You know why do we travel bloggers keep on repeating same sort of forewords in our every blogs? Because traveling makes us feel like that repeatedly. Every journey provides a redemption from our conventional corporate assignments and makes us able to dig up the rudiments of our eternal inner.
This quest brought us to North Bengal once again and this time we chose the Eastern Himalayas for our cryptic crackdowns. Yet again we chose the Kanchankanya express for New Mal Junction only to enjoy the train journey through the Forest of Sivok though NJP was closer to our destination. This time the train didn't keep it's promise to reach in time.
We began for Laatpanchor from Mal Bazar at about 10:30am and the pathway just embezzled 2.5 hours listening highway to hell in our sound boxes. Well it is a beautiful hamlet resonated by the sound of chirping birds dwelt right at the verge of hill and about 10kms away from Sittong Subdivision Mahakuma. Mr. Padam Gurung, the owner of our home stay, Hornbill Nest Guest House was eagerly waiting to welcome us.
After having a toothsome lunch we dropped our feet amidst the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary with a desire to witness the bonniest beauties of the entire globe, "the birds" for which the place is mostly famous for. Although we haven't seen our desirably aimed The Great Indian Hornbill but still managed to capture a Burn Swallow and a White capped redstart.
As usual I was the villain to ruin everyone's sleep because we had a plan for whole day long for sightseeing in the "Kurseong, The Land of the White Orchids".
We rose up early in the morning to see the sunrise from Ahaldara hilltop and genuinely none of us were able to define how the time ran out within a few moments. I was unable to resist myself to sit in the verge of the hill top and sing a song over there. (*check link*) Rabindranth Tagore stood by me on that moment as the place is also known as Tagore Point for its illusionary shape of Tagore face. Suddenly the morning became sobering as the showers started again.
At about 11:30 am we began for Shivakhola when the rainfall stopped for a while, saying goodbye to the dreamland. Within just 1.5 hours we reached out there. The place was splattering Mystic vives with the beauty and melody of the drifts of the stream. Shivkhola got its name from an ancient temple of Lord Shiva, located on the bank of the river. Our rest of the day spent just amicably simply enjoying the silence of the valley and dipping our feet in the flow of the river.
Leaving Mahal Diram Tea Garden and Bagora encompassed by variety of birds, forest of oak & pine and of course the rhododendrons our driver stalled the wheels in the Chimney Heritage Park. The village got its name from a "Chimney" built on the hilltop by The East India Company. The place is famous for its mind blowing panoramic sight of Mahananda, Balason and Teesta river on one side and the Almighty Kanchenjunga and Sandakphu on the other. Though we were not lucky enough to have the taste of this pure beauty as it was raining a bit and clouds and fogs took the unwanted responsibility to cover the whole sight. But the pain just got relieved with the taste of momos and warmth of tea from a nearby shop.
Our next destination was to see the infamous church of the twin school of Kurseong i.e. Victoria Boys' School & Dowhill School which is confoundedly famous for its creepy stories and listed as India's one of the most haunted places. The moment when we reached over there the rain turned out to be snowfalls and we were immensely dithering with the cold spell. The first look towards the Church gave a shivering down my spine. It seemed just like the set of The NUN. There are several stories about this school but all the incidents occur during the holiday season means December to March when the entire school is shut-down and we were there on 24th February. The most sinister story of the place is of a headless boy who haunts this school and many people claim to have seen it either on the Church premises or around the building of the school. However we didn't see anything like that but it's hard to find somebody who never gets fascinated by Ghost Stories like this. With the horn of our driver we suddenly realized that we had a one more destination to cover and we drove our feet back to our vehicle.
We reached in Dowhill Deer Park with in a while and came to know it is just a park right now no deers are there at all. Still it was a nice place surrounded with alpine pine and conifers.
Fnally we began for Ahaldara which was our stay for the night and as soon as we reached over there it was just like aaaaaaawwwwwwww maaannnnnn!! The scenic beauty can make yourself die out there with it's freaking display of the valley in sun rays and in clouds periodically. The evening relieved the whole day journey lag in a trice with the dainty Chicken legs in bonfire. The sky was typically displaying a light and sound show of gentle lightning flashes with rumbling clouds.
Well the most bitter day of the trip came live. We didn't have any option left but to accept it. We visited nearby the Shiva Temple and finally began our journey back to Siliguri with our backpacks filled with a lot of positive energies for months till the next tri
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