We fly from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to Kolkata in West Bengal and spend the night there en route to Darjeeling.
It’s another early start this morning as our train leaves Howrah Junction in Kolkata at 5.55 a.m.
Janette especially, loves to see a city in the early morning before things have really got going and we set off at 5.15 in streets that although not deserted are very quiet.
As we drive through the city we see that people in other areas have already made a full start to their day. There is a flower market in full swing and as we approach Howrah, all hell starts to break loose, it’s pandemonium with people and cars everywhere!
Our driver tells us he’s got as close as he can, which is pretty close, and we walk the short distance into the station.
Both of us love experiences like this, there are people all over the place, some heading purposefully for trains…
porters straining under impossibly heavy loads…
others just waking up under brightly coloured blankets after a night on the floor.
We locate our train and discover we are in the furthest carriage of a VERY long train.
It will take 7.5 hours to get to New Jalpaiguri station and it’s then a 3 hour car journey from there. We’ll cover about 600 km and climb 2,036 metres to an altitude of 2,045 metres.
We’re glad we’ve caught the morning train as it means the whole journey will be in daylight and part of the joy of train travel is that you go through small villages and countryside that you just wouldn’t see from the main road or the air.
It’s of course difficult to take photos from a train travelling at 120 kph through the window, but Nick does a sterling job.
The scenery is lovely, very tropical - green and lush. Coconut and banana palms grow in profusion.
There is an abundance of water in lakes, pools, rivers and manmade watercourses. The lakes and pools are crammed with water lilies and there are many wetland birds to be seen.
The early morning mist is rising as we get underway but sinking down to meet it is the ever present smog of pollution.
The region suffers very badly from the effects of pollution and while we’ve been in Kolkata the pollution there has been at ‘very unhealthy’ levels - even worse than Delhi.
As we travel along it becomes apparent that agriculture is the mainstay of local communities. Most of the land is given over to farming and it’s fascinating to watch. Some of the harvest has been brought in but much is still being done. We see haystacks being built, fields of stubble, land being ploughed using oxen and furrows being dug ready for sowing.
The Punjab may be known as the bread basket of India but West Bengal provides Indians with their rice and along with Uttar Pradesh and Andra Pradesh is known as the rice bowl of India.
We hadn’t expected the landscape to be so utterly flat, there is no change in gradient at all as far as the eye can see and after 4 hours we have only climbed about 8 metres - what’s going on, we’re heading towards the Himalayas!
The drive to Darjeeling is very steep and full of switchbacks. It’s however utterly unlike the drive up to Shimla in that there are no lorries holding us up and traffic in general is much lighter.
The roads are good except for one horrifying moment when we drive round a few bollards in the road only to see that they are directing us around a section where the entire carriageway has disappeared into the abyss below!
As we get about two hours into the drive, we see the track for the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the narrow gauge line on which runs the famous Toy Train.
The line runs right next to the road, and we mean right next to it, it’s hard to see how cars, scooters, pedestrians and trains can all fit. The track criss crosses the road and of course the train has priority.
Our hotel here is just what we need, modern with nice rooms and fabulous views. It’s a place where we can relax and boy do we need to relax,our journey has been wonderful but very intense and we both need a rest.
From our balcony, we’re lucky enough to get a glimpse of the Himalayan mountains proper.
We can see Kanchenjunga mountain and at 8,586 meters, it’s the third highest mountain in the world!
Janette has never seen the Himalayas and this for her is an ambition fulfilled.
We missed out on getting the Toy Train in Shimla and so we’re determined to experience it here. We set off for the station, just down the road first thing. In order to buy a ticket. You have to fill in a form giving your name, address, gender and age, why on earth?!
We could have caught the Toy Train yesterday all the way from Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling but it takes a very slow and rattly 7 hours, so we elect to take the Joy Ride, a 2 hour round trip.
We set off in a cloud of steam and plenty of tooting of the whistle which is deafening!
The train brushes past track-side plants and bushes and runs so close to shops and houses, just inches away, you could easily reach out and touch them. It’s the same with parked cars, it feels as if we’ll hit them.
We stop for 15 minutes at the Batasia Loop - a remarkable engineering marvel of Darjeeling Himalayan Railways where almost imperceptibly the railway line negotiates a circle and descends 1000 ft. in altitude.
At the centre of Batasia Loop a War Memorial stands. It commemorates all the brave Gurkha Soldiers, who have sacrificed their life to protect the sovereignty of the Nation since independence.
The station at Ghum is 2,257m India’s highest station. We stop here for half an hour or so, enough time to look round the railway museum which has some fascinating photos of the building of the railway and its early days of operation.
Being here in Darjeeling isn’t like being in India at all, it’s like a foreign country. The population is overwhelmingly Nepalese and Nepali is the commonly spoken language.
