Day 3
We had booked two rooms in The Swiss Hotel. One a cottage and the other a suite, Tenzing Norgay suite which was in first floor. The suites are located at separate building and one can have the view of the snow clad Kanchenjunga from there on a clear day. There is a point in the hotel with the latitude and longitude markings of the mountain. both the cottage and the suite were spacious. But unfortunately when we visited it was cloudy and we were not able to have the view. In the reception there are pics of old Darjeeling and to note that The Swiss Hotel was constructed in British era and all there was only muddy roads in the terrain. But you have to visit the place now to see the structures developed there. Even the roads are narrow and if you get caught in a traffic jam, that's all, you need to wait for minimum 2 hours :(
The driver came to the hotel after inquiring with us sharp on time. His name was Mr.Prashant. He told us that he was driving there for around 5 years and belongs to Nepal. In fact most of the locals were Nepalis who knew Hindi. And the locals preferred walking and they climbed up and down the mountains to reach their homes. And the main source of income was tourism and related activities here!
So first we visited the Peace Pagoda or the Japanese temple. It was a beautiful place with wonderful views. Next we went to Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoo. The specialty here was various wild cats. And yes the terrain is hilly, so you will get knee pain if you are not used to walking ;)
Kids dressed like locals from rental shop there. So we came outside to find our car not there. We called the driver , seems like he had parked in a different place to avoid held up in traffic.
In the lane down the zoo, there was a line of shops selling spices. We didn't buy it since we did not know it was original or not. We did miss the rope way. Our driver took us to some tea estate where we can buy darjeeling tea. But there were lots of stalls there giving samples of tea to tourists and we have to buy from the same shop the driver halts us. We did not quite like the idea and did not buy anything. On the way back he showed us a famous college in Darjeeling where some film shootings have taken place. Films like Main Hoon Na and Yaariyan have been shot there.
He then took us to a place called the rock garden. This place was quite faraway from the town. I think around 10 km. the roads were really steep and very sharp bends. This place had a stream surrounded by rock walls cut at various heights. This rock garden and the zoo were the only places we liked on the whole!
It was well past lunch time and we wanted a good vegetarian hotel to calm our stomach after all that walking up and down. It was very hard to find a vegetarian restaurant here and that too most of them had bars in it! So we simply asked the driver to take us to one and he took us to such a place.Though the place was not quite tidy and it was well past lunch time. We ordered some momos,rice and dal. So it was tasty afterall but i don't remember the name of this place now :( Other than this time all our food was at The Swiss Hotel all the time and it was delicious like simple home-made food which chef Krishna and his team served us. Momos,noodles,dal,rice and once we had kichdi, for breakfast it was bread toast and puris with aloo masala. Some more dishes added to the menu will make it more good!
So after having this light meal the driver left us back in the resort. We freshened up and got ready for shopping. There's no fun without shopping in any place!
So we walked all the way to the Mall Road and Chowrasta, the heart of Darjeeling. Kids enjoyed ride on a horse. The whole place was crowded and it was quite windy and cloudy. Our shopping was for some shoes, hand gloves in woollen,nose guards, jerkins,mufflers.All for the trip to Yumthang and Lachung in Gangtok. Seeing the climate here, we could somewhat anticipate the weather in higher altitudes :)
It was lightly drizzling and so wound up our shopping soon and returned to the resort. Also we need to wake up early the next day to see the sunrise at the Tiger Hills. We need to be ready by 3:30 AM so that we can catch up the sunrise at 4:30 AM. Waking up so early in the cold weather was too much.So we were debating whether to go or not, but glad we could make it and that too on time! So we had an early dinner that day!
Day 4
So we were all ready by 3:30, our driver came sharp 3:30AM and we had our uphill drive for another 45 min to reach Tiger Hills. So when we reached the road to board our car we could already see so many cars buzzing ahead. So we could imagine the traffic pileup ahead. Also it was somewhat a clear day. So the driver took us in a somewhat different route to take us to the top on time ahead of the traffic. But the road was bad and he also said that it was part of a Tiger reservoir. So we were there on time and yes the weather was so chilly that literally everyone of us were dancing, even after having so much of protection. So the sunrise happened around 4:30 and we stayed there for 10 min. After this our driver took us to some Botanical garden with some viewpoints shown from telescope, The old Darjeeling palace and some other places.By that time it was already 7:30 Am and we drank some tea and had some momos there.
So we came back to our rooms. It was time to bid good bye to Darjeeling. We left the place after we had our lunch by 12:30 pm. Though it was with heavy heart that we did leave the place , our minds were waiting for the onward journey especially to Lachung and Yumthang and the snow there!
We did start our journey around 2pm after the driver came and took us to the taxi stand. So for Pelling drop we had a different driver. The distance is around 108 km .It takes around 2-3hrs because of the road conditions. West Bengal side of the route is so bad compared to Sikkim side.So we reached there around 4pm with a stopover nearly 30 min before the destination for restroom.
So if i need to tell about Pelling in short, it's a place in West Sikkim which could be easily called a town. And we could easily see that the number of lodges or resorts were way more than the total population. Clearly tourism and agriculture were the only job activities here. And the whole town shuts down early around 7pm. So it would be wise if u can find a place to stay that has a well maintained and run restaurant. Ours was something sort of a home stay with a very small kitchen. But the location was very good. It is situated in Lower Pelling away from all the maddening crowd. The place iam talking about is Himalayan Retreat. This place is very near to Chumbi Valley resort. At 2500/- per day we could have taken any other place as well. But since the construction was new we had no issues with bed and bath. Only food was the problem to us. But i can say that any other place in Middle or Upper Pelling can give you a better view. We had booked 3 rooms here. One was without any view. And i can say that when we went there all the rooms(8) were full. So if you are not bothered about food and dont have any elders and can really walk up for some good food then you can go here!
So we had some disappointment that day with regard to food but had a nice stay in the cosy place.
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