A cold welcome in Darjeeling

My Turquiose Letterbox homestay owner arranged for a taxi to Kolkata airport.

I took an early morning flight from Kolkata to Bagdogra. Bagdogra Airport is the gateway to the northeast of India. My first stop in that area was Darjeeling in West Bengal.

After landing at the airport, you have a long drive in a bus or taxi. These rides take you to the more popular destinations in West Bengal or Sikkim.

My Kolkata homestay had a Lonely Planet India guidebook. It suggested using a company called WhizzRide to book a seat in a group taxi.

At Bagdogra, there was a 45 minutes wait for the 3pm scheduled WhizzRide taxi. I sat near the airport exit and messaged the driver for his time of arrival.

At the airport, three of us got into the shared taxi. We picked up a couple later.

The journey to Darjeeling, like most Indian hill stations, was along winding roads. For most of the journey I spoke to a fellow passenger, Abarna. She lived in Chennai and was joining her parents, who’d gone two days earlier.

It took about 3 hours and 45 minutes to drive to Darjeeling.

In Kolkata, I’d met Steve, an American who was in the same homestay as me. He was travelling around India too. He’d arrived in Darjeeling two days before me. He told me about his Darjeeling homestay. I booked into the same place.

When our taxi reached Darjeeling, I remembered Steve’s warning. He had said that finding the homestay was almost impossible. The winding streets, multiple levels, and steep steps in Darjeeling made it difficult. I called the owner and he told the taxi driver to drop me off at a specific location. The owner then picked me up.

Dinner had been arranged at the homestay. So Steve and I enjoyed a Nepalese-Indian meal cooked by the owner’s mother.

Darjeeling was cold. The evening temperature dipped to 10°C. If I’d arrived directly from the UK, the temperature would have been fine. However, I’d arrived from Kolkata, where I’d acclimatised to temperatures around 35°C!

Despite wearing all the layers I had, I was still freezing. The homestay had no heating.

I contacted Abarna and asked if her hotel had heating. She said she had a heater which didn’t heat the room but warmed you if you sat next to it!

My room did, though, have lots of blankets. I slept with three very thick blankets!