Bhutan

Day 1: Getting to Siliguri (12th Feb)

Our trip started with us leaving Kolkata (Sealdah station) on a Sunday to catch the Darjeeling mail bound for Siliguri (NJP actually). We were late in leaving my friend’s hostel, and to add to that, the taxi driver, whom we kept reminding to drive fast, in all his wisdom stopped by a Chinese restaurant 5 minutes from the station when we asked him to pull over for food. We had to take some serious decisions and chose to risk missing the train by ordering some lip smacking fried rice. The train was to leave at 22:05hrs and the food arrived at 21:45hrs. So it wasn’t surprising that by the time we ate, paid, caught another taxi and reached the station, the train was lethargically leaving the platform. I have never boarded a moving train, but there is always a first time.
Boarding the train (in the nick of time) did not mean that we could relax and start enjoying our vacation because we didn’t have reserved tickets but wait-listed ones. We ran helter-skelter looking for empty berths, pleading with the TT and tried not to look like illegal immigrants. Luckily our tickets had come to RAC, but we didn’t know that until half way into the night. By then we had spent time sitting by the door, where we met a friendly beggar who suggested a better place to sit in another compartment, pleaded a million times with the TTE for a seat, met a fake sadhu who was traveling ticket less, got interrogated by some Railway Police (who asked us to get off at the next station) and walked enough times between compartments to digest all the fried rice. (Technically none of this would have happened if we had reached the station early and seen the status of our tickets.)

To cut the story short – we reached Siliguri in one piece and it was 12:00hrs the next day when we began our journey from Siliguri to Phuentsholing by a Royal Government of Bhutan mini-bus. The distance to be covered was about 165 km and cost us 65 rupees per head.