Lava is a small hill station nestled amongst the luxurious and pristine forests of the Neora Valley National Park in the Kalimpong Hills. The national park, which spreads over eighty-eight square kilometres, with its highest point at 3,200 meters, still remains largely unexplored due to its inaccessible, rugged terrain. The virgin forests of ferns, bamboos, birch, fir, pine and oaks canopied by colourful rhododendrons and innumerable species of orchids are home to the red panda, along with other mammals such as bears, leopards, serows, deers, tahrs, gorals and flying squirrels. The trees and bushes are filled with birds too numerous to name, and at every turn, one would be mesmerised by a lone butterfly dancing around wildflowers or by the song of a warbler or a flycatcher amidst the incessant drone of cicadas. In the distance, through a clearing at a bend, with mist suddenly lifted, one could witness the sun dazzling over the snow-capped Himalayan peaks.
We reached Lava on a foggy afternoon. The overnight train to New Jalpaiguri was late, and the cab we arranged to take us to Lava sped through the Baikunthapur Forest alongside an irrigation canal fed by the turquoise waters of the Teesta from Gajoldoba Barrage. As I stared dreamy-eyed at the receding sal forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of an elephant herd, I noticed the driver dozing. I jumped in my seat and broke into a spontaneous conversation with him. It served no purpose other than the fact that he was now awake, and I asked if he wanted to take a break, have some tea. To which he shook his head, and we stopped speaking. Soon we reached Gajoldoba Barrage, and I was amazed how touristy the place was, with resorts and restaurants, parks and picnic spots.
Crossing the mighty Teesta, we drove through Gajldoba town, past alternating tea gardens and forests and occasional towns and bazaars. I called the WBFDCL (West Bengal Forest Development Corporation Limited) Resort, where we had booked our stay, to let them know that we were on our way and ordered lunch.
At Gorubathan, we began our ascent. However, the driver soon abandoned the main route and opted for a shortcut instead. Hobbling over what looked like a dry river bed and a vast undulated rocky field, up he began to climb. The road was a disaster, with loose stones and potholes, and the car strained and groaned. Soon the fog blanketed the chaos. The road was narrow, weaving through villages, past lone churches and shrines and colourful wooden huts with potted flowering plants on the porch. The driver stopped at a bend, and I too followed his cue and relieved myself in the woods—firs, pines and ferns; the fresh mountain air in my lungs. As we made past a hamlet, a young woman going in the same direction hitched a ride with us. In another fifteen minutes, we emerged back onto the highway to Lava.
At first glance, I wondered if the driver had brought us to the right place. The woman got down, and I enquired him if it was indeed Lava. He nodded, and I looked around at the quaint sleepy town engulfed in thick mist on a spring afternoon. The visibility was so poor that we could hardly see more than a couple of metres ahead. The driver asked a pedestrian for direction, and it turned out that the WBFDCL resort was just off the main road. He dropped us at the reception—a semi-circular roofed wooden cabin with a few rose shrubs in front. There was a table on the porch, and the door behind it led to the manager’s quarters. The manager welcomed us with a grin; it was the first and the last time we saw him. He glanced at our printed confirmation and nodded. We filled the guest register, and he handed us the keys and gave us the direction to our cottage. Across the manager’s cabin, some construction work going on; a few men, rather a few silhouettes, working on wooden planks, planing, sawing and hammering.
Our cottage was a little uphill, and we dragged our luggage up a steep road. The gable-roofed cottage was small and neat—wooden floor and walls, with a small porch in front. There were a couple of plastic chairs and a tea table, a dressing table-cum-wardrobe with extra blankets, and an attached bath with regular fittings. The dining hall was still uphill, past a couple more cottages. It was managed by a local couple. The wife cooked while the husband helped her in the kitchen and ran about the property doing various chores, his duties ranging from housekeeping to caretaking. They were the only employees besides the manager, and we were the only tourists staying there. The wife was a good cook; she had mastered the art of simple homemade food. On our arrival, lunch was waiting—rice, dal, julienned potato chips, and egg curry.
After lunch, we made our way through the town. The fog was still there, and the town was still deserted. Only a handful of shops were open, their stutters ajar. We did not spot a single tourist other than us, and the taxi stand did not have any taxis. Walking down the main road from the clock tower, we neither had any plan nor a clue as to where we were heading. Soon we found the Kagyu Thekchen Ling Monastery.
