Travel to Darjeeling and Gangtok.
Maya Luki Luki, Maya Luki Luki. Music is playing somewhere nearby. Nepali music. I don’t know the meaning of the song, but the melody and rhythm are quite nice. Very sweet. It’s nice to hear the song. Asked a local, he said it was a love song. Quite popular it is here. Later I looked on YouTube and saw that it was a hidden love song. As I listened to the song in a beautiful seating area for pedestrians on MG Marg, the heart of Gangtok, I thought …… the heroine of this song, and I … the rest goes without saying.
I have heard about the beauty of Darjeeling and Gangtok, their appearance long ago. Ever since then I have wanted to visit these places. Time was no longer an opportunity. Finally, there is an opportunity to see and enjoy the beauty of all this.
Yes, I have seen this beauty, on the way from Siliguri to the Himalayan Duhita Darjeeling, on the way to Darjeeling, down the hill, on the way from Darjeeling to Gangtok through its paved road, on the hilly road of Gangtok, the light of Tiger Hill to Kanchenjunga On the street. At the top of the hill, about thirteen thousand feet above the plain, on the way to Samagu or Sangu Lake.
Have you ever seen a car park on the roof? I saw. In Darjeeling! The houses built on the slopes of the hill have different floors. There are also four, five, six, or eight-story houses here. Those houses are built in the folds of the hill. The houses at the bottom are connected by stairs to the street above. The houses along the main road have risen to street level. Some houses have risen higher. I saw cars parked on the roofs of some houses. Darjeeling crowded with tourists. Hotels, motels, roads, tourist spots are buzzing with people everywhere.
The three of us boarded the Panchagarh-bound train ‘Drutayan Express’ on the night of June 10 to witness the beauty of the Himalayan Duhita. Tickets were booked in advance. The train was supposed to reach Panchagarh by 6 am but arrived quite late, around 10:30 am. Four hours behind schedule. Anyway, after breakfast, I reached the bus stand by van and from there I reached Banglabandha by bus at around one in the afternoon. After completing the immigration and customs formalities at the border between the two countries, it took about three o’clock in the afternoon to cross the Phulbari and reach Siliguri in a reserved auto. In Siliguri, he took a taxi as usual. Eventually, the shared car took off on the way to Darjeeling at around quarter to four. Three and a half to four hours journey to Darjeeling. It was quite hot in Siliguri then. We got tired of running a little.
There were two passengers in the car who lives in Darjeeling. They said cold air would be available shortly. That’s why, after driving for a while, I started getting some cool air. The closer the car gets to Darjeeling, the colder the air. After a while I started to see the mountains. I saw a wonderful view of the clouds floating in the mountains in the joy of the mind. I remembered my daughter Abdar.
– Dad, what will you bring for me from Darjeeling?
– – Tell me what you want to take, mother.
– I want to take the cloud, Dad.
– – What! Clouds!
– Yes, Dad. Bring me the clouds, bring me the ice, and bring me the moon. Ok dad
– – Okay mom, I’ll go to the land of the clouds and tell the clouds by ear, you fly to my little Noramani, OK.
– Haha ha, well Dad, so tell me.
I was thinking of my daughter Abdar when I saw the clouds in the hills of Darjeeling. At one point we really reached the land of the clouds. It started to get a bit cold then. We are going up the road along the hill. In the body of the eighteen-year-old daughter of the Himalayas, we climbed even higher to see the beauty arranged in layers. We had to stop at a place on the road as the car got hot. I was looking around while sipping on a smoked cup of Darjeeling tea. Looked very good. The mind was lost in the obsession of a kind of beauty in the crevices of the mountains. After listening to a lot of talk about Darjeeling for a long time, I thought it was probably old! But no. I felt Darjeeling is evergreen, ever-youthful. At one point, after crossing the famous Sleep Railway Station, we arrived at Mallroad, the heart of Darjeeling, at about eight-thirty in the morning. Named early night in the mountains. But what’s in it? Darjeeling was then busy welcoming its guests.
We got up at a hotel to find out, ate, and drank and went to bed early. I woke up at four in the morning the next day. The purpose is to see the sunrise from Tiger Hill to the top of Kanchenjunga, breaking its paradigm, to illuminate the earth in its light. Pushing a lot of jams, when I reached Tiger Hill, Suryimama was still sleeping obsessively behind the light clouds. Who knows what happened to the clouds suddenly! The golden aura of the sun on the top of Kanchenjunga is the aesthetic beauty that he hid from us today. What else to do! Then we visited Batasia Loop and Ghum Monastery had breakfast and returned to the hotel room at half-past ten in the morning. The Batasia Loop place is also quite beautiful. Beauty scattered all around. I want to become a poet in the hands of beauty. If I could write a beautiful poem!
