Blogs from Sandakphu, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India, Asia

It was an eventful beginning to our trip with the tropical cyclone 'Fani' scheduled to hit the Orissa coastline on the day we were boarding our train, May 3rd. Although we are over 400 kms. away, the news continued to predict devastating consequences in Kolkata as well. On tenterhooks the entire day, we (my wife and myself) decided to take an early cab to the station to avoid getting caught in the storm. Waiting at the train station for a few hours, our train, Padatik Express departed as scheduled at 11 PM; thankfully not much excitement thereafter. Next morning, the train took forever to reach New Jalpaiguri (NJP) and when it did, it was no less than 4 hours late. NJP to Dhotrey (8,500 ft.) Fortunately however, we had a 4 WD car waiting for us ... read more

It was the winter of 2014..we planned our trek to Singalila National Park and reach Sandakphu, a popular trek destination which allow the trekkers to witness the Mt. Khangchendzonga massif along with some prominent peaks like Mt Everest, Mt Makalu, Mt Lhotse ,3 sisters etc...But unlike others we did not started our trek from the usual starting point of Maneybhanjan rather we did the trek in a reversal mode..On reaching Siliguri, we took a car and reached a small hamlet in West Sikkim called Okhrey, it took us around 7 long hours via Jorethang and reach this beautiful himalayan village of Okhrey, we stayed the night in one of the few Homestay that are manged by locals with strong essence of Tibetan culture. Next morning we took our early breakfast and started our journey to the ... read more

The third day of hiking began with waking up early again to get a view of the Himalayas before the clouds rolled in and the visibility was gone. We were able to see the whole Himalayan range which was quite impressive. Kangchenjunga, the sleeping Buddha (actually looks like a supine person in profile) was visible, as were Everest, the three sisters, and a whole lot of others. But it was bitterly cold on the top of the mountain, especially since I didn't have any gloves, and we began to descend the mountain towards breakfast. Our descent in the morning was a 3-hour 10 km (1.4 km vertical) monster which left us all in a pretty sour mood since we left at 6 am and hadn't been given anything to eat at all before we began. As ... read more

Firstly, let me assure you, that I have no idea where Sandakphu is, but I can only assume that it is really rather pleasant, or this blogsite would be letting me write without having to enter that I am there. So... India. No, it really hasn't changed. Still stuck in the 70's, with the Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever soundtrack blaring (perhaps just in my head), men all in high-waisted, booty-hugging flares, and bouffant side-partings. Fantastic. We arrived in Calcutta, tired from our early start, and bumpy descent, and were greeted by the usual throng of people asking for money. We changed some dollars into rupees, bought a pre-paid taxi ticket (to insure we wouldn't be ripped off), and ambled out into the hazy heat. Someone grabbed our ticket, and ran off to a stream of ... read more