Although the previous blog may sound a little like a catalogue of misfortunes, we had rather enjoyed Darjeeling in many ways, especially our first evening and full day there. It was, however, exceptionally damp (I think even more so than usual, and by the sounds of things it’s normally pretty damp anyway). Next we were making our way to Kalimpong, Darjeeling’s smaller neighbour, which was 1000m elevation to Darjeeling’s 2000m and notably warmer and sunnier as a result. We were there for two full days, which we will cover in this blog. 

NB – I lost all of this blog and some of the last one from a laptop crash, so this is my second time writing. Apologies therefore if it seems a bit rushed, we wanted to get everything done and published before we go silent for the silent retreat! 

Thursday – 

We had a leisurely check-out time of 11am in Darjeeling, so we made the most of the lie-in and slow pack before dropping our bags at reception and heading, once more, to Sonam’s Kitchen. In the course of the trip it has become apparent that there is nothing we love more than a good breakfast & coffee spot, and Sonam’s was exactly that. I was feeling hungry again, and the fresh bread/fried tomato/scrambled eggs/hash brown/pot of strong black coffee combo was an absolute delight. Sonam even insisted on getting a photo with us on the way out, seemingly largely because she was absolutely obsessed with our Animal Aid t-shirts (see photo). 

We headed back to the hotel and the harried hotel manager, who frankly seemed to be the only one in the place that did anything, helped us with our bags into the taxi. We set off on the three hour journey to Kalimpong, which sat on the next foothill over just past the huge Teesta river valley. The drive was uneventful, if reasonably interesting. We made our way along the ridge from Darjeeling through little villages called things like “7th Mile” and “9th Mile”, before the road suddenly plunged down into the river valley. The descent was a nauseating sequence of switchbacks, which even did a full 360 degree turn at one point to go underneath itself down the mountain. Once we were down and across the seething Teetsa river, it was a short ascent up to the town of Kalimpong and to our hotel. 

We were staying at what was a relatively expensive hotel in Kalimpong, but the general feeling was that the management had gotten a bit lax and some of the staff were very nice but utterly feckless. That said, we were shown to a room which was reasonably spacious but gloriously dry and free from the pervading damp of Darjeeling. We were even provided with a portable heater we could use to dry our still sodden trainers from the cycle ride a couple of days before. 

We spent much of the afternoon in the hotel room, writing the blog and getting unpacked. It’s remarkable how much time can go in this way, and it was getting dark over the distant hills before we ventured out into the town for dinner. I was feeling much better physically, but still feeling a bit spacey from the stomach bug so we decided to keep it simple and go to a Continental restaurant in the town centre. 

The town centre was a twenty minute downhill walk from the hotel on relatively quiet roads, and restaurant itself was like something straight out of Clapham – all dark green upholstery and brass fittings. Oddly, they played Ed Sheeran on repeat slightly too loud, but despite this the food was pretty good. Once we had finished, we made our slow way back up the hill and to the hotel for the night. 

Friday – 

We were up reasonably early on Friday as we wanted to sample some of the delights of Kalimpong before we were due back at 5pm for Grandma’s funeral via Zoom link. We had breakfast included in the restaurant price, so we went downstairs to the restaurant where a relatively meagre buffet was laid out. Ellie was fuming that the porridge she had been promised was cruelly denied, but in fairness the Indian breakfast items were actually really good. The boiled eggs, however, were so overcooked I’m sure they would bounce, and eating one was an experience that will stay with me for some time. 

There was a coffee shop close by to the hotel, and we popped there to pick up a take-away coffee for our morning’s exploration. The coffee was excellent and what’s more did me the favour of getting the taste of egg out of my mouth. It was with these we headed up the hill, away from the town centre, and towards the Kalimpong military encampment where the Indian Army had a sizable base. 

As we entered the encampment, which was a little town in its own right, we passed a sign asking foreign tourists to check in with the guards before carrying on. We found a man in fatigues in a guard house, and told him we intended to visit the Durpa monastery which sat on the hill above the encampment. He made a couple of phone calls, stood around for a while, spoke to another man in fatigues about something that sounded unrelated, then pointed up the hill and said something in Hindi. We had absolutely no idea what we was saying, but he seemed friendly enough and so we set out in the direction he pointed, hoping he wasn’t saying “don’t go that way or you’ll be shot”. 

We weren’t shot, and we made our way up towards Durpa monastery. Clearly the military camp had been there for some time, as the soldiers were living side by side with civilians, and amusingly the large army trucks were being used as school buses to take the local children home for lunch as we passed. We arrived at the monastery, which consisted of the meditation hall much like the one we had seen in Darjeeling though with more tourists, and the living quarters for the monks. We wandered around for a while, taking a look into the beautifully decorated meditation hall, and watched some army orienteering exercises going on down on a school field below us, before we descended the hill back towards the city centre. 

