Take a flight of about an hour plus from Kolkatta’s
(earlier Calcutta) modernized Dum Dum Airport to Siliguri.
Take a road journey from there via New Jalpaiguri up
the winding hill road past the Teesta river and you reach
Darjeeling in a few hours.
On the way you can watch the small train chugging along,
side by side and sometimes crossing the road as it takes
the famous loops and turns, which have been the scenes of
some Hindi film songs e.g.
’’Bolo , Hello Darling’’.
’’Darjeeling nahin, kissi aur shahar kaa naam lo babu,
Dekha hai maine Darjeeling’’,
’’Bolo Hello Darling’’.
The hill road and the small toy train has been the locale
for other scenes in a number of Hindi(Bollywood) movies.
One can also travel by broad gauge train from Sealdah station(Kolkatta) to New Jalpaiguri and then take the narrow gauge toy train up to Darjeeling.
One can also drive all the way from wherever one is.
Before, Darjeeling is a place called Ghoom, where there is
a Buddhist monastery and temple. When we visited it the clouds came zooming in and then someone told us that the clouds are called Ghoom and since the place where the monastery and temple is situated is frequently enveloped in clouds, it is called Ghoom.
The slopes near Darjeeling are covered with the tea bushes,
from which come the world famous Darjeeling tea leaves.
The city has a mix of Bengalis, Assamese, Gorkhas
and others.
The tourists get a variety of Hotels to stay in with variety of budgets.
The city is not so clean and characteristic smells do
overpower one. The cause is the large population and tourists.
The city has a fountain worth visiting, the tea gardens,
the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute-associated with Tenzing Norgay,
the sherpa who was the first to climb Mount Everest
along with Hillary.
There is a museum and the small market caters to visitors needs.
There is a ropeway on which the cable cars will take you
on a breathtaking view of the hill side and the valleys over
the tea garden slopes.
There are some straight tall trees with peculiar clumps of
leaves.
There are some good old buildings from the British Raj.
The most exhilarating visit is to the Tiger Hill top in
a jonga( four wheeled drive).
The climb is so steep that one wonders how the jonga sticks
to the steep slope like a spider.
Tiger Hill is famous for the sunrise, if the clouds
allow one the rare chance to view the sun rising above
the mountains and cast its first silvery or golden rays
on the gorgeous white snow covered range, which sometimes
turns a lovely pink.
The view of the hills and snow covered mountains is the
most awe inspiring as one lovingly looks at the snow
covered Kanchenjungha peak with the broad mountain moving
out in to the distance and appears just across the valley.
Near to Darjeeling one can visit Kalimpong and Gangtok
( in Sikkim). If you have interest in seeing large variety
of beautiful orchid flowers then visit Kalimpong and Sikkim.
Another excursion near Darjeeling is the Mirik lake.
The tour operators will take you into Nepal to the border
town of Pashupatinath, where one sees a number of shops
selling imported goods.Tourists buy many. I only wonder
that the Customs on the other side might check and confiscate
some goods, unless of course the rules are liberalised, which
one may check in advance from the Customs and Central Excise, Assistant/Deputy commissioners office in Darjeeling.
On the whole a good experience of the land of tea, sweet
pineapples and buddhist monasteries, with the ’’ghoom’’ and
awe inspiring lovely Kanchenjungha. The small toy train.
The wild flowers and orchids.The gorkha people and out of
this world bengali sweets.
Good for couples, families, groups and the single person
inclined to imbibe nature and mountain sights. He may dream, romanticise or philosophise just like the ’’Professor’’ of
the Hindi Bollywood movie of yore based on those
immortal Bengali writers stories. Some movies with
Darjeeling as the locale had music based on the sweet
haunting bengali music.
Best time to visit is summer-- May and June. We visited
in April.It was very cold at night.Blankets were required
and woollens too.
Sweet memories of ’’Dar-jee-ling’’.