04 May 2018 – Day 1

Descending aircraft always becomes the invisible hand of an artist, to the observant eye. The grey and white canvas of the sky magically transforms into green patches giving tantalizing glimpses of the world below. With every 1000 feet descent the landscape metamorphoses in to fields, houses, mountains & rivers and is a pleasure to watch. A first time visitor always goes through a myriad of emotions of exhilaration, excitement and a bit of anxiety arriving in to a new land. I went through similar feelings as the Spicejet taxied in at the Bagdogra airport.

While deciding a place to beat the May heat, we selected Sikkim through a process of elimination. North East was always a blank page on my travel log book and it was time to imprint my memory logs here. It is always fascinating to retrospect how our mind works. A simple thought to have a good time leads to immense planning, budget considerations, evaluating hotels, reading reviews of unknown people and places and arriving at a decision of what to keep in the agenda and what to leave out. Funnily, our overworked logical mind gives in to our sensibilities when we arrive at our destination…

There are no direct flights from Pune to Bagdogra. Both of these are small airports and are under Indian Airforce. We had to fly to Bangalore to take a connecting flight to Bagdogra. We reached Bagdogra around 3.30 PM and got busy connecting our handset to the nearest tower so that we become accessible to the outside world. The driver who was to ferry us was impatiently waiting for us. After finally locating our driver, we started towards Darjeeling. Our itinerary was 2 days at Darjeeling, spend a day at Gangtok, move to Lachung and then come back to Gangtok and then do sightseeing in and around Gangtok.

As we drove out of the airport I was surprised to see tea gardens right outside the airport on either side of the road. However, within a kilometre from the airport we were greeted by the noise and smell of a typical Indian town. Narrow roads, incessant honking, unbidden smoke kept us company till we reached the lower plains of Darjeeling.

The ride to the hill station was scenic and it took us nearly 4.5 hours to reach our hotel. Darjeeling town itself was an anti-climax.

The tranquility of the hills wound its way in to tumult and disorder. The main thoroughfare was not more than 10 to 15 feet wide. This road willingly accommodated the tracks of the Darjeeling toy train. I had no way of knowing whether houses got built around the tracks or the tracks were laid out on people’s doorsteps. Continue adding more chaos and clutter to your mental picture… winding roads, trucks occupying one side of the road and unloading goods to the roadside shops that have already jutted outs its wares… tourist vehicles gingerly inching through the road allowing or avoiding(?) oncoming traffic and whatever is left of the road is expertly used by the hawkers and the pedestrians.

It is sheer magic no one gets hurt or run over in this melee. Our driver was an ex-army, Nepali guy. His calm demeanor is what kept us confident that we will reach our hotel without any incident. It was already past 7 PM and it had gotten dark. At a particular bend, a police constable stopped him and said that he cannot go any further as it was a one way road. The driver pointed to a road going downhill and said our hotel should be somewhere there, unloaded our bags and went on his way! Based on internet pictures, I was expecting a grand hotel facade. I could not see anything that closely resembled these pictures. Using my handset as a calling device and a torch to “light my path”, I pushed my way through some dark alleys and flights of steps and managed to locate the hotel. There was no way I could lug two bags to this place from the point where the driver dropped us. I requested two of the hotel boys to do the honors of bringing in the luggage. I later realized that because of paucity of space and the hilly region, hotels here are built practically rather than artistically. All rooms have curtains and they are definitely not put there to hide beautiful scenery from you! Most of the hotels open their windows to the backyard (if we can call that) of another hotel and there is generally nothing inspiring to see other than filth

I do not want to dampen the happy mood of the visitors with the above description. Darjeeling might be called the queen of hills but has its own civic challenges.

We stayed at CHAS Sanderling hotel which is located on the H.D. Lama road. The rooms were nice and the staff cooperative. One of the room boys, Munna, is an enterprising guy who makes sure that guests become comfortable. He is an ardent cricket fan. Having reached the hotel late, we just ventured out for dinner. Most of the establishments closes by 9 PM. A drunkard kept us company on our way back to the hotel. 

Our unknown and behind the scene partner for this trip was a website called Travel Triangle (www.traveltriangle.com). Not knowing anybody in Gangtok or Darjeeling, I took the support of internet to help me with some organization whom I can trust and handover my itinerary. While I came across many travel sites, I was impressed with Travel Triangle’s approach. They don’t conduct the tour themselves but provide a platform where registered travel agents can bid for your business. We have to download their app and select the destination and “number of days” trip etc. They call us and explain the process and soon you see bids from different agents in the App. You can talk to each and negotiate and go for the best based on their ratings. Neat and clean. I decided to go with a travel company called “Holiday Guide” run by Mr. Ranajoy Mondal, based out of Calcutta. I opted for a Continental Plan, including transport for 7 Night – 8 Days. My pickup and drop would be Bagdogra airport.

05 May 2018