The hill beauty of Darjeeling is remarkable, but I have also noticed some of its flaws. He seems to be struggling to cope with the pressure of extra tourists. There is a lot of traffic on the road, there is a lot of dirt around the road, I like the use of a hotel owner or a restaurant owner or a taxi driver.
No. Speaking in Bengali, I came from Kolkata and heard two harsh words from my sister (Mamata Di, CM). The reason I did not understand.
Gangtok’s words
The Himalayan Duhita Darjeeling seemed quite tired from the crowd of tourists. Compared to that, I like the environment, hospitality, cleanliness of Gangtok and Sikkim or the movement and behavior of the people there very much. There was a lot of interest in Gangtok, another daughter of the Himalayas. I have been wanting to go to Gangtok for a long time. I’m here. Iqbal Bhai and Sarwar Bhai are long time office companions. Twelve June afternoon we drove from Darjeeling to Gangtok. All the views on both sides of the hilly path from Darjeeling to Gangtok. Seen with the naked eye, its literary form is almost impossible. Sometimes it was just a small attempt to capture some scenes by clicking on the camera. Soon after, houses, small markets, fresh vegetable shops along the road, above or below. The lower or upper houses are connected by stairs to the main street. On the way, we stopped the car at a place and had lunch with satisfaction. Suddenly one thing was noticed, there is no shortage of water in this whole area. I went to our Nilgiri, Nilachal or Sajek hills, along the mountain path of the Sangu River, crossed the big rocks, and went to Remakri, further away to the inaccessible Nafakhum spring. I have seen quite a shortage of usable water almost everywhere. And when I came here, I saw the opposite. There is no shortage of water, on the contrary, it seems to be an overflow of water. The freshwater flowing from the mountain springs has been cleverly spread throughout the area with the help of pipes. There is no deep tubewell, pea or tank to draw water. Wisdom is to be admired.
Twelve June evening our car reached the border of Sikkim. Here you have to take a different side, to enter Sikkim. Only one female and one male officer were in charge of the office. There was no crowd. No money was spent and in about ten minutes we got back the passport with permission. I was quite surprised to get the service very quickly. Getting off at the Old Private Taxi Stand in Gangtok, it was not too late to get to the hotel. I rented a nice room at a hotel called Magnolia for two thousand five hundred rupees. There is a mosque in front, there is a hotel for food in a nearby home environment, it was good. After getting up in the room and freshening up, I went back to MG Marg. I had to go up the stairs to the seventh/eighth floor. We hurried up the hill.
Seeing the local site the next day. Visiting various spots around Gangtok. Mountain Fountain, Tasi View Point, Plant Conservatory, Ganesh Talk, Gangtok Ropeway, etc. Kanchenjunga can be seen from Tasi View Point. The view from the Tasi View Point in Gangtok in the clear sky is amazing. You will want to look at the peak of Kanchenjunga for a long time. Let me say here, Kanchenjunga is the third highest peak in the world. Located at an altitude of about twenty-eight thousand feet. That is the origin of the river Teesta. Part of Kanchenjunga falls in Nepal and part of Sikkim.
The temperature in Gangtok is excellent. A city that is very clean and tidy. I like it very much. No noise, no garbage, no stench, everyone is following the rules. No quarrels, no beggars, no hawkers, no one spitting or coughing. A little successive traffic police. They seemed very responsible and quite humane. No one wants money by stopping cars unnecessarily. They are also paying the bill by eating like others in the food shop. No brains. Only two lanes on the hilly road, I did not see any accident. The accustomed driver is driving at a very fast speed with strong hands. The income earned by the drivers is astonishing. About one and a half lakh rupees per month. They have expensive watches, clothes, shoes. There is no such thing as Bangaliana for men or women, but there is a kind of beauty in it. I did not see any filth.
Let me share with you a couple of small incidents that caught my eye while walking the streets of Gangtok.
We were trying to take a picture of Kanchenjunga from Tasi View Point in the local sightseeing that day. I saw an old couple. Requested to take pictures. I liked it very much. I captured some pictures of them at different angles. They did not forget to say thank you with a smile. I also shook my head and thanked everyone. I don’t know who else is with them, there was no talk. But the thing we like is that even at this age, we get addicted to travel. To know the world, to see the form of the creation of the Creator with two eyes, maybe both of them have come out. They did not accept the age barrier.
One evening on MG Marg Road in Gangtok, I met another family like this. I was watching the tourists move. Many were capturing the camera with the sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi. Suddenly a cameraman requested me for a picture. There are many professional cameramen in such tourist spots, they take pictures and print them immediately. I thought something like that. I didn’t. Then it suddenly occurred to me that he was not one of them. I went back to him and cleared the matter, took his camera in my hand and captured some of their family pictures at different angles. Everyone in the family thanked. I also thanked, it was good.
Walking on the hilly roads of Gangtok is not as easy as on the plains. But life does not stop there. Everyone is accustomed to hard work. On hilly roads, walking is difficult but locals are used to it. A