Cinda
Hunter travels to the magical rose "Pink City" of Jaipur and
onto Darjeeling in the far North to the Sikkim region at the foothills
of the Himalayas. We join her on her breathtaking journey.
The
legendary “Pink City” of Jaipur around Rajasthan is where it all
begins. The city which I travel to sourcing gemstones, silver and
jewellery as well as glorious textiles, the block-printed fabric that
Jaipur is famous for, wonderful Durries as well as traditionally made
Persian style carpets.
One
of the greatest pleasures of my trips is to indulge in Lassi, which is a
Rajasthan speciality, a drink made out of yoghurt. Purists drink it
plain, from specially made disposable terracotta cups, but I find it
excellent when combined with the ripe scented Indian mangos, or possibly
bananas.
However,
in Jodhpur there is only one lassi
– the famous cardamom and lemon lassi which has been made to a secret
recipe for generations.
A
feature of Jodhpur “Sun City” is the most enthralling powdery,
glittering, indigo night skies found at the edge of the desert and near
the Pakistan border, a city where you can find furniture of every kind;
new and old furniture, as well as fascinating original old pieces
that have been used and loved.
Jewellery
to buy or to have made in Jaipur - rings, necklaces, bracelets and
earrings in silver and vivid semi-precious stones.
Darjeeling
is the entry point to the Sikkim region, famous for its glorious tea
plantations of the Colonial era, which is at the foothills of the
Himalayas, bordered on the left by Nepal, by Tibet above and Bhutan on
its right. Gangtok and the entire Sikkim region are a hiker’s
paradise. The region boasts around 1000 different species of
orchid and a huge diversity of flora and fauna.
When
flying to the town of Bagdogra, the closest point to enter this area,
one flies over totally flat plains extending at sea-level from Calcutta
before they suddenly rise to the very steep foothills of the Himalayas.
I caught a rickety taxi minibus which screamed up hairpin bends for an
hour journey to reach the small town of Kurseong halfway up to
Darjeeling. Kurseong was special, a highlight of the trip!
Hedged
tea bushes following the contours of the land in the lowlands near
Bagdogra on the way up to Kurseong.
The
afternoon was spent touring a fascinating tea plantation, Makaibari,
which has some of the most expensive orange pekoe tea in the world (up
to $12 000 per kg!) I spent the night in an eco-friendly
guesthouse adjoining one of the finest tea gardens or plantations in the
region. The guesthouse, Cochrane Place, was delightful – with rooms
looking over Mount Kanchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world. At
Cochrane Place they have their own vegetable & herb garden and the
food was creative and sensational. Interestingly they use tea leaves to
flavour many things, rice, ice-cream and biscuits…in a subtle way!
It
was a freezing night and I had to cuddle up with a hot-water bottle
before a 5am wake-up call to catch the train to Darjeeling.
Bitterly cold, but the sunrise over Mount Kanchenjunga, unusually
cloud-free, was breathtaking!
The
famous Himalayan Railways with its “toy train”- definitely
toy sized - only two tiny carriages, which it “thinks- it-can”
puff up the extraordinarily steep hillsides from Kurseong to
Darjeeling.
Puffing
along…it takes four hours to travel about 40km! Through tiny
picturesque villages, with joyously painted houses adorned with
flowerpots, where everyone comes out smiling to bring their children to
wave the train go by. Sounds unreal, doesn’t it?
I
spent two nights in Darjeeling, exploring the area and the shops. It was
very expensive and tourist oriented and the wonderful hand woven silk
shawls, were good buys. It is an interesting town in that it has a
long history with the Colonial tea planters and the surrounding area has
been a cool summer vacation spot for people escaping the heat of the
lowlands. There are some lovely old Plantation Houses which have been
converted to hotels and which have maintained a delightful Colonial
charm.
I
drove on over the next few days visiting Kalimpong and Gangtok.
Kalimpong is a lovely little town, like Darjeeling and Gangtok, set on
one of the steep hillsides, which makes walking around town as hard work
as any hike! In Kalimpong I stayed at another B&B, Kalumba,
with a wonderful family who grow and export orchids. The
owner had a glorious collection of artifacts from the region, at the
same time imparting some of his extraordinary knowledge and enthusiasm.
One
goes up and down these incredible hills - from valleys at close to
sea-level up to the hill tops at around 2200 m, passing in quick
succession through a great diversity of flora. In the valleys it is
sub-tropical with banana plants abounding, at mid level, broad-leafed
forest and bamboo and then up to the misty hill-tops with cedars,
lichens and ferns. Mountainsides are studded with gloriously flowering
tree rhododendrons. Wherever you look, orchids drip from the trees….
Sadly I was too early to see the summer flowering orchids in bloom.
Mountainsides
are so steep that sometimes you have to stop and reverse in order to get
around the hairpin bends! Later I discovered that almost every
vehicle in the region has bald tyres and if it wasn’t for the fact
that the hairpin bends are so tight, there would be a lot more
accidents!
Looking
down to the valley floor of the Teesta River near Kalimpong, a
destination for white water rafting and hiking. There are National Parks
extending up to the border of Tibet. The red panda (which looks more
like a large raccoon) is a protected animal found in this area.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see any….
Many
Tibetan refugees have moved into this region of India and it is
fascinating to see (in private collections) antique Tibetan Thangkas on
silk. These are very rare and in great demand by the Tibetans, which
makes them expensive.
The
Buddhist monks still use traditional methods to create contemporary
Thangka paintings on traditional Buddhist lines on canvas. They grind up
gemstones like Lapis Lazuli as well as gold to make their pigments. Some
of the artists do very beautiful work and the paintings are quite
affordable.
Antique
amber and coral has become extremely rare, but I managed to buy a few
antique beads here and there! Most of these come out of Tibet
where they have traditionally been worn for centuries.
The
region is intriguing because of the cross-section of people to be found
there, apart from the Tibetans, there are also many people from
Nepal and Bhutan as well as the native Sikkimese tribes-people. I
managed to find some very beautiful shawl pins originating from Bhutan.
These are of intricately worked silver, reminiscent of Celtic designs,
usually with a central turquoise stone.
In
total I spent five days in the area, not really enough to explore fully.
The countryside north of Gangtok is not visited much by tourists,
although they are trying to encourage this as a way of bringing much
needed income to an area, which has little in the way of work or
economic opportunities.
I had intended to catch the helicopter
from Gangtok back to Bagdogra for a scenic trip through the mountains
but unfortunately the clouds had closed in and no flight was possible so
I had to take the winding, hair-raising road trip back down before
flying back to Delhi….
