The Northeast Hills – A Photo Blog

May 3, 2008 (Day 1)

Spice jet flight from Bangalore to Kolkata. Air Deccan flight from Kolkata to Bagdogra.

After a few minutes of haggling with the taxi drivers at Bagdogra airport, we overheard a lady talking about going to Darjeeling. On further inquiry, it turned out she had a chauffer driven rented car and was on her way to Darjeeling to meet her son in St. Paul’s boarding school. She very gracefully offered us a ride with her. We of course offered to pay our share for the ride.

 

The ride took us through scenic landscapes, through several military areas, and through the town of Kurseong. The driver explained that there had been some recent trouble in this area involving the Gorkhaland issue.

 

The lady told her story during the ride. Her husband was a top manager of a factory in an industrial town near Ranchi. Since there was no good school in their town, they had decided to admit their son at St. Paul’s school in Darjeeling. St. Paul’s is one of the top ranked schools in the country. She was clearly ruing the decision and missing her son, but consoled herself saying that in a couple of years, her husband would be at the executive level in New Delhi and their son would be staying with them then. She had been visiting Darjeeling very frequently and had setup a near-permanent arrangement with a hotel in Darjeeling as well as with the rental car and chauffer.

 

As the car crossed Kurseong and entered higher altitudes (and roads with steep cliffs), the lady got more and more anxious and pushed the driver to hurry up. Apparently the boarding school allowed visitors only till about 5 pm on saturdays, and she wanted to meet her son before visiting hours ended that day.

 

We finally reached the entrance to the school at the bottom of a hill. The lady climbed out, motioned us good bye and started running up the hill. The driver took us to our hotel. We checked in and settled down to room service dinner and a good night’s sleep.

 

View from Darjeeling Hotel

 

May 4, 2008 (Day 2)

 

Woke up early morning, had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Hired a driver-cum-guide at the hotel reception. In a few minutes we were off sightseeing.

 

First stop was at the Nipponzan Myojoji Buddhist Temple. There is a small temple building with a prayer hall and then a bigger area with a pagoda with four large statues of the Buddha in various poses. We saw a large Tamil family at this site, chatting loudly about Buddha and his life.

 

 

 

Japanese Peace Pagoda

 

 

Buddha Statue

Buddha in Nirvana pose

 

Next stop was at the Himalayan Zoological Park. This had some nice exhibits with some rare animals only found in the Himalayan habitat, like the red panda, Tibetan wolf, etc. The Siberian Tiger, the mountain yak and some entertaining monkeys livened up our visit. We noticed that our Tamil friends had followed us here too. They obliged the local business folks by dressing up in the traditional Gorkha dresses, making for amusing viewing.

Himalayan Zoo

 

 

Mountain Yaks

 

 

Tamilians in Darjeeling attire

My daughter in Tea Estate Worker attire

The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute was the next stop. There is an amazing museum here, with exhibits showing details of several mountaineering expeditions. Tenzing used to be the director of this museum. It was inspiring to watch the many exhibits and also understand the difficulties involved in mountaineering. Climbing at 28,000 feet is a totally different experience from climbing our local hill.

Close to the institute is a memorial for Tenzing. The calm and tranquility around this place is very soothing.

Tenzing Memorial (dedicated by Hillary)

Tenzing Memorial 2

 

 

We stopped at a rock climbing center next. Tea vendors with their many colored boxes of Darjeeling tea provided a lively sight here.

 

Rock Climbing School

Darjeeling Tea Vendors

 

Darjeeling Tea Vendor

Next stop was a Tea Garden. This was probably a touristy stop. Besides the panoramic view of the gardens, we had a chance to sample some fresh made tea.

Darjeeling Tea Garden

They were also selling Darjeeling tea in the road-side stalls. Apparently tea here costs less than 40% of the cost in the Darjeeling town shops. We bought a few packets of tea. The vendors identified the tamil tourists (yes, they were here too, following us all over the place ) by their language and marketed the strong variety of tea to them. Apparently the true Darjeeling tea is the lighter variety, mostly drunk with hot water with no milk.

Tea Factory

The guided sightseeing trip was done, claimed our driver and he drove us back to the hotel. The scenic route back was breathtaking. The Darjeeling countryside still maintains a lot of the British charm. The quaint buildings and homes with lots of flower plants evoked thoughts of the good old days.

Darjeeling Countryside

Darjeeling House

We rested for a bit at the hotel and come evening, ventured out walking. Our hotel (Seven Seventeen) was situated very close to the city center and its main shopping thoroughfare, Chowrasta road. The colorful sights of the shopkeepers and shoppers haggling and bargaining over everything from tea to umbrellas, shoes to shawls, antique items to binoculars was interesting.

 

 

 

Darjeeling Shopping Sights

The long and climbing Chowrasta road led to the city “mall”. This is the commercial center of the town and has lots of antique, shawl and sweater shops. There is a fountain, horse rides, and other tourist activities. There is also a nice dancing fountain. It was dark by the time we reached there, but we spent an easy 20 minutes just sitting, relaxing and listening to the songs. There was this one guy dancing right in front of the dancing fountain, amusing and entertaining the fifty odd visitors. He slipped and fell a couple of times, but continued on merrily. We had a nice time there before returning to the hotel with a long walk.

 

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