In the Villages of Kalimpong, WB In December 2020 I had to visit my hometown, Cooch Behar, for a few days. Travelling for some family matters, it was a solo journey and truth be told that induced certain amount of boredom too. While returning, I got a day’s window to spend in the hills. The untraveled destinations that ranged in my mind were: The Tinchuley Hills and The Rishyop/Kolakham area. In the end I decided on the later. I had started from Cooch Behar early morning on the first day and travelling the route of Gorubathan, Lava, stayed the night at Yuru Retreat, Delo. The next day I went to Ramdhura, Rishyop, Kolakham and descended to Raiganj and later onwards to Kolkata. This account is a brief account of those few hours spent in those beautiful villages. *** Itinerary 17-Dec-20: Cooch Behar to Delo via Gorubathan 18-Dec-20: Delo to Ramdhura, Teesta View Point, Rishyop, Kolakham, Changey Falls to Raiganj 19-Dec-20: Raiganj to Kolkata ***Some of the photos in the first post were taken in November. 17-Dec-20: Cooch Behar to Delo
It was around 8 ish when I bid my parents good bye and cranked up the car that was washed the previous day to get rid of the layers of dirt. I had called up Yuru Retreat a couple of days in advance to book a room. The resort folks didn’t ask for any ‘advance’ to confirm my booking. From Cooch Behar one has to take the road through the towns of Falakata – Birpara – Dalgaon Tea Estate - Binnaguri – Chalsa - Malbazar for the most convenient route to reach Kalimpong. Kanchenjunga peeping above the hills. Enroute Gorubathan. The vintage car collection at Roy & Cousins Tea gardens of Gorubathan. A pic from an earlier journey with a friend of mine.
Malbazar was reached in slightly over 2 hours. The turn off is at Malbazar and there I tanked up the car at Roy & Cousins fuel bunk, which seems to be very popular with local vehicles. Upon fuelling up, I had breakfast at the next door Tea Shop. After which, parking the car, I went to fetch some money from the ATM because the thought of withdrawing cash at Cooch Behar had totally escaped my mind. Malbazar was the last place where I could hope for an ATM because up in the hills the ATMs are quite undependable (which was vindicated later). However to my poor luck none of the 3 kiosks which I tried worked. And all I had was Rs 2,500.
Two days later when I reached home in Kolkata – I still had Rs 2,000 which goes to speak that Debit cards are accepted at most places even in the hills now. All I had to spent in cash was for entry ticket to Neora Valley National Park, road side momos, tea, maggi, an – the taste of which is best savoured only when you are there in the open air with the sun casting its glow and clouds breezing past.
A narrow slip road from Malbazar connected us to Gorubathan from where the sprawling tea gardens commenced. Sometimes there was the sun that was soon overtaken by the fog once we crossed the railway lines and started climbing up the hills – Eastern Himalayas yet again! View of the plains from a spot near Phaperkheti.
The road was a well paved one – smooth, black top. And the sceneries beautiful! Comprising of streams, tea gardens, blue hills, grey and blue skies. The stops were frequent to admire and shoot. I lost some 30 mins due to traffic jam at a place called “Sombarey Bazar” but beyond that there were no problems. The Eagles were screaming through the audio player, birds chirping on the trees and beyond that there wasn’t a noise. Only sometimes you could hear the exhaust screaming while climbing through the curves. Almost 4 years back I had been to Samabeyong Tea Estate at Lava and had taken the same route, but beyomd Phaperkheti the road was very bad. This time though most of the road was metalled except for some portions where was in progress. Stream near Gorubathan. Sunsetting over tea gardens.
Last edited by sayakc : 7th February 2021 at 15:21.
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