3 day roller coaster ride in Bengal!

Expect the unexpected!

     The trip starts at the queen of hills - Darjeeling. This beautiful town is famous for a rare thing, toy train. Our day was set to be spent in the toy train, lost in the woods. We were as usually late for the journey and ran down the narrow streets of Darjeeling with our rucksacks on our back and somehow made it to the railway station. The train had not yet arrived so we decided to grab some food. But, even after our breakfast the train was of no sight. Suspicions started building and we approached the TT to enquire and we were in for a disappointment. No, the train had not departed, instead the train never arrived for the past 6 months because of a landslide. We were told our money would be refunded and we can forget our train journey. We were absolutely gutted by the negligence of IRCTC for listing the train despite it not running. This is India, we had to move on. We decided we'll explore other places in and around Darjeeling and after googling we found a place called Mirik lake and immediately hired a cab and set our journey for it. This was the best decision of our trip because of what we witnessed on this little journey. First of all the things was beautiful view of the mighty Kanchenjunga mountain. And the next was absolutely unexpected, stepping into the holy land of Nepal. We spent about an hour in this nation and returned (my first step in foreign land). Ended it with Mirik lake which was the destination. And then returned back to Siliguri in the evening to catch the train overnight to Kolkata.

A bus journey, forever.

     Our luck with the trains was traveling with us too. Our seats for the train journey from Siliguri to Kolkata were not confirmed so, we were once again stranded figuring our way out. We had to settle down for a last minute bus journey which we never knew would turn out to be a nightmare (bus journey and nightmare, sounds familiar right?). The schedule for next day was packed with hell lot of sightseeing to be done in Kolkata. We found the comfort in the uncomfortable seats to fulfill our dearth of sleep. It was morning 6, we woke up to find our bus being stuck in a huge traffic jam (yes, worse than the Bangalore one's) and our bus was right at the centre of a pretty long bridge. The sun was just on the rise, I can never forget this view because we were standing across none other than river Ganga. Later we realized that was the last stretch of Ganga in India and just a very few kms from that point she would enter Bangladesh. Aren't journeys made of such experiences that can be cherished forever. But there are some memories that send chills down your spine too. We also realized we had not covered half of our total distance either. Apparently, the only national highway that connects the Northeast to the rest of India at the chicken neck sees kms of traffic jam every night and sometimes it goes upto days to get it cleared, phew. We also witnessed a glance of gundaraaj (if I can call it). Our bus was stopped abruptly by a bunch of men and bus operators were asked to pay them money for nothing. A frustrated passenger had a word at them to get out of way and they started coming at him only to be calmed down by bus operators. We were near the borders of Bihar and already seen what it would be to there, haha. So, our misery continued till 3 PM and somehow we reached Kolkata. Honestly, reaching the city of joy was no joy at all. As soon as we reached we did only 2 things, ate well and crashed into the beds.