The Kagyu Thekchen Ling Monastery or Institute is a monastery-cum-learning centre for monks who wish to master higher Buddhist philosophies and become an Acharya. From the street, a colourful torana (gate) with traditional Tibetan Buddhist motifs welcomed us on a wide cemented path. The hill slope shrouded in mist was adorned with colourful prayer flags amidst trees. They fluttered gently in the breeze. The road forked a little ahead, with one going downhill to a newly built residential quarter for the monks, while another opening onto a courtyard with two red buildings facing each other. One of them was a temple.
Inside the temple, a row of monks rocked to and fro, reciting from the scriptures. The scent of butter lamps and incense filled the air. We didn’t enter. It seemed as if in doing so, we would violate something sacred. Instead, we spent a while in the courtyard, sitting on a cemented bench, observing another group of tourist; a family of six, men in monkey-caps, women in shawls, drinking tea, clicking selfies and poking their heads behind every door possible. Perhaps on a clear day, we might have spent our time doing something worthwhile, like looking outward at the valley below and trying to locate the Jelep Pass.
We walked towards our resort through the misty town. Presently, a handful of eateries had opened, and a few kids had emerged to chase each other on the street. A group of women sat on the steps of their home chatting. Instead of turning right to our resort, we headed straight from the taxi stand. We passed a church. A dog trailed me, and soon we were out of the town. The fog intensified as the late afternoon sun began to wane. It rolled down the hill slopes onto us, engulfing everything in its path. We retraced our steps, and by the time we reached the taxi stand, it had turned dark. Electric bulbs hanging outside homes and occasional streetlights guided us through the town, and we ordered a plate of chicken noodles at an eatery. A few men were slurping tea watching an old Hindi movie on the television. A young couple was sitting across us; they had had a tiff, and the girlfriend looked evidently grumpy and sullen. The food was alright.
As the evening grew, we sat on the porch of our cottage with a glass of wine in our hands. The caretaker arrived with a portable electric heater we had asked for, along with our dinner—mixed vegetables and chapatis. He said he was heading home. His wife stood in the distance, beyond the light’s reach. We thanked him, and he smiled and vanished in the fog, effectively cutting us off from the civilization. The night was cold and pitch dark. There were no stars to spot in the sky, and as the night progressed, the symphony of owls and crickets, frogs and wolves and other nocturnal beings intensified around us. We remained on the steps wrapped in an orb of light. Time was irrelevant now, for we were one with the self, in tune with the divine.
The following morning we headed into the Neora Valley National Park on our way to Rishop. Rishop, which offers spectacular views of the Kangchenjunga, is about 11 kilometres away from Lava. However, there is a trekking route through the forest, which is about 4 kilometres. This is what we took. After a light breakfast, we headed into the forest. The fog was there, but it was not as thick as on the previous day. We followed a narrow trail weaving through pine trees, uphill, past a shrine. The path soon widened considerably and became levelled with occasional ascents and descents. A few smiling faces passed us; otherwise, it was a short, lonely and beautiful walk. The forest grew dense in patches and crept upon us, the vines brushing against our shoulders, and then suddenly grew sparse. A man accompanied us for a while, conversing about various topics until it was time for him to confess that we were walking too slowly. We burst into laughter, and he bade us goodbye and marched ahead in swift strides, vanishing past a bend.
The village of Rishop opened before us without warning; homestays and hotels stacked at various levels on a hillside. I assumed that such an arrangement was to get the best view of the Kangchenjunga. However, we could not confirm as the weather had dashed even our faintest hopes of catching a glimpse of the majestic peak. We settled at a tea shop to drink tea. A group of people, kids to middle-aged men, were busy playing dart in front of the shop. I had never seen such a dart before. Its barrel was made of wood, and the tip was long, probably fashioned out of an iron nail. The flight was made of feathers. For the target, they had a short wooden post with the bulls-eye drawn on it with chalk. The kids were enthusiastic. The elders mostly took turns to throw the dart while the children scampered to fetch it for them. Sipping on tea with a dash of lime and ginger, we followed the game until a dog came and sniffed at my legs. I gave him a biscuit, and shortly another dog, the shopkeeper’s pet, who was sleeping inside, sprang to his feet and came out wagging his tail. I had no other option but to get busy feeding and petting. The woman who managed the shop giggled at their antics along with her kids, a couple of boys. After the biscuits were done with, the dogs simply curled near my feet, snuggling.
