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
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