Panighata Top Bunglow

The British tea planters left their sign throughout the Darjeeling hills and the accompanying Dooars area. Panighata is such a place. Its main attraction is an old British bunglow on a hill top and the accompanying deciduous forest. The bunglow is also known as "Saheb Kuthi" or simply "Top Bunglow".
This tour started from Siliguri on 2nd June 2007. Tour convenor was Biswajit who works at a bank at Panighata. Our other members were Parthoda & Sagarda. All arrangements were done by Biswajit, after much anxious persuation by Sagarda.
Went by Sagarda's WagonR car. Kept the car inside Panighata police station. Shyambihari, a worker of Biswajit's bank, accompanied us as an escort to show us to our destination. Languid walking accompanied with much resting took us to the top in 1 hour 30 minutes. We were heartily welcomed at the top by Kaley Tamang, a local resident of Panighata hilltop having his residence nearest to the Top Bunglow.
Fooding and other services were provided by Kaley Tamang. It was a warm day. The Bunglow did not have any electric supply. The wind was very very refreshing. So we decided to spend the night outside on the verandah. Wonderful night view of Siliguri and accompanying plains. Parthoda took a few experimental night shots with my digital camera. Sprinkled carbolic acid (Pheneol) around our sleeping spot as an antidote to keep away snakes. The season being summer, and the spot being an abandoned bunglow, there was every possibility of meeting some snake. Even in the peak summer month of June, the breezy atmosphere was very cool. At night I had to fully wrap myself with a bed sheet to protect myself from the cool wind, which was no longer a breeze.
Went for a dip at the Changa khola rivulet on the next morning. Kaley's son and grandson accompanied us to show the way. The water level was hardly sufficient to drown our bodies. Two of them constructed a small dyke of sorts to enclose the water. The level of water rose a bit to enable us to dip.

Bijanbari & Rammam -1

Arup is now my closest friend at Darjeeling. He works as an assistsnt engineer at WBSEB, Darjeeling. He took me & Asis Biswas(Bank Babu) to a wonderful trip to Bijanbari, Rammam & Rimbick. We spent the two nights of the wonderful weekend at the Inspection Bunglows of Bijanbari & Rammam respectively. We started after saturday office on 14/10/2006. Three of us took a trip on a commander jeep service from Darjeeling to Bijanbari. In this journey we climbed down by a very nasty road along the hilly route on the hill facing the town of Darjeeling. We found that Bijanbari is at a much lower altitude than Darjeeling. Temperature is much warmer and comfortable. Arup's collegue and friend, Mr. Maity welcomed us there. He showed us the Incpection Bunglow(I.B.) which was our place of stay for the night. The I.B. was small but quite cosy and homely. Even at the late evening, Maity took us on a visit to the tiny Bijanbari hydel power plant. We went there in his official jeep. He also took us to the catchment area for the water which runs the power plant. It was a lovely place flanked by an orange orchard on one side and a steep hill on the other. The gushing water gleaming in the moonlight was a lovely sight.
Early next morning, we all went for a walk to have a glimpse of the surroundings. The I.B. appeared to be residing atop a ridge, flanked by mountain streams on both sides. The two streams meet to form a wider river after just a hundred feet or so. On the other bank of the left stream, a chilling plant of HIMUL milk and a trekkers' hut can be seen right from the bunglow ground. Firstly we searched the bazaar area and had hot tea and "nimki". We crossed the wider river by a hanging bridge and went to venture the other side. There was a big banyan tree on the other end of the bridge. Beyond the banyan tree, a stony path goes winding through tea plantation area. Lot of birds could be seen there.