In the last three blogs, we covered our extended stay in the wonderful city of Calcutta. It was time to move on however, and our next stop was up in the Himalayan foothills in the hill-station of Darjeeling. In this blog, we will cover our way up to Darjeeling, as well as the three full days we spent there.

Sunday –

Our flight was leaving mid-morning from Calcutta’s airport, which was nearly an hour’s taxi from the hotel. We were up with only (just enough) time to pack, and booked an Uber to take us to the airport from our hotel in South Calcutta. The drive was uneventful, and check-in and airport security were cleared with record time. We found ourselves in the departure lounge of Terminal 2 with an hour and a half to spare, so found somewhere for a welcome coffee and bite to eat.

The flight to Bagdogra, the closest city to Darjeeling with an airport, was equally uneventful. It was scheduled to take an 1 hour 20 minutes, but we were touching down within the hour. The bags were already on the belt for collection by the time we reached it, and we set out into the predictably chaotic taxi rank to find someone to take us the three hour drive up to Darjeeling. We tried to book an Uber, largely because this allowed us to set a price without bartering, but after several unsuccessful attempts we relented and accepted an offer from one of the many men who came up to us knowing exactly where we were trying to go.

Evidently, the Bagdogra to Darjeeling route was a popular one, largely for domestic tourists who spend some time in the summer in Darjeeling’s relative cool. As such, the taxi operation was finely tuned, with one person scouting for tourists, another to escort us to the taxi whilst fighting off competitors, and someone else to actually drive the taxi to Darjeeling. Before we knew it we were in the taxi, and heading off towards the foothills to the north.

Quite quickly, we realised we had made the mistake of chugging a bottle of water on the plane, then having a large bottle of soft drink each when we got into arrivals. The road from Bagdogra to Darjeeling, once it left the urban area, was a tiny, precipitous, mountain path up which our taxi driver alternated between flying up at breakneck speed and impatiently being stuck behind slower traffic. There was no suggestion a toilet break would be tolerated, even if there was a toilet anywhere on the side of the road (which there didn’t seem to be).

So, it was with painfully full bladders we made our halting way to Darjeeling, the finale being a excruciatingly slow crawl through the Darjeeling backstreets to get us close enough to the town centre to find somewhere with a toilet. We eventually arrived, paid up, and practically ran to the closest cafe we could see on Google Maps. We dropped our stuff and Ellie shot upstairs to find the loo, only to descend a moment later stony-faced with the news that the cafe didn’t have any facilities.

We reluctantly bagged back up, and set out for the next cafe we could see on the Maps. We got to within 100m, but the road that it was supposed to be on simply did not seem to exist, and Google Maps wanted us to turn right into what seemed to very much be a brick wall. After faffing around for a minute or two, we abandoned this too and walked further on. After a few more very uncomfortable minutes, we came across a sign for a cafe leading up some stairs and Ellie went up to investigate, then mercifully appeared a few seconds later with a thumbs up.

Once we had relieved ourselves, we stayed in the restaurant for a bite of lunch. It was funny place – dark, loud music, filled with cigarette smoke by some cool looking local teenagers – but run by a very sweet man about our age who obsessed over our lime sodas and the pan fried momos we ordered. We felt far more human before we set out with the bags to our hotel, Dekeling, a little further up the hill.

Darjeeling is built on a hill, with a temple on the summit and the town square just below that. There are a couple of roads leading out from the town square, sloping down the hill, and our hotel was on one of these roads. We lugged the bags up the several flights of stairs to the reception, and checked in. The hotel interior, including the room, was covered floor to ceiling in wooden paneling and the foggy mountain air pressed in on the window panes, making them fog up. The entire impression was something like that of a ski lodge, and it was strange being in cool, wet weather after so long in the boiling heat.

We spent some time settling into the hotel room, then wrapped up a bit and headed downstairs to the restaurant underneath the hotel. It was a small, cozy little place serving Tibetan and Nepalese food. Being in Darjeeling felt like we had left India. Almost everyone around looked of Nepalese or Tibetan descent, many being Tibetan refugees or the children of refugees. The food was different, the weather was certainly different, and the atmosphere in general felt more removed from the India we had been travelling through than anywhere we have been so far. We both had a delicious, warming bowl of soup and noodles (for me) or rice (for Ellie), and headed out into the foggy night to explore a bit before bed.

We walked slowly up one of the high-streets that took us to the central town square. The street was packed with food vendors, West Bengali tourists, little antique shops, and the inevitable wandering street dogs (though now with much thicker fur). It felt like a wonderful novelty to be wearing a jumper and shoes with socks for once, and we both enjoyed the cool air and the friendly atmosphere as we walked up to the square and back down to the hotel for the night.