By the time we returned to Lava, we were famished. The caretaker’s wife did not fail to provide us with another delicious meal. In the afternoon, we went to the taxi stand to look for a car that would take us to Kalimpong the following day. The taxi stand was empty as usual, and after searching a while, we spotted a young man sitting inside a tiny wooden booth. We spoke with him, but he did not seem confident. He told us to wait and proceeded to the adjoining building. He climbed up a staircase on the outside of the building and peeked through a drawn curtain. A heavy man emerged from inside and plodded down the stairs to meet us. He looked sleepy and annoyed for being roused from his afternoon siesta. His voice was garbled, and he spoke in monosyllables. He informed us of the rate, and before we could open our mouths to negotiate, he clarified that the rate was fixed, set by the government. So we had no other choice than to agree, and he called the driver and asked him to pick us up at 10 o’clock. He gave us the driver’s phone number and left, clambering up the staircase to complete his nap.
Later, we walked around the town for a bit. It was just as deserted as it was on the previous day, with only a few shops open, with occasional voices emerging out of homes through half-opened windows. We returned around sunset and found the caretaker waiting on the porch with lunch boxes. They contained momos, along with our dinner—chicken curry and chapatis. The momos were probably the best I have ever had.
The following morning, our taxi arrived on time. We had had our breakfast by then. The driver telephoned me, and I asked him to come near our cottage, not prepared to haul the luggage all the way once again. The caretaker gave us a hand in loading the suitcases, and we thanked him for everything. The manager was nowhere to be seen, but we found the manager’s wife in the garden, tending the rose shrubs. She assured us that she would inform him, and we got in the car and started on our way to Kalimpong.
Kalimpong straddles atop the ridge connecting Deolo and Durpin Hills. On one side is the Teesta Valley through which the mighty Teesta flows and on the other is the Relli Valley. Across the Teesta to the north is the state of Sikkim, while to the west lies the district of Darjeeling. Historically, the region had been a part of the Sikkimese Kingdom and subsequently the Bhutanese Kingdom until the Anglo-Bhutan War of 1864. Popularly known as the Duar War, the war resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Sinchula. According to it, Bhutan ceded about 1/5th of its dominion to the British—the territories east of the Teesta, including the region of Bengal and Assam that is referred to as the Dooars, meaning ‘Door’ or ‘Gateway’. Kalimpong’s proximity to the Nathu La and Jelep La (La means A Mountain Pass in Tibetan) soon transformed it into an important trading post between India and Tibet, and its climate encouraged the British to develop it into a hill station, an alternative to Darjeeling. Kalimpong prospered, and people migrated from Nepal and southern Sikkim. Scottish missionaries set up schools and welfare centres, and in 1900, the notable Dr Graham’s Homes was founded. 1959 saw the arrival of Tibetan Buddhist monks as China annexed Tibet. In the subsequent years following the Sino-Indian War, Jelep La was permanently closed, and the economy of the region faltered.
Today, Kalimpong is a popular tourist destination, renowned for its schools and flower industry. The schools cater to students from all corners of the country and from our immediate neighbours—Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and even Thailand. Its nurseries are famous for rare indigenous orchids as the region boasts over 300 species of them. However, the district is not known for its tea, as over ninety per cent of it grows west of the Teesta in the Darjeeling District. Instead, it concentrates on cultivating ginger.
The tastefully done interiors complimented the views of the city. The food was excellent too. We ordered a pizza and ended our meal with a carrot cake. The sun had set, and by the time we finished our dinner, it had turned dark. The street lights had come on, and now we ambled along a different route towards our hotel. Along the way, we paused at a small roadside shop to buy chhurpi—a local variety of hard cheese. I had had it a long time ago when I was a kid studying in Kurseong and was eager to introduce it to my girlfriend. It is consumed like an areca nut; parked in the mouth so that it gradually turned moist. And although it doesn’t particularly have any taste and lasted for hours in the mouth, it is an excellent source of protein. My partner, however, didn’t savour it and spat it out after a long gruelling struggle, giving me the look. I burst into laughter. The route we had opted for was steep, almost a vertical climb, and we had to pause at intervals to catch our breath. We spent the rest of the evening on the balcony of our hotel room, gazing at the city lights flickering in the distance.
