Darjeeling Trip Report Feb 07

gooroong

hahahalol!!!yeah prepared to sleep with your clothes ,no heating system as the electricity department is real bad this is since ages and no improvement as till date , can you imagine that you need a stabilizer or what it is called to watch tv and so is the water crisis in Darjeeling . Darjeeling is getting crowded day by day like every cities and towns cant help there . but don't concentrate in the town there are places out of town to see.

mantru

wow i never thought about the dhr must be its because we saw it daily i'll have to make it a point to get a ride next time i go home........good write up...

shalpiyal

Hi, we are waiting for your full travelogue.

mishu_bashori

Hello Everybody,

I am Mishu from Bangladesh. I like to have a trip to Darjeeling and Kolkatta in Coming september. Now i need to prepare the plan for the tour. In such situation i need whole heared support from u guys. Can u pls help me in this situation.
I like to make the tour plan simple and with in the budget.
Waiting for ur help.
Regards.
miSHU

shalpiyal

Hi, I warn everybody not to go to Darjeeling for this year. Plz wait for improvement of political situation of Darjeeling. Nepali people are now in violent mood to threat tourists on demand of Gorkhaland. Why the Nepales have come to Darjeeling leaving behind Nepal ? They should go to Nepal and place their demand before Mr. Prachanda for Gorkhaland.

machadinha

Because the British brought them in starting some 150 years ago to work as laborers and on their newly-developed tea plantations, when the entire area was much less inhabited than it is now.

People of Nepali and other Himalayan stock (notably Lepchas, it seems) will have lived here long before it of course. That is, after all, its location and therefore history. Again, they were apparently in small numbers, but that wasn't because others were in the majority over them, the place was just scarcely populated. The area btw was apparently ruled alternately by the kingdoms of Nepal and that of Sikkim until the early 19th century, until again finally the British annexed it from Sikkim (1849). You'll realize Sikkim itself only officially became an Indian state in 1975.

(And all in a nutshell, of course, there'll no doubt be more to be said about it.)

On another note and Mishu, I don't know what the current situation is, and so can't advise you on travel plans there for September. Hopefully others can. For travel plans as such, minus any political complications, you should find a lot of inspiration on this site already, so suggest to read and search around some.

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mantru

hey guys hope you like this i too was quite confused coz all these years i knew I was an Indian Nepali my forefathers were born in darjeeling and people ask us whether we cane from nepal....this made me do a little research and discuss with friends as well...below is what my friend wrote to me.....

Before you had the foundation of the namgyal dynasty, modern Sikhim and the Gorkha kingdom you had the Kirati kingdom of Bijaypur in what was modern eastern Nepal and Sikkim. The population consisted of Khambus, Magars, Rongs and Tsongs. Tsongs or the Limbus. The Bhutias came over from Chumbi Valley in Tibet and usurped the power in Sukhim and Started the namgyal dynasty. With the rise of the house of Gorkhas Wallo Kirat, Majh Kirat and Pallo Kirat(sukhim) was taken over, then the title Rai was given to the Kambhus, Dewan to the yakhas and Subba to the Tsongs(Limbus) and Lepcha tothe Rongs.(above mentioned are the casts )
See the funny part is all researchers say that there were Tsongs, Rongs, Kiratis(All three are cousins mind you), magars etc but they question where did the Nepalis/Gorkhas come from?
Researchers can be such duds its like saying during the british raj there were so many bengalis , so many Malayalis and so many marathis then suddenly in 1947 there were so many Indians dunno where they came from must be immigrants.The concept of India came with the British raj all protectorates and princly states merged into a single entitiy India and all ethnicities into Indian similarly all baise (22)and chaubise(24) rajyas and fieldoms merged into the Gorkah Kingdom later Nepal( whcih was initially only the valley) and all ethnicities into the Gorkha. So there is no questionof saying we werent there.

The british merged part of Nepal and Sikkim into india when we got independence....so since then we are called Indians as well as all the people who reside in India i guess......

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somnath

Thanks for this valuable information. It was known to me (thanks to those friendly staffs in tourist lodge and some other friends from Darjeeling) that Gorkhas and Nepalese people are different (as per the Nationality) and Gorkhas of Darjeeling hills are very much Indian. But I didn’t know the history in detail as it is described in this thread – its really interesting.

Correct me if I am wrong, there was some dispute regarding reservation ( Nepalese Gorkha come under reservation but the Gorkhas from Darjeeling were not … or similar issue) which created a lot of grievances among the people of Hills.
- I don’t think there is any disagreement (may be some misinterpretation due to Mongolian features).

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machadinha

If you mean what causes the conflicts here, I believe at the heart of it lies people's feeling that they are under- or misrepresented by the West Bengal administration in far-away Kolkata yes. The fact that the place has been bursting out of its seams over say the past 5 decades will no doubt have further fueled tensions.

This resulted in calls for a separate Gorkhaland (as well as some other groups with their own demands I believe; e.g., Kamtapur), and finally the unrest in the 1980's. Which was placated by the granting of a form of greater regional autonomy indeed. Apparently and perhaps predictably some feel this wasn't enough, or hasn't done enough for them.

This probably also helps explain why the protesters would rather speak to the central government directly, not to the West Bengal government. Aside from trying to make a fool of the latter, I suppose.

(And again in a nutshell and just my take, of course.)

somnath

Hmmmm…. right, these issues… well I also think this issues can be solved by the central Govt. not any state Govt. but one thing is clear, no one - I mean no leader tried to solve the problem. Let it be Ghishing, Gurung or any big name from Kolkata. See, these political leader all are same – may be their geographical location is different but the intension is same. Leader from plain land or leaders from hills the target is to keep the issue alive and burning so that they can keep their activities on.