Monday –

Both Darjeeling and Kalimpong, our next stop, we had originally put into the trip itinerary as we were conscious that we would have been travelling for some time by this point, and would probably benefit for somewhere quieter for a rest. That said, there was still quite a few things to see and do in Darjeeling, so we set out on Monday morning to see the sights of the city.

The first stop was for breakfast. We had seen some good reviews for a place called Soonam’s kitchen, which was a tiny little cafe on one of the backstreets where Soonam cooked and her quiet husband waited the tables. We were served a pot of strong, black coffee, which immediately set good impressions. The breakfast was excellent and wonderfully home-cooked after all of the restaurants and fast food we had eaten over the last few weeks. Ellie had a big bowl of porridge with fruits and nuts, whilst I had a giant hash brown with two thick slices of toast, scrambled egg, cheese, and tomatoes.

We left Sunam’s and headed up to the top of the hill to see the Mahakal temple. The temple was set above the town in a stand of pine trees which was beautifully serene, made even more remarkable that it was both a Buddhist and Hindu temple. Shrines to Hindu dieties like Hanuman and Ram lined the pathways, while the typical Buddhist lion statues guarded the gates to the inner sanctum. At the main altar, which was dedicated to a diety that was both Shiva in Hinduism, but also a Tibetan Buddhist version of the Buddha, a Hindu Brahmin and a Buddhist priest sat facing each-other performing rites. We watched for a while, and wandered around the complex which was a fascinating fusion of the two religions which merged where the two cultures had met.

From the temple, we made our way down the north side of the hill, away from the town centre. We passed through the residential neighbourhoods of the town, houses and shops clinging precariously to the sides of the steep slope and linked by tiny winding roads and precipitous staircases. Our next stop was the remarkably named Bhutia Busty Ghompa, a Tibetan Buddhist temple.

We had picked up a friendly dog along the way, and he accompanied us around the temple, which was deserted except from a couple of people repainting the wall murals. We left the dog outside and let ourselves in to wander around the silent meditation hall, with its brightly painted depictions of stories from the Buddha’s life, many portraits of the Dalai Lama, and ceremonial drums.

From the temple, we set out to the Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Centre. The Centre was an hour or so walk away still, and we enjoyed the almost entirely downhill walk in sub 20C weather for the first time in a long time. We finally arrived at the Self-Help Centre, which had been set up to accommodate the influx of Tibetan refugees coming south from Sikkim after the Chinese invasion. The Centre had helped the refugees set up small weaving and carpentry businesses in the compound, as well as providing accommodation. The Centre was still thriving, and featured a small shop selling £200 Tibetan rugs that we only just restrained ourselves from buying and shipping home, a photo exhibition from the 60 years of the centre’s existence, and a variety of workshops where paintings, clothes, and furniture was being made by ancient Tibetan men and women.

Once we had a potter around, we turned back to walk the hour or so back towards Darjeeling town centre. The walk was steeply uphill for almost the entire way, and so required a crisps break on a wall once we’d broken the back of it. Once we made it back to the town square, we searched out the Windamere Hotel, a old colonial manor turned hotel which did us a pot of Darjeeling tea with veg and cheese sandwiches. As we sat outside with our tea, the clouds, which were only about 10m above us to begin with, descended over the town to cover it in a thick mist. It was through this we made our damp way back to the hotel.

We had a few hours in the hotel, the rooms of which were somewhat pervaded by the damp of the mist surrounding the town, before we went back out into Darjeeling for dinner. We had wanted to try some Tibetan food, and so made for a Tibetan restaurant a short walk away. The weather was such that a noodle soup, or Thukpa, appealed to me again, whilst Ellie opted for the giant, plain momo called a Tingmo which was used to dip into sauce. The food was good, and the quiet little restaurant was well decorated though had bizarre Indian music videos playing on a huge flat-screen TV.

We had signed up for a mountain bike trip around the pine forests surrounding Darjeeling the following morning, so before heading home we popped to a hole-in-the-wall shop to get some provisions for the following day. We were looking for some dried fruit for a trail snack and Ellie pointed to a pack of what she took to be dried apple, to which the shop-owner replied “Ah, the yak cheese, OK.” I sniggered in the back whilst Ellie persuaded him that she, in fact, did not want the freeze-dried yak cheese and instead opted for some dried raisins. 

