Day 1 · Bagdogra airport Kurseong
Up to Kurseong, where the railway runs down the street
- 36 km, about 1.5 h
- High point 1,483 m
- Sleep at 1,400 m
- Easy
Walk out of the arrivals exit at Bagdogra and your driver is there, the car already warmed or cooled to the day. Most flights land between 11:00 and 14:00, so the first afternoon is short: about 36 km and an hour and a half up to Kurseong, where your room at Taj Chia Kutir looks over the Makaibari tea slopes. Tea on the balcony first. At 16:00 the car takes you 3 km up to Kurseong station, which is the middle of the town: the line runs through the shopping street, and the shopfronts stand a step from the rails. The station's small railway museum is kept locked for want of staff. You buy the ₹10 ticket at the booking office and a member of staff walks you across to open it, for rails laid in 1880 and a hand-worked printing press from 1890. Then walk the track through the bazaar as the shops light up, and find the platform where you will stand at 06:15 tomorrow. Dinner at the hotel and an early night.
The momentThe door of the little museum at Kurseong station swings open on the 1880 rails and the 1890 hand press.
InsiderKurseong's name is said to come from the Lepcha kurson-rip, the small white orchid that flowers across these slopes every spring.
If the weather turnsIf slides shut Rohini and Pankhabari, we climb by NH110 via Tindharia, or round by Mirik if that is cut too. If the museum stays shut, we walk the rails in the bazaar.
- Meals
- Dinner
