Eastern Himalayan Sojourn

Three days in Kolkata, then up the old cart road to Darjeeling. This is the eastern Himalaya at walking pace: first flush plucked in Happy Valley, Kangchenjunga at 5.40am from Tiger Hill, cymbidium orchids…

Length: 14 days, 13 nights
From: ₹3,35,000 per person
Pace: Balanced
Stops: 6
Best months: March to May, October to December

The route

6 stops over 14 days

Kolkata
Darjeeling
Kalimpong
Gangtok
Pelling
Bagdogra

Kumartuli’s clay idol workshops on a Kolkata morning
Kangchenjunga turning gold from Tiger Hill at 5.40am
First flush plucking and tasting at Happy Valley estate
The monks’ morning puja in the courtyard at Rumtek
Rabdentse’s roofless throne room in Pelling’s oak forest

Day by day

What actually happens

Length: 14 days
Stops: 6
Pace: Balanced
From: ₹3,35,000

1

Kolkata

Arrive Kolkata

Arrival at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International. Kolkata’s traffic is a genuine variable, so allow an hour to Chowringhee. Rest, then take the evening slowly: a tram down Rabindra Sarani if one is running, or simply tea and fish kobiraji at the hotel. The city’s noise settles around eleven, and the crows start again at half past five.

Night: The Oberoi Grand, Kolkata
2B L

Kolkata

Flower market, potters and College Street

Out at six for Mullick Ghat flower market under the Howrah Bridge, where marigold garlands are sold by the hundredweight. Then Kumartuli, the potters’ quarter, where Durga’s clay armature is built up on straw and Ganges silt. Breakfast of kochuri and cholar dal on College Street, and the afternoon in the Marble Palace and the Indian Museum’s Gandhara galleries.

Night: The Oberoi Grand, Kolkata
3B L

Kolkata

Company Kolkata, on foot

A slower day. St John’s Church and Job Charnock’s mausoleum, the Armenian church of Nazareth, then the South Park Street Cemetery, where the tombs read like a catalogue of the fevers that killed the Company’s young men. Lunch in a Bow Barracks Anglo-Indian home. Late afternoon at the Victoria Memorial and Mother House, and dinner of kosha mangsho in Ballygunge.

Night: The Oberoi Grand, Kolkata
4B D

Darjeeling

Up the Hill Cart Road to Darjeeling

Morning flight to Bagdogra, an hour and ten minutes, then the climb: seventy kilometres and three and a half hours up the Hill Cart Road through Kurseong, crossing the toy train line more times than you can count. Tea gardens on both sides, then cloud. Darjeeling appears at 2,045 metres, wrapped in it. Warm clothes come out of the bag tonight.

Night: Windamere Hotel, Darjeeling
5B

Darjeeling

Tiger Hill dawn and Happy Valley

Up at four for Tiger Hill. From 2,590 metres, if the sky obliges, Kangchenjunga’s five peaks go pink then gold at about 5.40, with Everest a small dark tooth to the west. Ghum monastery and the Batasia Loop on the way down. Later, Happy Valley tea estate: plucking, withering, rolling, and a tasting of the second flush muscatel.

Night: Windamere Hotel, Darjeeling
6B

Darjeeling

Mountaineers, red pandas and B-class steam

A day for the town. The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and Tenzing Norgay’s memorial, the Padmaja Naidu zoo’s red pandas and snow leopards, and the railway workshop with its 1889 B-class locomotives. Afternoon on Chowrasta with a pot of Makaibari, or the two-hour walk to Bhutia Busty monastery, where Evans-Wentz worked on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Night: Windamere Hotel, Darjeeling
7B D

Kalimpong

Across the Teesta to Kalimpong

Down the ridge and across the Teesta at Melli, a green-grey river running fast, then up again to Kalimpong at 1,250 metres, about three hours in all. The town was a wool and mule terminus for the Tibet trade until 1959, and it still looks it. Afternoon at Dr Graham’s Homes and the Deolo hill viewpoint above the valley.

Night: Elgin Silver Oaks, Kalimpong
8B L

Kalimpong

Orchid nurseries and the Kangyur

Kalimpong grows much of India’s cut flower crop. Morning in the cymbidium and anthurium nurseries, then Zang Dhok Palri Phodang, whose library holds 108 volumes of the Kangyur sent up from Tibet in 1959. Lunch in a Lepcha home. Afternoon free: the Durpin monastery, or the cactus houses, or nothing at all with a book on the lawn.

Night: Elgin Silver Oaks, Kalimpong
9B D

Gangtok

Into Sikkim: Gangtok

Permit formalities at Rangpo take twenty minutes, then Sikkim proper: cardamom under the trees, prayer flags on every bend, and the Teesta below. Three and a half hours to Gangtok at 1,650 metres. Late afternoon at Do Drul Chorten, where 108 prayer wheels are turned clockwise by a steady queue of pilgrims, and then MG Marg, pedestrianised and swept.

Night: Mayfair Spa Resort, Gangtok
10B

Gangtok

Rumtek, Tibetology and Enchey

Rumtek, forty minutes out, is the seat of the Karmapa and the largest monastery in Sikkim; the morning puja is loud with shawms and long trumpets. Back in town, the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology holds thangkas and a fine collection of Lepcha manuscripts. Afternoon at Enchey monastery among the pines, and a plate of Sikkimese phagshapa if you are hungry.

Night: Mayfair Spa Resort, Gangtok
11B

Gangtok

Tsomgo Lake at 3,780 metres

Permits are arranged the night before, since Tsomgo is a protected area and foreign nationals need paperwork and a registered vehicle. The road climbs to the lake at 3,780 metres in about two hours, a glacial oval that freezes solid by January, with yaks in gaudy blankets on the shore. Altitude is real here: move slowly, drink water, and say so if your head aches.

Night: Mayfair Spa Resort, Gangtok
12B D

Pelling

West Sikkim by way of Ravangla

West Sikkim by road: about five hours via Ravangla, with a stop at the 41-metre Buddha at Tathagata Tsal and, if the weather holds, tea at Ralang. Lunch of thukpa somewhere with a view. Pelling is small and strung along one ridge at 2,150 metres; from the hotel lawn, Kangchenjunga is close enough to feel like weather rather than scenery.

Night: The Chumbi Mountain Retreat, Pelling
13B

Pelling

Pemayangtse and the Rabdentse ruins

Wake for the mountain, since the light is best between 5.30 and six. Pemayangtse, founded in 1705, is Nyingma and strictly ordered; upstairs is Zangdok Palri, a seven-tiered wooden model of Guru Rinpoche’s heaven, carved over five years by a single monk. Walk twenty minutes on to the Rabdentse ruins, the old royal capital, roofless under oaks.

Night: The Chumbi Mountain Retreat, Pelling
14B

Pelling to Bagdogra

Down to Bagdogra and departure

Departure day, and an early one: the drive down to Bagdogra takes four and a half to five hours through Jorethang and Sevoke, so we leave by seven for a midday flight. Breakfast is packed if needed. Our representative sees you into the terminal for your connection to Delhi or Kolkata and onward home.

Night: Departure day, no overnight