beyond that there are carpets and thangkas from the Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre and many stalls selling much the same shawls and singing bowls.

Both cities are cheap, and a careful traveller spends very little in either. In Darjeeling the savings come from guesthouses, momos, tea and shared jeeps. The main costs are the heritage hotels, the tea-estate bungalows and private taxis, and rooms with a view cost more in the peak seasons.

In Delhi the low costs come from street food, the metro and the many mid-range hotels. The expensive side is the grand hotels, the stylish South Delhi restaurants and imported alcohol, and foreigners pay a higher entry fee at the big monuments.

Delhi has a real stage life. Through the cooler months there are Hindustani recitals and classical dance at the Mandi House auditoriums and the cultural centres on Lodhi Road, and the National School of Drama makes it India's theatre capital, though most plays are in Hindi. Many visitors remember the free qawwali at the Nizamuddin shrine most of all.

Darjeeling has no theatre or concert hall. The performances worth catching are the masked cham dances at monastery festivals such as Losar and occasional evenings of Nepali and Lepcha music, so seeing them depends on timing.

Darjeeling is the calmer of the two, though the rest comes from the setting rather than from treatments: a tea-estate bungalow, mountain mornings, long walks and the quiet of the monastery at Ghoom. Staying on the edge of town keeps you away from the jeeps and crowds of the Mall.

Delhi has more spas, with Ayurvedic treatments in the big hotels and yoga centres across South Delhi, but the noise, traffic and smog work against any sense of calm. Its quietest moments are early mornings in Sunder Nursery and the hush inside a gurudwara.