Last trip of the season

My travel season started early this time round, with the Ooty-Mudumalai trip in October, and ended with a visit to the Dooars in North Bengal.

End-February is a time I treasure, because it is one of the few occasions when I get a long break from work, and the weather is still decent enough. So off I went to Siliguri on the 28th to see a cousin whom I had been promising to visit since 2014. A one-day halt, then I moved on to a resort in Lataguri, right on the edge of the Gorumara Wildlife Sanctuary, a barely two-hour drive. This was the very first time I was doing Dooars – ironical, since I have travelled to so many other forests around the country – and I discovered that a) Gorumara is seriously underrated, if you love forests with or without sightings of ‘exciting’ animals, b) many of the other now well-known hotspots, such as Chalsa, Murti, Tilapara and Batabari are actually only a few miles down the same highway, c) if you want to make a jungle safari, Lataguri is your best choice, because everybody has to come here to enter the jungle anyway. At this magical time of the year (schools everywhere keeping kids and parents busy with exams) everything was quiet, and it was a very nice two-night stay, with elephants and bison actually coming up to the gates at nightfall.  

Then off via Manbazar and Gorubathan through lush tea gardens into the hills. I stopped for an overnight stay at a lovely little homestay called Alpine Resort in the village of Kashyem near Kalimpong, very close to the better-known Ichchegaon and Sillery Gaon, which had been highly recommended by an elderly lady friend, and Bob Thapa the proprietor did not disappoint. If you want peace and quiet and long walks among the pines and lovely views of distant snow-capped mountain peaks (Kanchenjunga and Nathu-La among others), lungfuls of clean air and delicious hot local cuisine made from mostly home-grown stuff`without too much luxury and at a very modest price, this is the right get-away-from-it-all spot for you: noisy families, please stay away. For those not interested in noise and shopping (but the wi-fi connection is good), Bob's phone number for booking in advance is 8918112692.

Last stop, another two-hour drive to Bhalukhop village on the other side of Kalimpong to stay overnight with a sadhubaba friend (all personal details must be kept private) which had been very long in the planning. I could spend whole afternoons sunbathing on the wind-swept terrace, and spending the chilly evening staring at the lights of Rangpo in the middle distance. Suffice it to say that we enjoyed ourselves so much that we both deeply regretted that we were parting so soon, and I promised to return (this despite the fact that I had survived a rice with fish curry lunch at 5 p.m. Another first in life – I am living dangerously).

Back to Siliguri, and Durgapur on 5th March, after having woken up at the ungodly hour of 3.30 a.m. Again, it seems I am getting into a bad habit, but it couldn’t be helped. By the way, it was the Vande Bharat for the onward journey and Shatabdi on the way back. I can safely report that the former is a con game – in NO way better, yet grossly overpriced. Unless it is purely for matters of time-convenience, I am never going to take a Vande Bharat again – nor, I suspect, will millions of other Indians who have tried it once just for fun.

My mother had accompanied me on the entire trip. I was on tenterhooks all the way for all nine days, but she bore up wonderfully well, the magnificent eighty-year old.

Here the summer is already upon us. Today, says the weather app, is going to be the first time in six months that the mercury is going to reach that horrible tipping point – 37 degrees Celsius, and there are fears that the first of the heat waves is already about to strike. The last two summers were very nasty: God knows what is in store for us this time round.

You will find a few photos here.