Friends,
Excuse my English.
Best time to visit: September-October.
Snowing season: February
Buy: Lots of woolen garments from shop or from Bhutia market at Mall. You will meet several seller in your hotel as well. But bargain well. Offer half price that they ask for. I bought one muffler for only 50 rupees (Less than a $) or a gloves for only 80 cent.
Spots: Tiger hill, Mirik, Ghoom, Pasupati, Sandakhfu, Kalimpong, Lava Lole gaon.
You can enlarge your tour to Sikkim from here too.
I will share my experience and few images. But lets start with few images and then I will share details about this place.
Let me tell you only low budget tour destination is Darjeeling in Himalayas. From here you can plan for a trip to hill top like Mt. Everest.World famous for Darjeeling Tea and Toy Train.
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| Tea Garden - Darjeeling Tea |
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| Tea Garden - Darjeeling Tea |
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| Tea Garden - Darjeeling Tea |
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| UNESCO World Heritage train |
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| Ghoom-14th highest station in world and the highest in India |
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Mount.
Kanchenjunga -Third highest in world
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| A view of Darjeeling |
Let me now start my experience en-route. I booked train ticket a bit late. Only one month in advance. So I selected one chair car train of Indian Railways for a over night journey. That was my bad. I should book ticket in advance or should select good Volvo Bus. But nothing was there for me as I booked last minute. So book your ticket in more than one and half month advance if you want to travel via train. That is safe journey. You can use IRCTC to book train ticket. All train going to Asam or NJP will have stopage in NJP. You need to book to and from NJP. Several trains are available from Sealdha or Howrah to reach NJP. VOLVO buses available from Dharmatala or Salt Lake and can be booked from there or via online web portals.
You need to reach NJP or New Jalpaiguri via train or Siliguri bus stand via bus. I reached NJP. Now it is car ride time. I booked SUV car for complete tour from a online portal. They charged me handsomely. SO I did not have hazard to book car from there. You can avail that service, other than that you may select local cars too. If you select share car you may drop your price. If you are lucky you may have a return-car from Darjeeling which may charge you very low if you can bargain. If you do not want to bargain you can book your car via online portal or via me.
Now it is car time. I took a break after one hours journey. The driver placed us on a small but good hotel. Let me warn you , food is very costly compare to Kolkata. You may have to pay even 100 rupees ($2) for a simple Egg-Rice or a Egg Thalia. Finally after 3 and half hours I reach Darjeeling. I was there in season time. Also I selected a hotel for Rupees 700/- per night. So quality of hotel was not good. They were very poor, not clean, no proper food arrangement. First night it was a horrible experience for me. Finally one view fetching room was allotted and was of medium class. We stayed there and managed to get food from a neighbor hotel.
It was next day morning. I was suddenly waked up by my wife. She shouted "wow see what is there". I suddenly woke up in the morning at 4:45 AM. It was too early for me specially after a day long no sleep journey. Hey you can not believe what I saw. See the images below.
My investment for this journey completely paid for. With small and not too good hotel, with tension for my daughter and another small kid's food and health, I was almost gone. But this view just fetched me from back yard to life. What a scene it was. I never will forget that very early morning and Sun rise.
Next day it was our Mirik Tour. I missed here. You should not arrange a tour separately for Mirik. Rather plan it so that you can reach here the day you are coming back. But I had planned a bit wrong. Next day around 9:30 AM we started for Mirik , Pasupati. Too much curve and too hot scenic beauty stunned me. But the other kid was very ill as well as my relatives who were there too. Driver Pranesh advised us not to see too much outside if there is a vomiting tendency. Though there was fog but I enjoyed the route. What a journey it was. We met Border with Nepal during the visit. Road from Darjeeling to Mirik crosses a broder where the left deep down is India and right hill area is on Nepal. Indian and Nepal has no strict border. So when we were coming back
I stepped on Nepal. What a experience. I collected one 20 Rupee note of Nepal currency.
Here are few images in Mirik or en-route Mirik:
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| Mirik Lake |
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| Mirik Hill |
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| Me with my daughter in Mirik |
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| Hey , my wife, Daughter, little kid and my mother in law is in Nepal now. |
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| View of Nepal and Sikkim from Lepcha Jagat |
Next day morning it was tour de Tiger hill. Tiger hill is a spot for viewing Sun rise. It has observatory center at summit. You have to start 3:30 AM early in night to reach as soon as you can. The early you can leave the less you have to trek. Yes if you are late you may not reach the summit. Rather you have to trek somewhere else and have to reach several other view point on this hill. I could not manage to reach early due to my driver's late arrival. I had to do a small trek to reach another hill top and watch the beautiful sun rise from there. My luck was not so good that I could see the Sun jumped from hill back. But saw it moment after it jumped. But suddenly weather were too clear to see Mt. Kanchenjunga, Mt. Makalu or even a small view of Mt. Everest. I have bad luck that I did not have a telescoping lance in camera to catch that image.
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| Sunrise at Tiger Hill |
I came back to hotel and managed to get some fresh food. In the mean time I visited Batasia loop. A loop just before Ghoom. Here I reached again on joy rider on world heritage of Darjeeling Himalayan Railways.Toy Train.
After a quick break fast we started for a inter Darjeeling tour. We visited 7 points including Tea estate, Tibetan Refugee Center, Monestry, Tenjing Rock (here Sherpa Tenjing Norge practiced before climbing first time to Everest). I really was moved by the living style and hard working of Tibetan Refugees. What to tell about Tea Garden? Finally this day tour ends at Mall of Darjeeling. Here you can buy anything related to winter garments in budget. Several shops are there. But I preferred Bhutia market. A lots of woolen garments were bought by me and my wife. You can buy umbrella as well.
The day before last day was not good. My daughter failed ill. We enjoyed a joy ride this day. It was my daughter's birth day. I booked joy ride from IRCTC. It was a after noon tour. The tour starts from Darjeeling railway station and ends at Ghoom. Again they halt there for half and hour and come back to Darjeeling Station. What a experience it was. I was in a train which was declared as World Heritage Train by UNESCO.
Finally I reached Ghoom, this is the 14th highest station in world and the highest in India. We have a Museum there. You can visit some good images over there.
Finally the day came. We again started from Darjeeling to Siliguri. We had a booking in Volvo Ac from SIliguri. So finally my tour ended in bus.
Few people with whom I was very happy:
Tapas Sinha: Ask him for a good hotel booking. Only tell him that you need good hotel.
Ph: 9153215908 or ask me
Sonam Lama and Pranesh Gurung: Both car drivers. Ask me for their number.
