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-   -   Tuskers of Chilapata : A thrilling drive to Northern Bengal & Bhutan (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/188615-tuskers-chilapata-thrilling-drive-northern-bengal-bhutan-2.html)

Nice write up there with captivating snaps cpics:.
An adrenaline pumping elephantine encounter, indeed !
Cheers

Lovely travelogue gmhossain ... beautifully narrated with splendid photographs !!!

Can you please share gpx logs of the routes if available.

Warm regards,

Siddhartha.

Dear Golam,

Your travelogue made my day!!
Elegant as well as adventurous - it is a great read. The photo compositions are great.

Unfortunately the hills are now on "fire" courtesy all the political shenanigans :Frustrati .

Since you purchased a new camera, you could have gone for a SLR? You have great composition skill, a newer device would have surely added a sheen.

Regards,
Sayak

Lovely travelogue. Now i must say you have become an expert on Dooars. You really have a knack of finding out the places less explored. I still look at your travelogue on Paren in my free time. In each of your travelogues your are inching closer and closer to Bhutan, so can we expect a Bhutan travelogue to follow?
Hoping to listen more from your trips on 6th August from the Kolkata team Bhp meet. :)

Chilapata at one time had a reputation for two legged predators!

Regards
Sutripta

Thank you very much RSUDARSANAN for your appreciation.


Thank you Siddhartha! I only have a partial gpx log. Up to Ghoshpukur, we followed usual Kolkata - SIliguri route. I am enclosing the route map that we followed from Ghoshpukur onward.


Thank you very much Sayak. Yeah, it's quite sad to see the way events are unfolding in the hills.

Honestly, I did consider a SLR. However, considering my current need, interests and the budget, I shelved the plan for future reconsideration.

Thanks a lot Samba. Frankly, your logs continue to inspire many of us to take the plunge (on road :) )! Bhutan? ... it's in the list but there is no concrete plan as of now.

Sure, looking forward to meet you at next Kolkata Monsoon Meet - 6th Aug, 2017


Thank you Sutripta! Yeah, I guess, even now poachers are active. I was chatting with our safari driver and he did mention that there has been increased patrolling in the forest to stop poaching.

Route Map - Onward Journey



Route Map - Return Journey

A beautifully written travelogue, with bone chilling experience. I loved the information about sesame sauce. Never heard of this before. Thank you for sharing. Wish you have asked for, how to make the same :-)

Beautiful trip, amazing photographs and pleasant faces!

Thanks for sharing and congratulations for completing the tour safely.

In my opinion, great journeys need great people more than great cars and in the similar line lovely photographs need how one sees and how far one stretches to see, kudos to you!

Few queries to Mr gmhossain:

1. What were the key planning/preparation processes to visit a neighbouring friendly country like Bhutan?

2. What were the main challenges? How did you overcome them?

3. Can we go for such trips with senior citizens?

Again thanks a lot for sharing! (I also liked the teambhp sticker!)

Great narration and stunning pictures. North Bengal has so much to offer. We went to Hashimara many years back and saw two Rhinos fighting by the side of the road!
Somehow, I also feel that you went at the right time and it would be a while before you can venture into that area again. The current situation in that region seems tense due to the political situation.

No, not what I was alluding to. The prey were also two legged.

Regards
Sutripta

Aha! What a writeup.

I have told this before and I will repeat it - your words penetrate the readers' heart. It is one thing to read a travelogue sitting in the comfort of our homes, going over the details and planning to go there sometime; all of us do it every time a new one appears on the forum.

And, it is an entirely different experience to read yours because you compel us to travel with you - retracing your footsteps. It is as if we can hear your heavy, but forcefully suppressed breath just next to us; as if the herd of elephants are surrounding not just you but us too. Brilliant!

You have made good use use of the camera. Keep travelling, keep writing, keep keeping us on tenterhooks :Cheering:.

Thank you hok kolorob. Yes. I guess, I should have asked for the recipe of the Sesame sauce.


Thanks a lot kbishwa. To answer your queries, Indian nationals do not need visa to enter Bhutan, just voter card or passport would do. If you want to proceed beyond Phuentsholing then you would need permits both for persons and vehicles. The procedure to obtain the same is described in this post by BHPian PointZero. We visited only up to Phuentsholing this time.

Surely, even senior citizens can go for such trips. My only suggestion would be to have ample breaks and modest distances to be covered in a day. As such, we did not have any major challenge. Our vehicles were serviced regularly as per schedule.


Thank you very much Nissan1180. Yeah, it's unfortunate. However, the situations in the Dooars regions are relatively better than the hills.

Thanks once again! OK, I get it now :)


Thanks a ton dailydriver for your kind words. Frankly, sometime it's precisely because of the readers like you that motivates us to be passionate while writing the travelogue!

What a wonderful write-up!!
Articles like this motivate you to plan a road trip again.
And also a big Thank you for helping me relive my memories of the my road trip from Kolkata to Lava, Kalimpong this year.

Nice write up, you have a good flair for writing with good photographs, enjoyed it. The elephant encounter was really thrilling and scary. Noticed that most houses were built a floor above on pillars, is it the style in that region or was it due to animal interference.
Also why did you not stay in Bhutan.

A very invigorating read! The Dooars region have always eluded me, or maybe it's the other way around. Whenever I get this close to the Himalayas, the pull of magnetic Sikkim increases so much that I never could make that right turn on to the Coronation Bridge. Hopefully, all that is about to change as I've booked a 2 night's stay at Malbazar on my way back from Meghalaya during this Durga Puja. After going through the narrative of your experience and the super exciting pictures of fauna, I am thinking of skipping Guwahati and prolonging my stay at Dooars instead.

Thank you!