"Revisiting my Alma Matter in Darjeeling."

[Disclaimer: This is a travelogue, NOT a guide to underage drinking. I do not promote or encourage underage drinking. Drinking is injurious to health!]


A bachelors trip sounds appealing after a hectic semester in your college days. Especially when it's with your old chaps from school. I had the good fortune of visiting my alma mater after almost 4 years, and here’s my story.

The trip starts at the foothills of the Himalayas - Siliguri, a small yet vibrant place decorated with tea gardens, and abundant greenery. The weather is humid and hot throughout the year, but as you ascend the hills and go higher up, the weather cools down gradually. It is a serene feeling, add that to the breathtaking view of the plains below - and you have the Windows XP desktop wallpaper, but prettier! The ascent from the plains, up to Darjeeling itself takes about 3 hours give or take. You can either book a reserved cab ( 2500/- to 3000/-) or get in a shared taxi for just 300/-.

Rohini - (the Windows XP wallpaper)


Our first checkpoint is the Rohini Tea Garden (alt. 381 m / 1250 ft). Rohini Tea Garden is one of the 8 new gardens in India, developed after independence. It was first planted in 1955 but was closed in 1962, till around the end of the century, when it was taken over by the Saria family and replanting started. Tourists stop here to have breakfast and light snacks. By the time you reach Rohini, you can already feel the temperature dropping. Depending on the time of the year, you might want to wear sweaters now. But this is just the beginning.

The next checkpoint is Kalimpong - a small town at 4101 ft. Perched on a ridge above the Teesta River, its home to colonial-era buildings like MacFarlane Memorial Church, named after a Scottish missionary. The town is usually foggy throughout the year - owing to its altitude, it comes in direct contact with the Stratus Layer - the second cloud layer in the troposphere (2000ft to 4000 ft). Kalimpong is notoriously famous for its chilly momos - also known by the locals as dalle-momo. Dalle Khursani is a chilly pepper of the Capsicum Annuum family, and originates from Nepal. It is extremely spicy, ranging 100,000 – 350,001 SHU on the Scoville Scale.

Kalimpong being Kalimpong

After Kalimpong comes Kurseong (alt. 1482 m / 4864 ft) - the second closest town from Darjeeling. Located almost 32 km from Darjeeling, and almost 34 km from Siliguri, it marks as a midway between the two towns. The journey is yet another 1.5 hours from here! Kurseong was a favourite of the British. Nevertheless, in 1835 the British decided that Darjeeling would make an excellent sanitorium, and summer residence for their military and civilian officers along with their families. Kurseong however became an enormous provider of tea - with huge tea estates spanning a total area of at least 2645 hectares (6516 acres)!

On the way up, you’ll notice railway tracks on the sides of the road, carefully tracing the perimeter. Those are tracks of the infamous toy train that used to operate from Siliguri to Darjeeling, but stopped operation due to the enormous time it took, and heavy landslides in the lower regions. The train now operates only from Kurseong to Ghoom. I am ashamed to confess, that in my 4 years of residence at Darjeeling, I have never been on the toy train. 

Creepy Toy Train

Going further up comes the Batasia Loop (alt. 2200 m / 7218 ft). The sole purpose of the Batasia loop was to lower the gradient of ascent of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. The loop features a small garden - encompassing a memorial of the Gorkha soldiers of the Indian Army who sacrificed their lives after the independence in 1947. 

At this point, you are above the Cumulonimbus Layer - alt. 6000 ft, and if you're lucky, you’ll see clouds below you from the memorial. If you visit during October, you can get a much better view. October is the transition between monsoon and winter, which means clear skies. The nights are cooler and it allows the grounds to lose heat quickly. This phenomenon is called temperature inversion. Normally, temperature drops as you go higher, but in a temperature inversion, the cooler air is trapped closer to the ground, meanwhile a layer of warmer air lies above it.

The Teesta River below supplies enough water vapor, owing to its humidity, and at the break of dawn, when the sun rays kisses them vapors, they heat up, rising slowly from the valleys.  That is the cherry on the cake !

So now all you have is YOURSELF, the ground beneath your feet, and this ocean of clouds between you and the Kanchenjunga. I can't describe this in words thanks to my limited lexicon, but the view is gorgeous! It's almost dream-like, surreal, etheral, utopian - and whatever adjective fits the description. You can relate to what I'm saying if you’ve watched Kimi no Nawa - Your Name.

The Batasia Loop Memorial

Right after the Batasia Loop comes Ghoom (alt. 2258 m / 7407 ft). This is the final stop of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. By now you are technically already in Darjeeling. The town is still about 10 minutes away. 

Hotels are usually cheap, but the rates vary from 1200/- to 5000/- depending on the season you visit. We visited during on-season. That means it's really expensive! And if you’re someone who’s visiting for the first time, you can get robbed off your money pretty quickly. We somehow bargained our way into a hotel; it still cost us 5k per night, but there were 3 of us, so it was manageable.

