Kalimpong - flowers and a shared jeep ride

Thursday, 19 April

Kalimpong is another hill station about 3 hours drive east of Darjeeling. Its main claim to fame seems to be that they grow lots of flowers there, in particular orchids. We were lucky enough to have our first clear day in Darjeeling and could look out at the hills of Sikkim and beyond them to the Himalayas

imHimalayas

The drive to Kalimpong also gave us some amazing views as the road descends down to the river Teesta before crossing it and climbing back up to the town.

Having checked out a budget hotel and not been too impressed with it, we went to a very nice one where Sheila managed to haggle them down to a reasonable room rate. Unfortunately a combination of guilt about the water shortage and the lack of a plug meant we could not indulge in its greatest luxury – a long soak in the bath.

In case you were not impressed by pictures of the train here are some of flowers and cacti:

We (all right, me) decided that having blown the budget on the car up and the hotel, we should economise on the return journey back to Darjeeling and take a shared jeep like the locals do. I hesitate to mention actual prices otherwise you would think I was plain stingy so best just to say that a car/jeep to ourselves would have cost more than our joint daily income whereas seats on a shared jeep were a fifth of this. Anyway it was an experience, shame I didn't think to take some photos.

The jeep was a Mahindra (Indian make) semi-soft top (i.e. no side windows) slightly bigger than a Land Rover short wheel base but definitely smaller than a long wheel base. It had 3 rows of bench seats, shiny rear tyres and a roof rack for luggage (and the odd passenger). Sounds OK? Now fill it with 11 adult passengers, 1 toddler, the driver plus up to 2 on the roof or hanging on the back. It was our luck to be on the same seat as a large bottomed lady (no, not Sheila) and her matching husband so it was a bit cozy in our row. The 2.5 hour journey was pretty uneventful, the only moment of concern was rolling back down the hill after we stalled on a very steep, very tight bend. The weather could have been kinder, having been 25' in Kalimpong, it got progressively colder and then a real monsoon downpour. The short sleeved shirt I had on was appropriate at the start but by the end, my left arm (remember, no side windows) was pretty wet and cold.

We'll hire a car to ourselves for the trip back to Siliguri on Saturday.

More from Darjeeling later.

Roshan