Darjeeling Sight Seeing Tours
The Kolkata (Calcutta) inhabitants often find respite from its fierce and scorchy summer heat with seeking refuge in the hill station at Darjeeling! Four of us again set out for a trip to Darjeeling in India via road, crossing the borders of Bangladesh. Darjeeling is on a high altitude, and one could catch the clouds there! Here is a glimpse of the rolling hills I caught while traveling via car in the spiral roads of Darjeeling:
This place can also be enjoyed at a composed and temperate pace aboard the famous narrow gauge railway, when spectating The Darjeeling Mountain Railway, most affectionately known as the Toy Train, which has its existence since more than 100 years. Here is a picture that we clicked in the train station with the train engine:
Here are our pictures at the toy train station at Ghoom:
I guess everybody got sleepy in this picture above since the word ‘Ghoom’ / ‘Ghum’ means sleep in Bengali language!
This is one of my favorite pictures that Shelly clicked while I was in Darjeeling:
We made a round-trip arrangement for transportation to the famous parks in the area and back to the lodge. Here is the view I caught from the car of the lush green hills on the way that was seen side-wise of the spiraling roads:
An early visit to Tiger Hill for sunrise revealed the surreal views of the world’s third highest peak, the Kanchenjunga. Here is a glimpse of the sunrise that we experienced:
Darjeeling is a haven for nature lovers. Amidst the cascading waterfalls, one can explore the natural splendor and admire the nature’s beauty with awe. We went to many parks there: the two most visited of them all were the Rock Garden and the Ganga Maiya/Ganga Maya parks.
The Rock Garden is also known as the Barbotey Rock Garden which is located some 10kms (or 6.2 miles) away from Darjeeling town. Ganga Maya is another park located further down.
You may find a wonderful waterfall that finds itself gushing forth all the way from the top and over the rocks down below. In this park you can relish the view of beautiful flower gardens, shrubs, and trees.
The picture above portrays a waterfall of the Rock Garden that I took while we went to see the park.
Here is a surreal picture of our trip of the mount Kanchenjunga that we could spectate with wonder:
In the picture below you may notice the fleeting clouds that I had mentioned a little while ago:
Here are some more pictures that we clicked in these parks:
About 3kms (i.e. 1.8 miles) further down from the Rock Garden is the Ganga Maya Park. Here is another picture of the beautiful small bridge over the stream that you can find while you are there.
The bungalow that we checked in was quite run-down since I believe these bungalows were constructed at the time of the British Raj yet the balcony used to be our hangout place where the clouds of Darjeeling used to peep in!
The hotel was a little dilapidated with steep stairs and no water heater that was quite essential, especially with the cool temperature of Darjeeling. Every morning, the caretaker of the lodge used to provide a bucket full of hot water for the guests to bathe. The arrangement was quite frustrating though yet it the trip did not seem so bad, especially with the picturesque surroundings of nature and above everything else, the company of friends!