We walked home and spent the rest of the evening learning to play cribbage. We wanted another two person card game and, after scratching our heads over the rules and watching a number of YouTube videos, we got the hang of the game. We played for a couple of hours, eating the vast majority of the dried raisins meant for the following day as we went, before calling it a night and heading to bed.

Tuesday –

On Tuesday we reluctantly woke up to our early alarms and flirted with the idea of cancelling on this bike ride. Rob’s stomach was feeling slightly unsettled, we both hate early starts and we were pushing it to fit in breakfast. After some discussion though we decided some fresh air and what we were expecting to be a moderate leg stretch would do us some good. Post-room service buttered toast, we headed out to the mountain bike hire place. 

In the shop we met our 6th-form-age looking guide and were given bikes and helmets. In all honestly both of mine were on the large side but they clearly didn’t have anything smaller so I went with it and hoped for the best. Rob asked the owner how long the ride was expected to be and he replied ‘some people who are good with the bikes do it in 4-5 hours, some people get back at 8-9pm, which in hindsight should perhaps have concerned us more than it apparently did.

We set off down the backstreets of Darjeeling which were still relatively quiet at 8am, and we were quickly on some very steep mountainside roads. The incline was tough, leading us both to audibly pant, but the views over the valleys even through the mist were incredible and we both enjoyed the physical push. Spirits were high and we took a brief stop in the nearby town of Ghoom for the guide to buy us chocolate bars (sadly for Rob they were full of peanuts so I did have to eat them all). 

We eventually reached the start of the forest, which had tall pines on either side of a mud track, occasionally opening up to beautiful valley views on one side. The air was wonderfully fresh and crisp, and we took photo breaks and stopped to watch a deer scuttle across the path right in front of us. Eventually, we reached the gate to the official start of Senchel wildlife sanctuary, which the majority of the ride was set to be inside. Slightly concerningly, the gate was very much locked and had smallish but barbed wire covered fences on either side. Our young guide however, who spoke little English, seemed only momentarily perturbed by this and after a brief sigh gestured for us to hand him our bikes to lift over the barbed fence. Beyond this we illicitly continued through the forest path and hoped it was only a little bit illegal. 

Soon we came to a little checkpoint booth where a guard checked our driver’s licences (luckily we had them!) and waved us through seemingly unbothered by our methods of gaining entry. We took an inclining path away from the checkpoint and our guide warned us it would be uphill for some time, which again initially did not bother us, thinking ourselves in reasonably good shape as it goes. 

It was at this point we were very much humbled. The small pebbles you can see lining the path in all of these photos broke out into literal boulders. I am so sad we did not photograph any of these paths but they were genuinely terrifying. The bikes would lift up into the air like you were attempting a ski jump trying to mount them, and you’d clip the side of the next one and be very nearly thrown off as the bike skidded down. Before this day if you’d shown me that path I would have told you it was 100% absolutely not passable by bike. I suppose with hindsight that is perhaps the point of mountain biking. 

We eventually reached the top, with a few sections of walking the bike (at least as fast as trying to cycle these rocks if that gives more of an idea how hard it was) for a well-earned banana break. I asked the guide if we were set to cycle back down that path because frankly, I’d be walking it, but he assured me there was an easier route back down. Before this though we had to descend into a tiny village on the other side of the hill for lunch. Unsurprisingly sliding down rocks on a bike is even harder than sliding up them, and it was honestly one of the scariest things I have ever done – to use my own words ‘a recipe for at least a broken arm’. In one particularly dark moment I said to Rob – ‘my bike’s too tall, my helmet’s too loose, and that’s because all of these things are made by men for men and that is why I’ll die’ – luckily this made Rob laugh which helped me at least see some humour in it all. Although I sort of stand by it.

Eventually we dismounted in the village and were treated to maggi noodle soup with freshly cut onion and scrambled egg mixed in, and masala chai and milky coffee. Although a large glass of wine might have been more welcome at this point, it was pretty delicious and we had a giggle at the intensity of it all. The village was gorgeous, all colourful little isolated hut-type houses, straight out of a storybook, as was the roadside cafe we were sat at. We half-reluctantly clambered back on the bikes after half an hour or so and headed back up the rocky path, where we met the ‘easier’ ‘jeep-track’ we were to descend.

To be honest, parts of this were still absolute hell, and the impact you take through your palms, wrists and bums as you bounce over the rocks was totally unexpected and phenomenal. It was at this point the heavens opened and I think even Rob began to lose his sense of humour as the terrifying rocks got even more slippery from being wet. We stopped briefly in some particularly heavy hail and to hand over our phone to the guide’s bag to attempt to salvage them from water damage, but basically we just powered through. We got drenched to the bone and Rob got utterly freezing, I can only explain the fact I remained warm enough not to put my extra fleece on under my waterproof by the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through my veins. Rob remarked that I had gotten much more confident on the downhill sections, which is probably somewhat true although I was also losing the will to fear for my life. 

