"Chomling in the land of Chamling-1"

This is the first of a series of posts on the family's visit to Sikkim, Darjeeling and Calcutta.The idea of a trip to Darjeeling and Sikkim originated in the last week of march 2009, and all because of a movie CD that dad picked up. 'China Town', a fifties movie starring Shammi Kapoor, has him playing a club singer who moves from Darjeeling to Calcutta for a living. While we watched, we discussed how it would be nice to have a holiday there, and soon the movie was forgotten (we still haven't gotten round to finish viewing it), and planning started in full swing. the 1st week of may was considered ideal as with 5 days of leave, we would get 10 days off.

Lots of research on the Internet and advise from Mohan mama resulted in crystallization of the plan. Tickets were booked in advance, and the services of Yak and Yeti, a Gangtok based travel operator who were highly recommended on the net were secured.

DDay (1st May) arrived bright and clear, and we were off on a Indigo flight to CCU. landing in CU at 2.30 PM, our first sight in the airport was of the passengers who had lined up to board the return flight to BLR, something that we would be doing on the 10th. That was however, a holiday away, and off we went into CCU.

The CCU airport in in dire need of a makeover, and resembles a crowded railway station more than an airport. Taking a prepaid taxi, a weather beaten ambassador that was probably there when dad had visited Calcutta 45 years back, we made our way to Sealdah station.The Sealdah station was where we had to catch our train to NJP , the Kanchan kanya express. As the train was at 7.30 PM, we had some time to kill, and so we checked in our luggage in the cloak room and went to the local Comesum restaurant for our lunch.The heat was getting to us , and we put paid to our plans of doing some sightseeing and went straight to the waiting room (the a/c was thankfully working).

Later in the evening, Bimba and I ventured out of the station and onto Bowbazar (BB ganguly street) that leads from the station. After some area that was covered in immense dirt and squalor, we discovered that Bow bazar was full of jewellers and gold shops. Naturally, this being 1st may, not a shop was open, and the street was quite pleasant to walk on.Finally, we boarded Kanchankanya and at 7.30 PM we were off towards NJP.

P.S. For those wondering why this post is named so, well, one of the many names that we call our daughter is 'Chomling' , and the CM of Sikkim is Pawan Kumar Chamling, hence the name.why we call her Chomling is a topic for another post.