Darjeeling or Lhasa?

Neither city is a place to swim. Darjeeling's valley rivers are cold and fast, so from there any time in the water means a separate leg of the trip. Yamdrok and Namtso near Lhasa are icy and sacred, lakes to look at rather than bathe in, which leaves a hotel pool as the only option.

Both cities serve a simple, cheap Himalayan kitchen of momos and thukpa, and neither is a place for fine dining. They differ in the drink and the setting. Darjeeling's draw is its own muscatel tea, tasted flush by flush in the tea rooms on the Mall or out on the estates, with colonial bakeries for long breakfasts and North Indian and Bengali cooking alongside.

Lhasa eats like the plateau: yak meat, tsampa, yak yoghurt and salty butter tea. Its sweet tea houses, where locals sit for hours over thermoses and noodles, are the meal to remember, and Sichuan kitchens widen the choice.

Lhasa is in a different league here. The Potala rises above the city, the Jokhang draws pilgrims who prostrate themselves around the Barkhor, and Drepung and Sera hold monks' debates in the afternoons. Together they make three or four days of living religion rather than relics.

Darjeeling's heritage is gentler and more mixed: the steam toy train looping to the old monastery at Ghoom, Observatory Hill, St Andrew's Church and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute with its Everest story. It is a pleasant two or three days, but it will not stop you in your tracks the way Lhasa does.

Neither is a place for a night out, but Lhasa has a little more going on after dark. Its nangma halls are part bar and part dance floor, with Tibetan pop and group dancing that run late, and there is karaoke too, although the altitude argues for going easy. In Darjeeling the evening ends with a drink by the fire in an old pub or hotel bar, and the streets are cold and empty by ten.

Darjeeling has the mountains you can actually use. Kangchenjunga fills the sky above the town, Tiger Hill shows the snow peaks as far as Everest, and walks through tea terraces and rhododendron forest start at the edge of town. The Singalila Ridge trek to Sandakphu, with red pandas along the way, is a classic outside the monsoon.

Lhasa's landscape is starker and grand in its own way: bare brown ranges, the turquoise Yamdrok Lake beyond the Kamba La pass, and the vast Namtso. Days of acclimatisation and the need for a guide on any serious trek make it much harder to get out into.

Lhasa's excursions are the more remarkable, though they are all of one kind. Ganden spreads across its mountain bowl, Drak Yerpa is a cliff of meditation caves, Tsurphu sits up its quiet valley and Samye was Tibet's first monastery. All are major pilgrimage sites, each reached by hired car with a guide.

From Darjeeling the outings are quieter versions of the town itself. There are Kurseong's old schools and tea estates, Mirik's lake among the pines, Kalimpong's monasteries and Sunday market at the end of a long winding drive, and homestays at Lamahatta and Takdah.

With children, Darjeeling is the realistic choice. The toy train, the zoo with its red pandas and snow leopards, the ropeway and the pony rides on Chowrasta give them plenty to do. The steep steps and the cold pre-dawn start for Tiger Hill mean it works best once children are past the buggy stage.

Lhasa is much harder going. At about 3,650m altitude sickness is a real risk for children who cannot always say how they feel, and the sights mean steep stairs and smoky chapels where quiet is expected. Only robust teenagers with a real interest in Tibet are likely to get much from it.

Once you have acclimatised, Lhasa is the easier city to get around. The Potala, the Jokhang and the Barkhor are within walking distance of one another, and taxis, buses and pedicabs reach Drepung, Sera and the Norbulingka. The catch is the breathless first few days.

Darjeeling's car-free ridge at Chowrasta and the Mall is lovely to stroll, but beyond it lie steep lanes, long staircases and shared jeeps crawling along the Hill Cart Road. Simply reaching the town takes three hours or more by road from the plains.

Both sell much the same Himalayan goods, such as prayer wheels, jewellery, woollen shawls and thangkas, with plenty of repetition between the stalls. Neither has fashion streets. In Darjeeling the speciality is tea, tasted and bought loose by estate and flush on the Mall and Nehru Road, along with carpets made at the Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre.

Lhasa's Barkhor stalls lean towards pilgrim goods: incense, butter lamps, Tibetan knives, and turquoise and coral jewellery. Hand-made thangkas and carpets sit among a lot of mass-produced stock, so it pays to look closely.

Darjeeling is clearly the cheaper trip. Guesthouses, momos, tea, shared jeeps and entry fees cost very little, and only heritage hotels, tea-estate bungalows and private taxis to Tiger Hill raise the bill.

Daily life in Lhasa is also inexpensive, but the trip itself is not. Foreign visitors generally travel with a licensed guide, every outing needs a hired car and the main sights charge substantial fees, so a stay ends up mid-range rather than cheap.

Lhasa has the one performance worth timing a trip around. Ache Lhamo, masked Tibetan opera, is staged at the Norbulingka during the Shoton festival in late summer, and the nangma halls offer song and dance for the rest of the year. Darjeeling's nearest equivalent is the masked cham dances at monastery festivals such as Losar, and neither city has a theatre or concert hall.

Darjeeling is the easier place to unwind. A few days in a tea-estate bungalow above the town, with mountain mornings, walks and pots of tea in the cool air, are genuinely restful, as long as you stay away from the crowds and jeep horns of the Mall.

Lhasa's calm is more contemplative: walking the dawn kora with pilgrims, sitting in a monastery courtyard, Tibetan medicine, and a soak at Yangpachen's hot springs a couple of hours away. Headaches and poor sleep in the first days at altitude get in the way of real rest.