A Day In Darjeeling
Magical Darjeeling
By Avinash Savant
“The next morning came up with all the universal energies and woke me up at 6:30 AM.”
Day 2, 23 December 2012
The next morning came up with all the universal energies and woke me up at 6:30 AM. It was bright outside and I was feeling healthy as a horse and maybe hungry as one too. I woke Maithili and we just peeped outside our room window, and we were stunned. Enormous Kanchanjunga was looking us straight in the eyes. We had never seen such a beauty in our lives so close. With such a happy and healthy morning, we got ready, had our breakfast quickly and enquired about places of interest that we had shortlisted. We took some footage of Kanchanjunga and then mounted my GoPro camera on our motorcycle.
We went straight to Padmaja Naidu Zoological Park. This is a very beautiful and well-maintained park with animals kept in natural habitat. The specialty of this park is, they have done successful breeding programs for Red Panda and Snow Leopards which are the endangered species of this region. Watching these rare animals and exotic birds was a real pleasure to our eyes. Due to the dense plantations inside the park we were able to see lots of colorful birds flying and chirping around with their sweet whistles. We took video footage, photographs, and whatever we could absorb from the surrounding. The park also consists of Himalayan Mountaineering Institute which has tremendous visual information about all Himalayan expeditions done so far. The entrance has a proudly welcoming statue of Tenzing Sherpa on top of Mount Everest. The museum is a must visit place and it reminds us of how great the mother nature is. What makes these mountaineers so fascinated about Mighty Himalaya that they are even unafraid of the accidental death as well. We got the answer when we visited this place. It also has a miniature of Himalayan mountain range with various peaks represented with LED lights. We can press the button of any peak we want to see from the console outside and the respective mountain peak will glow with red light. Amazing and interactive way to provide information.
Just outside the museum there is a photo studio where one can dress in Bhutia attire and get photographed. Earlier I used to laugh on people who get their photographs clicked such, but this time I loved it and we both got ourselves clicked in that attire. After this we went ahead to see Darjeeling rope way. This rope way was built for the locals to travel down to the tea estates, but now has been restricted only for tourists. It takes you down to the tea estates slowly, providing a great view of Kanchanjunga. We enjoyed it a lot. While on the rope way journey a local young man who was being a guide to a tourist, started conversation with us. As the time passed we became more of friends and he was happily busy in talking to us than being a guide to a tourist. He and his brother arrange mountaineering expeditions in Himalayas and he instantly shared his number in case we plan to do one. Then we talked about each other’s culture and life styles. It was fun to interact with him. Finally we bid him goodbye at the end of ropeway ride and headed straight to local Momo stalls. We had steamy hot Momos and Omlets.
Suddenly we remembered about yesterday’s pending things. We had to do the Bike paper work and minor adjustments in bike settings at Gautam’s workshop. So we went to Gautam’s café and got our motorcycle settings done. Talked to his staff about our next day’s plan and asked them for rout directions. Since Gautam was not around, I decided to come to café again in the evening for paper work. We spent some good time at chow-rasta and watched people enjoying the live musical concert. Then we went to Gautam’s café again for paper work and there we had a long discussion about travelling, adventures etc. Gautam and his friend Sharad shared their journey experiences in North East and showed us their travel pictures and videos. We had a good time with both of them. They offered us some wine which added colors to our conversation. Finally by 9:45 PM we wrapped our never lasting conversation and said good bye, since we had to get up early the next day. Came back to hotel and went to sleep. What a beautiful first day it was.