The town itself is pretty decent! Decorated with hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops, it is quite impressive for a hill station! The civil engineering and planning that must’ve taken to build something like that is really applaudable! Not to mention the dangerously inclined roads, makes travelling for a newcomer a tedious job.

There are some famous places to visit in Darj. - Tiger Hill is usually one of the first choices most tourists have. In the four years of my stay in Darjeeling, I have never been to tiger hill, so I don't know what all the fuss is about. But why trek 11 kms early in the morning just for a sunrise, when you can have it from the window of your dorm room!?

The first place we visited was, of course, the old school- St. Paul’s School, Darjeeling. Perhaps the most iconic location in town. The place should officially be recognized as a UNESCO heritage site owing to its age ( 201 yrs and counting ).

Nevertheless, returning after years stirred a deep nostalgia. Standing once again in those familiar corridors, where I had once endured what felt like endless torment, now brought a strange mix of solace and melancholy. It was a bittersweet reminder that those days were long gone, leaving me both relieved and wistfully overwhelmed.

We all love our alma mater, but hardly take time to appreciate it when we’re actually there. For me, the first two years of my life there was depressing and lame, much expected of a child being uprooted from home for the first time. Homesickness clung to me like a shadow, echoing the sentiment: "But you only hate the road when you're missing home."

Cotton Hall - Senior Wing Dormitories 

The school had made some renovations too. It looked better than it used to back in 2020. The old basketball court, my old dormitory, all had been renovated by students who had graduated well before us.

I highly recommend visiting this place if you’re ever in Darjeeling. Thank me later!

I’d like to address some of the negatives about Darjeeling as well, so you dont think I'm purely biassed. Starting with the weather. This place has horrible weather. If there is anything more unpredictable than JEE Advanced, its the weather in Darjeeling. It literally starts pouring under the sun and you need to carry umbrellas at all times. Its lowkey part of the dress code here. Also umbrellas are seen more as an accessory, rather than a necessity - culture adopted from the Bri’ ish.

The second thing I want to address is - availability of hot water. It’s hard to find hot water in darjeeling, especially during winter. Yes there are heaters in almost every hotel, but power cuts are pretty common. I remember taking cold showers in the evenings after a haircut, because the power went off.

Since we’re talking about showers, it brings me to my third point - hygiene. Hygiene is a big issue in hill stations. I am not going to disclose how frequently I used to shower in a week, but if you showered for even 4 days a week, you’re squeaky clean! Because again, hot water is a luxury.

We spent the evening at Glenary’s - a fine dining restaurant that serves beverages. We got ourselves some nice Irish Whiskey to keep us warm and comfy through the night. What came as a surprise to us was the price of alcohol was at par with MRP. Not a penny more or less. Well that's a fortunate thing.

Chowrasta

Chowrasta is the most famous attraction in town. It is this huge parking lot type area with lots of space to walk/ ride horses - and has lots of cafes nearby. Darjeeling is synonymous with tea, and the Mall Road -- centered around Chowrasta -- is filled with premium tea brands offering organically grown produce. These teas, renowned for their rich flavors and exquisite quality, are cherished worldwide and exported to global markets.

Apart from the main town, you can visit nearby locations, closer to Kanchenjunga and get a better view of the snow capped mountains. Sandakphu is one such place. But you’d need good winter gear to go there; the temperature drops to the negative scale at night. Potatoes turn to stone at those numbers.

The infamous Zero-Point in Sikkim, is another cool place to visit, both literally and metaphorically-- the temperatures get really low. It’s where the ascent to the mountains begins from. If you’re anything like me, you’ll love zero-point. Cooking is going to be a problem though. But I'm sure they have kettles and pressure cookers there.

Zero Point - Sikkim

After spending about two nights in the Queen of the Hills, we finally decided that it was time to bid farewell. As we packed our memories alongside our belongings, the hills seemed to whisper their goodbyes, the mist wrapping us in one final embrace. We walked the familiar paths once more, letting the echoes of our laughter linger a little longer in the air.

And so, we went homeward, echoing the songs of our childhood pastimes in the misty lanes of the hills. Every turn of the road seemed to hold a memory, every gust of mountain air a reminder of carefree days. As the town faded into the distance, we promised ourselves we would return—not just to revisit the place, but to rekindle the part of us that the hills had so gently cradled and nurtured.

The journey back was filled with quiet reflection, punctuated by the occasional shared story or smile. Though we left the hills behind, we carried a piece of them in our hearts—their timeless charm, their unspoken wisdom, and the boundless joy they had given us.


"And when life’s course is run, ‘Homeward!’ the old School calls;
Face towards the rising sun, Wait for the glad’ Well done!’
‘Homeward!’ the old School calls;
St. Pauls!"