How much time has passed since I wrote last? How long ago was that?.......Say Chile...2006... 3 years ago! Wow now that’s a lot of time...A lot of time for a 'hitchhiker-at-heart' like me to have stayed put in one place! Yup am happy to say travel has happened in the past 2 years and more than 2 trips and really exciting ones at that! Time to put them all down, even if it’s a one liner (although am going to try not to do that!) I'll try to do justice to it because sometimes my memory deceives me. Let’s see....
The first trip I did after I came back from Chile 2005 was to the east of India during April- May of 2007 with my family.... Awesome, mum still has her LTCs (Leave Travel Concession for those of you who didn’t know) and the good news is we can do another trip before she retires. Kashmir may be…Yummy! Anyway, so this east trip was really great. We did three major places: Kolkata, Gangtok and surrounding places and Darjeeling. My first time to all these places.
Kolkata was very very hot but that city has an old world charm that is so unique to it. Its bustling with people and colors and the best thing is there is a certain humility to that place which is quite endearing. Of course we went to the usual touristy- must – see places – the Victoria Memorial, Kalighat, Belur math, Howrah bridge and those other places. But the bonus definitely was that I met up with Arjun (a friend from college who is a Bengali) went to his ancestral house with walls on the ground floor more than 3’ thick and got treated to an authentic Bengali dinner by his mom. Yummy!
From Kolkata we headed to Gangtok via Siliguri. Ah, Gangtok. Definitely one of the best tourist places in India. So clean and traveler friendly. Actually cleanliness is one of the tourism USPs of the state of Sikkim I think. Gangtok had the right amount of chill that belongs to a hill station perched on the Shivalik hills of the eastern Himalayan range, at an altitude of 4,715 ft. Its winding, steep roads, the native people around, its little shops that sells cute little Sikkimese things – it belongs to someplace out of this world. From Gangtok we went around to a couple of close by places – to the Rumtek Monastery, the Changu (Tsango) lake, the Baba mandir, Nathula Pass (the Indo- China border) and some other places.
The most memorable of all the places and the entire trip was the ride up to Changu lake, Baba mandir from there and back. My words won’t do justice to the beauty of the place and the respect you feel for our Indian army men posted in those places. Whether you are a travel freak or not, Changu lake is one of the places in India you should see. Only seeing is believing the beauty of that place. You could view my pictures of that trip on my Picasa album – http://picasaweb.google.com/pprathigna/EASTFEAST#
Darjeeling was next on the schedule. Oh, I forgot to mention that on the descent from Gangtok there is a Black Cat Commando training centre which is soooo hot! So I was all drooly just looking at their campus, am not sure what I’d do if I spotted some of them! Slurp!!! We also stopped at river Teestha along the way to raft a little distance. Rafting was so much fun although the rapids were mostly small and about 3 or 4 big ones. Quite an adventure it was and it was my first time. So after a short swim in the river and feeling all hip after rafting we back on our bus headed to Darjeeling.
Hmmm…..Darjeeling! You know apparently when my mum was in school and she was asked what she wanted to do in life, she wrote that she wanted to honeymoon in Darjeeling! And guess what, she wasn’t the only one with such ambitions in life, many girls of her times wanted to do the same too….hahaha. Innocent I think! Anyway, Darjeeling I think was a great place some years ago. But now it’s quite commercial. Another case of tourism killing the charm and beauty of a place when not put into practice sensibly and sensitively. The streets are filled with tourist buses and loads of people who do not belong there. There is no essence true to the place. We looked around the place, did some shopping and decided to go to the Tiger Hills to witness the breath-taking sunrise that almost everybody gaga-ed about. We woke up at 4 in the morning to get to the hills in time, picking up on our way some tea sellers who started their day and business every day by selling tea to the early risers who came to witness the sun rise. We got on top, got ourselves the best viewing point, and waited. We waited and waited. Till well past 7 .00 when the day had already began and it seemed to be a bright one! The Sun had failed us at Tiger Hills. It turned out that the morning clouds hid the sun behind it, cutting off our view, the way it happened ninety percent of the times when people went up the hill to watch the Sunrise, as our guide told us later on. So much for waking up so early while on a holiday! Then we went to a couple of more places – the zoo, some tea estates, some parks and so on.
By the end of 10 days, I think all of us had quenched our traveler’s thirst and ready to head back to the lives we had escaped from. On our way back from Darjeeling we made a quick stop at Siliguri for a night. Oh that reminds me, I lost my wallet during our onward journey from Siliguri to Gangtok and hence I remained broke for most part of trip. From Siliguri it was back to Kolkata and then back to Bangalore.
So that was about my awesome trip to the east of India and to the Himalayas. Himalayas – the power of those mighty mountains – it always makes you want to go back to it. Other than the unpleasant bit of losing my purse and all my money, that trip was indeed super sooper!
This post has been longer than expected. Well good in a way because I remember better than I thought I would. So the next trip in the next post.
