Reaching Darjeeling & roaming around

You can read about How we reached Darjeeling here and here.

Day 2 –

At NJP junction, we were offered a taxi to Darjeeling for certain amount and were asked to wait in a hotel while they bring a taxi. Even after an hour there was no sign of taxi. When we enquired, all we got were some indirect answers. Suddenly they said no taxis would run from NJP since a taxi driver was killed (not sure if this was true, but the taxi union there is pretty strong). So we took a shared auto to Siliguri (150 INR for entire auto). From Siliguri we hired a jeep to Darjeeling (1000 INR) – and there started our wonderful journey where I fell deeply in love with The Himalayas.

We had a simple breakfast at a roadside home-cum-inn in Kurseong (4864 ft). It roughly takes around 3 hours to reach Darjeeling (6710 ft) depending on number of breaks you take in-between. I have given a map of the route below (not drawn to scale)

New Jalpaiguri - Darjeeling Route (Not drawn to scale)

NJP Railway Station

The entire route till Darjeeling was full of greenery, wild colours, mountains, small houses that looked like match boxes perched on the hilltops, cheerful children, narrow roads, turning points in roads with amazing views of the valley below – you get what I am trying to say right? It was simply pure joy letting ourselves unwind with nothing to care for (atleast for the next few days :P) Let pictures do the talking :)

Houses perched on the hill top. I would love to live in a house like this. What a view!!

The quaint little Railway Station of Darjeeling

We reached our hotel (Hotel Dekeling) before noon and arranged a taxi for local sightseeing at the hotel itself. Our plan was to visit

• Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park


• Himalayan Mountaineering Institute


• Tenzing’s Rock


• Pagoda temple and


• Rock gardens

The Zoological Park and mountaineering institute are housed in the same complex (Entry fee 40 INR). Well, the zoo was like any other zoo – except it had the animals in a better health condition. But the beautiful environment in which they were kept compensated what the zoo lacked in terms of animals. One can simply walk around the zoo, inhale that fresh air without any pollution or even eat an ice cream like us. :P

The Park has paths like these in such abundance, if it were in Chennai, I would definitely go on morning walks daily. And that is saying something!! :) 

The mountaineering institute has a museum that has many photos, mountaineering gears used by Tenzing Norgay and others and a range of information. People who are into trekking/mountaineering would find this museum interesting. There is also a photo booth were we dress up in native clothes and the photographer takes photos of us for a nominal fee.

Next we moved on to Tenzing’s rock, which is literally a rock perched on one of the sides of a narrow road next to the zoological park. There are ropes up the rock for rapelling. We decided to just take photos of it and move on.

Tenzing's Rock

Our next spot was Peace Pagoda built by a Japanese Buddhist monk. It has a similar structure like Shanti Stupa in Leh. By the time we reached there, mists started coming in and the entire place looked like one of the gardens in heaven. We visited the temple inside and the stupa outside.

Pagoda @ Darjeeling

Rolling mists in the Garden and such a beauty it was... Photos cannot do proper justice. 

We had to rush at each of these places since we had rock garden in our list for today. It is quite a long downhill drive to the rock gardens and by the time we were half-way, the mists were little too much for even normal visibility, it turned suddenly dark and rains started pouring in. So, we decided to call it a day and returned to our room.

Note – One can alternately travel in the UNESCO heritage tiny mountain train that goes till Darjeeling from NJP. Though enjoyable, it takes much longer time. I would suggest hopping on it in Darjeeling, getting down at Kurseong or somewhere and catching a taxi back to Darjeeling.

UNESCO World Heritage Tiny mountain train, Darjeeling

Cute puffs from the train, isn't??  :) :) 

You can read about Day 3 of our trip here. (to be updated)