Monsoon experience on the enchanting hill hamlets of Chatakpur,Jorpokhri &Tinchuley

Hi everyone,

Finally I am ready to share my unforgettable experience of visiting these beautiful hill hamlets of Darjeeling district,during the beginning of Monsoon this year. I apologize for being so late in writing the travelogue,but the memories are still fresh in my mind and I hope that it will give you all too,a mesmerizing feel of mist,clouds and rains as witnessed on hills. I also intend to be bit informative in my write-up to help out those who are planning to visit these places someday....

To start with,first I would like to share how I derived on the idea of visiting the Darjeeling hills this time of the year.

I have always been an ardent lover of hills. The beauty,the experience of rising above the plains, the vastness,the mystery at every turn and the weather at the hills fascinate me more than anything else. I am quite lucky to have visited almost all the major hill areas of India,like Kashmir,Himachal,Uttarakhand, Darjeeling/Sikkim,Jayanti & Khasi Hills,Panchmarhi,Mt Abu,Niligiris and even the much smaller ones like those in Araku Valley/Chattisgarh regions,but the urge to visit more just never stops...

Although I like many of these places,but the fact remains that Darjeeling hills have always been my most favourite. Infact,the entire North Bengal occupies a special place in my heart and I don't miss a single opportunity to visit this amazing wonderland of nature,with every other chance that comes my way..The area has got so much variety and places to offer that sometime I wonder whether we really need to look beyond when we have so much to see in our state only!

As told,while working here in Kolkata over the last few years, I have almost made it a habit to explore places in & around specially in North Bengal region in a span of every 3-4 months..this time,however the gap had been bit long because of some other engagement where I had to go to Thailand in the month of January 2012.
However,the call of the heart was knocking my mind and I made it a point to visit the hills in the beginning of June 2012. My last visit to hills prior to this was in August 2011 ,to Selim Hill-Kurseong. I have visited Darjeeling hills during different times of the year and know that the hills look beautiful in every other season,in its own different way.....Monsoons give it a fresh lease of life and everything around look so rejuvenating..

My plan started with fixing up a place which always remains an integral part of any of my trips to the hills....and that is visiting the Darjeeling town. Then slowly came the idea of visiting other locations. Chatakpur was a completely new name for me and I first heard about it from one post of my friends on a netwrking site,who also happens to be a big lover of hills...then,the biggest help and reference came through Indiamike and I thank everyone for that! the second place of interest was JORPOKHRI--which I zeroed in as I had earlier visited the place once and had fallen in love with it.This time,I had made it a point to stay there once which I had never done before...TINCHULEY--was a place which I had heard of before,but had no idea about the place,where it was located and what was it all about.But,the idea of staying at Gurung Guest House and the excellent reviews of the same ,inspired me to try out the option....

Thus,the final tour plan as chalked out by me was as follows:

Day 1) Reach NJP in morning and start for Chatakpur
Overnight stay at Chatakpur
Day 2) Leave Chatakpur by afternoon and start for Jorpokhri
Overnight stay at Jorpokhri
Day 3) Leave Jorpokhri by afternoon and start for Tinchuley
Overnight stay at Tinchuley
Day 4) Stay at Tinchuley
Day 5) Start for Darjeeling by noon and overnight stay at
Darjeeling
Day6) Stay at Darjeeling
Day 7) Start for NJP by afternoon
Start Return journey to Kolkata from NJP,by night

The first leg of implementation of plan started up with the ticket booking and let me tell you thats the most dicey area of any tour to the hills ,as there is a huge demand for tickets to NJP from Kolkata. I had booked the tickets in Feb'12 but still got a return ticket in waiting list-1 ,which ultimately didn't get confirmed....well,except this,everything else went off in a beautiful manner.
The bookings at the respective locations were done at the following places:

1) Chatakpur---Eco Cottage
2) Jorpokhri--DGHC Bungalow
3) Tinchuley-Gurung Guest House
4) Darjeeling-West Bengal Tourism Dev Corp Tourist Lodge

sounds like a great place. Can you have snaps

Finally Our Journey starts.....