The following morning, we woke up with an upset stomach, which we attributed to our hotel food. Breakfast was included with our stay, and it turned out to be an even greater catastrophe than we had foreseen. The spread was varied, all laid out impeccably in chafing dishes on a long white table, but their quality was horrendous. The fruits were cold and stale, the idlis were hard as bricks, and the parathas were like rubber sheets. I nibbled on buttered toast and hard-boiled egg, those that could not have been influenced by the chef and headed out. We could have hired a car and visited the major tourist attractions of Kalimpong like Deolo or Durpin hill, but we didn’t. I do not like the idea of ticking boxes. One can never really see a place in its entirety, even if they spend a lifetime. In my own neighbourhood, where I have lived a long time, I always discover new things every time I take a walk. So it does not really matter how many tourist attractions you visit. At the end of the day, the trivial details stay with you as memories—the unknown turns, the obscure localities, the unexpected events.
We ambled uphill in search of a nursery. But when it didn’t appear even after hiking for more than half an hour, I realised that I had made a mistake. We were heading out of town; the road was narrow and the houses sparse. I stopped to ask for directions, and a man watering the plants in his front yard said that we had walked a long way in the wrong direction. We thanked him and retraced our steps downhill, pausing intermittently to enquire. A student explained to us the route in detail, and after that, it was a cakewalk. It turned out that we had missed a turn.
Pine View Nursery is one amongst the hundreds of nurseries in Kalimpong but is renowned for its collection of exotic cacti. It has an assortment of over 1,500 species of cacti from across the world and is Asia’s largest cacti collection. It is worth a visit if one is a cactus or succulent lover. We spent about half an hour there, roaming about the greenhouses in wonder.
Our next stop was St Teresa’s Church, which was about a kilometre downhill from the nursery. Built in Tibetan style, the structure is constructed of wood with corrugated iron roofing. The church invokes a deep sense of calm, and the artwork and carvings both inside and outside the building showcase the same ethnic style. We spent a while inside, sitting on the pew and staring at the rich, colourful altar and later, climbed up the bell tower adjacent to the church.
We were famished, and thus we proceeded along Lower Bridle Road in search of a place to have lunch. Luckily, the road was downhill, but unfortunately, there was not a restaurant in sight. It was a residential area, and apart from a few grocery stores or tea shops, there was nothing. We wandered off in wrong directions at times and munched on potato chips to keep our hopes alive for the remaining way until Rishi Road, the main highway traversing through the town. Cafe Refuel caught our eyes, and we went in. It was a biker-themed cafe, and we ordered roast chicken and something else, which I fail to recall as the dishes were almost indistinguishable in both appearance and taste. The food was average, but since we were hungry, we pounced on them as soon as they arrived.
In the late afternoon, we walked again, this time not making the same mistake as we had done the previous evening. Instead of taking Upper Cart Road, we took the steep road onto Rishi Road, now a descent. Since it was our last evening in Kalimpong, we decided to buy a few things, but before that, we went to see the 128-year old MacFarlane Memorial Church. The church is located near the heart of the town, just off the main street, a left onto K D Pradhan Road past Dambar Chowk. It was dispersal time for schools, and we wedged past the rush of students pouring out of Kalimpong Girls High School. However, when we reached, we found the church to be closed. We asked around, and a lady whose house was located just by the church informed us that it was closed for renovation.
We spent the evening ambling down the pavement, going inside stores to have a look and buy a few things to bring back home. I bought a pair of shoes, while my partner purchased a woolen sweater for a friend. After a light dinner, we returned to our hotel, past the post office and the Mayfair Hotel. The receptionist smiled at us, and we asked him to arrange a vehicle to take us to Bagdogra Airport the following morning. He enquired about our stay, and we took the opportunity to share our grievances about the quality of food. He nodded, sympathetic to our predicament, but ended the conversation with a sigh, indicating that the issue was well beyond his pay grade.
The following morning, we left Kalimpong. My heart wrenched, and I was overcome by melancholy as the car winded down the hills, following the course of the Teesta rolling down the valley. I looked out of the window—at the rushing green and the clear sky playing hide and seek—lamenting at the brevity of my tryst with the hills, yearning for “a few more days“, and simultaneously consoling and reprimanding my foolish heart: “You idiot, not even a lifetime would have been enough…”
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