It was a pleasant stroll in lovely 20-something weather, and the backroads were pretty quiet to walk down. Kalimpong was ostensibly known for its orchid and cactus nurseries, so we tried to visit one of these on the way home that was apparently in the garden of a local homestay. We let ourselves into the homestay gate and walked around the garden for a short time but the palace seemed entirely deserted and nothing looking like an orchid nursery could be seen, so we gave up and headed for the town centre. 

The Art Cafe that we had in Calcutta had a branch in Kalimpong, so we found it for some lunch. We had the local delicacy of Falay, which were like deep-fried vegetable pasties, and some nachos to share. The Falay were good, but we were given four each so we had to take half of them home with us for a snack at a later date. It was the middle of the afternoon by this point, so we made our way back up the hill and to the hotel. 

At 5pm, we set up the laptop to watch Grandma’s funeral all the way back in Moniaive. It was very poignant and sad to watch from so far away, but we were both very pleased that we were there for it at least virtually and in spirit. It was strange to get a mention from the minister as he looked at the laptop camera while we were sitting in our hotel room in the Himalayan foothills. After the funeral, we tried to have a G&T in memory of Grandma in the nicely appointed but slightly dusty and disused hotel bar. The impromptu bartender (who was just one of the guys who ran the bags up and down the stairs) told us they didn’t have tonic but they had lemonade instead, so we said we’d go elsewhere. 

There was a little bar down the road from the hotel which was also pretty much deserted but was able to make us a passable G&T which we enjoyed from the comfort of their sofas. After our drink, we went to the adjoining Chinese restaurant, in which we were again the only customers for the whole meal. The owner was very friendly and spoke excellent English given he had lived for a long time in Canada, but sadly the food was pretty poor and, I’m sorry to say, likely responsible for yet another stomach bug for me the following day. We both had the sweet and sour dish, mine chicken and Ellie’s vegetable (the deciding factor in who got ill, I imagine), which tasted vaguely rank from the outset. We made our best attempt, but left most of it uneaten and wandered back to the hotel for the night.

Saturday – 

On Saturday we treated ourselves to a lie-in and then headed down to catch the end of the hotel breakfast. By this point we’d (I’d) made peace with the lack of promised porridge and worked out that if you asked they at least had strong assam tea and fresh milk, a luxury amongst the weak tea and powdered creamer we often have access to in our rooms. 

In classic form we headed back to our recently discovered good coffee spot down the road and grabbed takeaway strong coffees for a stroll down into the main town where we wanted to check out the Saturday market. This was bustling and had lots to see – every vegetable under the sun, freshly steamed momos, mangoes (its well and truly mango season now) and obscenely bright orange oranges. After the market we wondered through the rest of the town. We had been hoping to find the rumoured handmade paper shops to get some special notebooks for journaling in the silent retreat, but unfortunately such shops didn’t seem to exist here anymore. We wonder whether many of these things are products of a still suffering tourist industry post-covid, perhaps impacted also by the border closure into Nepal nearby which we had been hoping to use, which has also been closed since covid.

Either way, we picked up a bubble tea (far to sweet for Rob, perfect for me) and continued back towards the hotel. We had been planning to make one more attempt at the famed nurseries, but unfortunately found the one we’d thought looked like it might still be up and running closed on Saturdays. Consoled by the purchase of some beautiful new lotus-shaped earrings (Ellie, obviously), we headed home to relax for the afternoon. Around this point Rob’s likely Chinese-chicken-induced bowel-related issues began to rear their head, so he was laid up while I did some yoga in our very bright and spacious room. 

Around dinner time Rob decided he was up for heading out for something plain, and we headed back to our favourite coffee spot which also looked like it had a decent menu. I had their platter of local streetfood-style dishes and was happy to get to try some of them as in Darjeeling we hadn’t really felt up for street food. They included some thick soupy noodles, curried potatoes, bean curd moulded into a kind of firm jelly with a spicy sauce (much better than it sounds I promise) and slightly sweet deep fried dough to dip into the curried dishes.

Rob stuck to some potato wedges and, once-burned (once-too-many-times burned?) even he left the cold drinks they’d clearly forgotten we’d ask them not to put ice in – a hazard especially of the less touristed places we’ve been. The view from the cafe was over the lit-up settlements in the valley and it was the perfect temperature for eating outside with a light jumper (so British of us), but sadly Rob was not feeling fab so we quickly headed home for a pretty disturbed night for him. I should add here that this is the end of either of us being ill to this point – it’s not all doom and gloom I promise!

And so ended the last night in Kalimpong. The town was dry and sunny, though perhaps a little closed down since the guide-book had last visited. From Kalimpong we were heading into Kathmandu via Delhi, and then from Kathmandu to Pokhara. All this will be the subject of the next blog.

Until then,

Ellie & Rob xxx