It was a seemingly endless windy path back out of the park, but eventually we hit a road (no ROCKS!!) again – even if the sign still read 14km from Darjeeling. We pelted along these merifully mostly downhill route back into town, aside from one particularly steep and slippery section where even walking my bike I felt like I was about to stack it (shout out to Rob who then walked BOTH of our bikes down this section). We made it back into the town around 2pm, which the guide remarked was ‘very fast’ as apparently it in fact takes most people the whole day. We worked out using google maps we’d cycled a whopping 50km and a silly amount of incline. Something to be proud of but not sure we’d have signed up in the first place knowing that! 

We paid up in the shop and politely declined the many offers of the guys there to ‘take a seat’ – desperate to get out of our wet-through clothes and into a hot shower. We shuffled home with multiple red raw areas of skin, a sense that if we could get through that with more than a few laughs and not a single bicker we were doing pretty well, and a firm resolution never to do it again.

Back at the hotel we room serviced yet other load of buttered toast, showered and Rob promptly fell asleep for 3 hours while I listened to my audiobook. Safe to say we were not feeling our best selves. We pulled ourselves back out of bed to cross the road to a burger place to replenish some of those calories. Unfortunately we’d worn all of our warm clothes, including both of Rob’s fleeces, on the ride and so he had to throw a dripping fleece back on for this which quickly drenched the dry trousers too. This goes some way to explain the fact that once we got home he shivered his way though an episode of our favourite comfort tv – the Dog House – which will be well known to fellow fans and readers from the Taylor family!

Wednesday –

As Ellie had said, I came over shivering as we got into bed the night before, then woke up in a sweat in the middle of the night. I’m sure the utter soaking we’d got on the bike ride had something to do with it, but I wasn’t feeling 100% before we’d left either. In any case, I once again had a stomach bug by the time I woke up on Wednesday morning. As they went it wasn’t too bad, and so we got out of bed late and headed over to Sonam’s kitchen for breakfast. I managed what I could at Sonam’s which was delicious as ever, before we beat a relatively hasty retreat back to the hotel for the use of the amenities. 

I was laid up for most of the rest of the day. I wasn’t feeling too awful, but was back and forth which precluded doing much else with the day. We did, however, try and find somewhere to hang our wet clothes and shoes from the cycle ride before. The friendly if harried manager showed me up several flights of stairs and then a rickety wooden ladder to the corrugated iron roof where the sheets were dried. I laid out our things, but was dubious that this would help matters given it was drizzling on and off and the damp mist still hung around the town. 

The room was marginally less dank for having moved the wet clothes, though the bedding and soft furnishings still had that slightly cool, damp feel to them from the water vapour that seemed to seep through the windows. In our conversation with the hotel manager, we had discovered that the land border with Nepal at Panitanki was in fact closed to tourists since COVID. A quick Google search confirmed this, and was a bit of a spanner in the works given we had a flight booked from the other side of the border to Kathmandu in a few days. I spent a short time lamenting and gnashing my teeth before pulling myself together, and another quick Google search yielded an alternative route by flying from Bagdogra to Delhi, then Delhi to Kathmandu which wasn’t particularly expensive. 

After we booked the flights, I continued to languish for a while in bed whilst Ellie went out for some lunch. By the late afternoon, I decided that I had felt sorry for myself enough, so got up and did an hour’s gentle yoga with Ellie then showered and shaved. Feeling considerably better for it, we went out and back to Burger Cartel as we knew they would do a nice, plain pasta for recovering stomachs. It was just what the doctor ordered (I won’t make the pun again), and I started to feel much more myself by the time we were walking home. We played another full round of cribbage, really starting to get a feel for the game at this point, where I was beaten handily by Ellie before heading to bed for our last night in scenic if wet Darjeeling. 

And so went our short time in Darjeeling. It had been a blessed relief to be out of the heat of the Indian summer, but we did spend most of our time in Darjeeling in a state of perpetual damp. Despite this, the little hill town was charming and so different from anywhere we had seen in India to date. Tomorrow, we were to head out to Kalimpong, a town a couple of hours drive away from Darjeeling but still in the Himalayan foothills. We are in Kalimpong for two full days, and we will cover these in the next blog post.

Until then,

Ellie & Rob xxx