Due to the altitude, the weather is much colder here; partly as a consequence people dress very differently, they are wrapped up warm but also such traditional clothes as they do wear (and there aren’t many) are Nepalese in style and nowhere near as brightly coloured as we’ve been used to.
Many of the buildings are of a different style, shallow pitched roofs made of corrugated iron.
There’s far less rubbish on the streets and the traffic, whilst still very busy is less chaotic, perhaps because there are no tuk tuks - although there weren’t any in Shimla either, where it was pandemonium!
After the train ride we make the steep climb to the town centre and head for Glenary’s a cafe that we’ve heard is good.
It isn’t what we are expecting at all, it is decorated for Christmas and there are seasonal tunes playing.
You can choose from a fine array of cakes and if you fancy something savoury they even do an all day English breakfast!
We sit out on the terrace snug under a patio heater and look out across the town, it’s a lovely relaxing thing to do but such a shame we can’t see the mountains now.
Glenary’s is on the way to Chowrasta, the central square which is similar to Shimla in that it is pedestrianised and is very much the centre of things with pony rides and an open air theatre.
Overlooking the Chowrastra, or at least it was until a massive TV screen was erected right in front of it, is the Windamere Hotel. A real old colonial gem.
We decide to go for a snoop and end up having a glass of wine on the terrace.
We are shown around the inside of the hotel. It looks just as it must have done in the days of the British, the lounge even has flowery sofas!
We head back towards our hotel, which is thankfully downhill all the way, as by now we’re exhausted.
We’re lured into an Aladdin’s cave of an antique shop and get chatting. There’s lots of very nice stuff that takes our eye, but we’re tired and hungry and escape by saying we’ll have a think about it overnight.
Our hotel room is big and comfortable and we can access some English language TV so we opt for room service and a lazy evening and it’s just what we need.
Revitalised, we are keen to visit the other places on our list today.
Our first stop is the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. You have to access this through the zoo and whilst zoos aren’t really our thing, we decide to take a look.
The zoo runs two conservation programmes, one for the Red Panda and one for the Snow Leopard. Both have by all accounts been very successful resulting in animals being released into the wild and breeding there.
As zoos go, the animal enclosures seem a good size, clean and well thought out - much better than any we’ve ever seen before.
For example the black bears have a large area with trees, rocks and caves and it’s easy for them to take themselves away from the gaze of tourists if they wish.
The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI) was founded on November 4, 1954, by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India.
The Institute has an international reputation and has trained thousands of people from across the world in mountaineering and allied adventure activities.
The HMI was set up to commemorate the first successful ascent of Mount Everest by the late Tenzing Norgay who was the sherpa to Sir Edmund Hillary.
Tenzing’s ashes are buried at the Institute along with some moving quotes.
The museum is in two parts, one dedicated to mountaineering in general as well as Nepalese culture.
The other part is all about those who have succeeded in climbing Everest and those who have attempted it including some who have died trying. This second section in particular is fascinating, especially the exhibits of relatively primitive equipment those early climbers used.
Our driver then takes us to the tea garden of his choice which turns out to involve parking in a dusty old carpark full of Indian tourist vehicles, edged by numerous stalls selling one non-specific type of Darjeeling tea… the tourist drivers are no doubt paid a handsome commission on any sales!
We reluctantly walk on a path through some ragged old tea bushes and arrive back to meet our driver, prepared for the hard-sell routine which, sure enough begins!
We explain that we want to go to Happy Valley Plantation… a proper tea garden where we can view the production process, taste the various teas and then buy.
He claims that the road is broken, but we insist on being taken where we want to go and relations become a bit frosty after that!
We are taken to the tea garden of our choice and sure enough the road is in a dreadful state, crumbling, potholed and very, very steep. We are dropped off at the top and told to walk down (and back up again!)… we’re sure he must have been chuckling up his sleeve !
We have a tour of the tea factory but it’s the wrong time of year so there’s no tea being produced - is this karma for doubting our driver’s word?!
The different types of tea are however explained to us and we have the chance to taste them and make our selection.
We go for some Second Flush… stronger and more flavourful than the First Flush. It’s less sought after than First Flush but we know what we like.
We wend our way back to the hotel passing the friendly antique dealer again. We explain that we’ve talked ourselves out of buying anything, but somehow find ourselves back in his shop. It’s tiny and stuffed full of interesting items. There’s only just enough floor space for the three of us to stand.
After a poke about and some hard negotiation, we do buy several things…
…an old Gurkha knife, a Himalayan Tibet Ladakh ceremonial collar and a tiny silver pot… some lovely memories of our time in India.
We have another quiet night ready for the monster journey back to Kolkata tomorrow.
We journey back down the mountain road overtaking a couple of Toy Trains on the way and arrive back at the chaos that is typical of railway stations in India.
Enormous 60 carriage trains, cows and goats milling about on the track, people everywhere.
Kolkata will be our last stop in India, an iconic city we’re determined to make the most of it.
Comments