My Incredible India Discovery

Now that most of the sightseeing and traveling is over, i would refrain on writing posts after posts about our return journey. Lachen was again unbearably cold the next day and We were anxious to get back to the hot plains. We headed back to Gangtok that day after another 5 hour drive down the mountains. Teesta River kept us company all along and both of us finished our last bits of brownie and muruku to distract ourselves from the ever "rocking" journey. We bid farewell to our heroic driver at Gangtok and took rest in the same hotel and in the same room (Wonder if they kept it empty for us).
Next morning our ride arrived at around 11 am. We visited the Gangtok Handicrafts museum on the way back to pick up some souvenirs for the team back in Chennai. We were allowed to see the folks who actually work there and make this stuff; Very impressive. We finally settled on a bamboo stick base pen holder with golden dragons (for the guys) and orchids (for the gals) painted on it. The new driver was extremely fast and brought us back to New Jalpaiguri 4 hours before the train time!
We as usual started hunting a restaurant at the station and spotted the evergreen IRCTC cafeteria. (Remember him from Kolkata station don't u?). We had few dosas and omelettes (as usual) and I was so thankful they made some decent food. They were atrociously cheap (yes you saw it right, Cheap). Their food quality was not the best in town but decent enough to feed the hungry souls like us. Their quantity was far more than what HSB gives in a complete Rs.70 Meal! Hail IRCTC! Though you are not the best, you are not the worst either!
We bought more books and parked ourselves at the platform until our train arrived. I started writing important pointers for my blog (yes this blog) and made sure I don't forget those small but important facts about the trip. I was also on a reading spree and bought more books to while away my time.
The train dropped us back to Sealdah station and we chose not to go to Victoria Memorial again and headed towards the Airport! We bought more books at the airport and Vishnu caught up on the Current affairs from the local Newspaper. In a few hours we were back to Pavilion and Appa (My father in Law) was eagerly waiting to receive us!

What a Trip! Surely the best so far and I hope I do more of these again! As I say good bye to this post, I would like to thank some people who really made this trip the best!

- My Travel Agent - Savion Travels. Especially Mr. Pankaj and Mr.Anand for arranging everything from NJP and back!
- Mr. Ram - Our very wise driver - Showed us the most beautiful sunrise and took us to some breath taking spots.
- The Hotels - Fortune Resort, Darjeeling. Royal Demazong, Gangtok. Fortuna Lodge, Lachen - They served us unconditionally and made us comfortable in the not-so-comfortable weather conditions.
- Mr. Kumar - Our driver from Gangtok to Guru-Dongmar and back. No matter how slow you were, you were surely courageous enough to drive through those paths for a living!
- IRCTC Cafeteria @ Kolkata and NJP - You fed us well and didn’t charge a fortune!
- The cook @ Lachen - You served us the best food ever!
- The book stalls at every station and airport - You are the source of a lot of time pass.
- Finally, Mother India - You are simply beautiful!

Vishnu and I had set out from Chennai on Oct 31st to explore North East India. Our journey was very long and involved different modes of transportation. One thing we knew was, no matter how far or how long it would take, it is gonna be worth it, and guess what, IT WAS!

From Chennai we took a Flight to Kolkata. Our flight experience was pretty weird. the airlines called us up 2 days prior to the journey informing us on the change of timings. We religiously followed their time table and reached the airport 2 hours in advance (the flight timings were advanced), the weird part is, the flight was delayed for 2 hours and we finally took off at the same time as before! Grr..

At Kolkata we had 4 hours before our train to NJP and we decided to check out the most wanted tourist spot in Kolkata - The Victoria memorial. The cab ride to this place was quiet an adventure as we did not know how on earth he fit his big ass cab in between 2 lorries and 3 bikes! The cab driver stopped at a strange dark quiet place telling us “Victoria Memorial aa gaya” - We turned 360 degrees to spot where the monument was, but couldn’t spot anything except bushes and trees. Our hearts sunk thinking that we have been cheated by the Cab and he has for some reason Kidnapped us! (hehe…we should have realised that we are no celebs). The cab driver had to “literally” convince us that he brought us to the right place and because of our strange reaction he quickly took his fare and drove away. Like aliens we walked towards the trees and then found the huge monument hiding in the DARK! To our surprise, the Victoria Memorial was not lit and we could not capture the beauty in the night! :-( the only good part was the surrounding garden. We simply witnessed the ‘Colourful Fountain Dance” at the gardens and headed to Sealdah Station…

At the station we took our dinner @ the “humble” IRCTC cafeteria. (I will explain the “humble” - ness in my forthcoming posts…). We ate some quarter dozen bread omelettes (only 3 duh!) and waited for our train to arrive. As the train arrived at the station, we saw a huge crowd of people very obediently getting into a queue at the platform. Trust me, I have never seen such a disciplined queue anywhere before! This queue was guarded by the Cops (of course, what do you think we Indians were born with discipline in the blood?)- This queue was to get into the “unreserved” bogie! Luckily we had confirmed tickets and did not get into this ever-growing queue. The overnight train to NJP (New Jalpaiguri) was comfortable and yes, well lit! (Thank God!) - NJP was our starting point to our 1 week long vacation and we wanted to get there as fast as we could (or rather as fast as the steam engine could).

The train started and so was our reading time..:) We read for a few hours until we heard our co-travellers complain about lights not turned off. We bid good-bye to our beloved books and the co-travellers and proceeded to see some beautiful dreams :)

Some photos and lots more stories coming up next »