1) The famous Darjeeling Himalayan Toy Train line, near Sonada



2) Warm welcome to Chatakpur village



3) The Eco Resort cottages at Chatakpur-where we stayed



4) Misty magic


5) ''Like a night in a forest''...inside Senchal Wild Life Sanctuary at Chatapkpur at 5 pm



6) Tea Time...at Chatakpur

Post continues...

Before going further with my travelogue,I would like to know from everyone about how would I be able to easily upload pics of my trip from my laptop. I have tried to try the ''Insert Image'' option as given here and tried to upload the pics which I had already uploaded in my facebook account,however I am unable to see the pics...can I upload pics in this way..pls do tell,as I also want to post some pics in the middle of my posts..

well,now to continue with the write-up...

Phase II:- Our Journey starts :-

Day 1) We had booked our tickets in Padatik Express which starts from Sealdah at around 10:55 pm and reaches NJP at 9:05 am,the next morning.

We started on a Friday (in the first week of June'12) and reached NJP at 9:10 am the next morning. The weather outside at NJP,was pretty humid and we decided not to waste much of time there and straightaway move towards to the taxi-stand to go to the hills....Let me tell you one thing here,if you are a first timer in NJP,beware of the touts who will insist you to take the car of their choice...we decided to negotiate a bit as we had a little bit of idea of the expected fares.not wasting much time,we finalized on a Qualis (on shared basis) which would drop us (we were two in a family) at Sonada,where from we decided to take a car sent by Binod Rai of Chatakpur Eco resort. the rate negotiated by us was Rs.600 (for two) which we considered was not to be bad......so,finally our much awaited journey to the hills started.

Love the hills during the rains .. .dangerous yet beautiful

Nice TR, sourav.

Add some colours, errrr.... photos !!! ....

Thanks Duronto Jajabar!

even I also do want to add pics,I have so many of them and want to show them to all.but,pls tell me how to upload and post pics,I have been unable to do that!

Sourav, you have to down size your pictures first. Then go the 'Manage attachment' below and upload your photos.

OR posts photos in photo gallery first (after proper sizing) then copy the url of the picture and paste it into your post.

Thanks a lot Duronto Jajabar! I am trying to resize the images,would require your help in one more aspect
Would you pls tell me what size should I resize my images to,so that they can be uploaded directly in middle of my posts through the icon ''Insert Images''...

here is the list

Filetype /Max Filesize/Max Width/Max Height
bmp 100.0 KB 600 480
doc 100.0 KB - -
gif 100.0 KB 600 480
jpeg 100.0 KB 600 480
jpg 100.0 KB 600 480
pdf 100.0 KB - -
png 100.0 KB 600 480
txt 100.0 KB - -
zip 100.0 KB - -

Trying to post the pics once again..

1) The famous Darjeeling Himalayan Toy Train line, near Sonada

@sourav2010, read http://www.indiamike.com/india/forum...2/#post1340888 to understand how to upload images.

Are you uploading images from your office PC? Are you uploading images from flickr or a blog? Does your office allow sites which are not used for official work?

Open your image in Microsoft Office Picture Manager and resize it to 800 * 600. Once that is done you can upload the image as an attachment.

If you have uploaded the images on any photo hosting website, then select the photo that needs to be uploaded in the thread, copy the 'URL' of the image, click on the insert image option paste the url.

Hello,
I was reading through your posting, saw that you have mentioned Chatakpur and Tinchuley. I will be traveling in WB this coming May, and I was looking at where to go. I'm riding my bicycle through WB into Bhutan. I could not find these locations on the map. Is it in the Siliguri part or the Kolkata part?

Last year I had visited a place called Lava, east of kalimpong, I'm hoping to go through that way again. I will be entering via Naxalbari on the border of Nepal and WB. Could you please tell me if staying overnight at Jorpolhri wildlife sanctuary or the area nearby is possible?

From there I will head to Darjeeling, kalimpong, then east towards Bhutan border. If there is any place that you think I must visit on the way, please do let me know.

Regards,
Manu