1. Morning Visit to Mangala Dham Temple
It was now day 2 in Kalimpong. It was drizzling in the morning, and there were plans to visit Mangala Dham Temple nearby, one of the Kalimpong tourist spots (It didn’t feel that much nearby once we started 🥲). Chitradip Da was our tour guide. It was a bit cold in the morning. The temple was within walking distance, but it was too much up and down in the way. To be honest, I was getting out of breath. My stamina had taken an extremely steep slope since lockdown.
Finally, after 10-20 minutes of going up and down the path we reached the temple. And now it was time for some photoshoots, the scenic view was a complete beauty. Meanwhile, our travel guide went for a quick smoke outside the temple while we were capturing pics.
2. Temple Exploration
This place was quite a beauty. There was a huge praying hall, and there were some scriptures on the walls, about the king of the place I believe that is how he had a dream about Lord Krishna and some stuff which I don’t remember to be honest. This temple is built in the memory of Guruji Shir Mangaldasji Maharaj.
There was also a garden within the premises of the temple. We had quite a serious discussion in the garden. It was about buying a place in Kalimpong, which sadly came down crashing. As Chitradip Da told us that only the native of this place can buy land over here. He also mentioned that if a person marries a local girl, that person is eligible to stay here as a resident. He even told us a real story about one of the resident of Malda. This guy married a local girl of Kalimpong and now he is super rich, as he is buying lands on behalf of her wife and selling them to other people. We suggested the same to Sandeep 🤣.
In the temple, there is also the burial room of Guruji Shir Mangaldasji Maharaj and a flame which has been burning at a stretch for a few decades.
3. Roman Catholic Church and Local Market
While on our way back from the Temple, we visited a small Roman Catholic Church. After that, it was time to explore the huge local market, it was flooded with plenty of local things, and to be honest, I don’t even remember the names of most of the handicrafts. For breakfast, we had some local cuisine i.e., momos, and fale (this was awesome and savoury). Omkar and I had even packed some for a takeout.
In the meanwhile, when the vendors were preparing our takeout, we took a quick walk in the handicraft shops, and we saw a lot of stuff. I bought chopsticks for my lady as a souvenir.
4. Rainy Interlude and Sweet Shop Hangout
After, taking the takeout we started to make our way back to the hotel, but it started raining suddenly. So we quickly sprinted to a sweet shop on the lane above the local market. We had some tea and jalebis. Mayukh ordered a cold drink 🙂 ,“iska alag hi chalta h”, I thought. It was time well spent in that shop, a lot of chit-chats, pulling jokes on each other.
After this, we decided to head back to the Hotel, as the rain did not stop and it was drizzling now. After reaching the Hotel it quickly started to rain cats and dogs. Chitradip Da, for the time being, decided to hang out at our place. He was having a smoke, and all of us were sitting around him, discussing the demands of the Gorkha people for a separate state called Gorkhaland. The Central Government may make it a separate Union Territory as both geographically and politically it would be a correct decision.
5. Attempting Kalimpong Tourist Spots in Rain
After this, Chitradip Da returned to his place as he was returning to Malda that day. It was still raining, and we were feeling stuck for the day, as we thought a day was wasted as we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the view of the spots we planned to visit. But after an hour the rain stopped, and our hopes were up a bit.
We asked the hotel owner to book a cab for us to visit a few tourist spots possible in the remaining daylight. In the meanwhile we thought of getting lunch, we walked over to a nearby pizzeria but it was not open as due to the morning rain and still the gloomy weather, they were not able to lit up the oven.
Then we walked over to one more hangout cum restauranté, where they had pizza on the menu but due to the same reasons, they were not making it for the day. But the pizza was not the only thing they had on the menu, so we ordered I think fried rice, an aloo dish, chicken fried rice as well and some beer for the lads, my brother and I had water XD.
We finished our lunch and our ride for the day arrived, started around 3 pm. One thing I would like to mention is our driver was awesome, it felt like he drove at a speed of 100 km/hr(not literally, but figuratively) in those ups and downs of the hills and around those sharp edges but at the same time it was super smooth.
6. Kalimpong Tourist Spots in the Afternoon
One of the first viewpoints was a type of golf course which was military-restricted. As mentioned, we were not allowed to get in the zone, we could just see it from over the fences. It’s a shame bcoz we could have taken some really good pics from this place.
The next stop was the Durpin Monastery, this place was very peaceful, the monks were playing football. There were a lot of Buddhist artefacts and paintings, in the monastery. There were huge Prayer Wheels on the walls of the monastery, around its complete circumference. It is believed if you rotate them, it brings peace, stability and luck in one’s life.
On our way to Delo, we stopped for a short tour of the Cactus Nursery. It is one of the famous tourist spots (I’m not sure why tho, I didn’t find it that good) for having a variety of cactuses. The entry fee was 20 INR. There were lots and lots of cactuses, and some flowers as well.
After this the next stop was Delo(It is one of the most famous Kalimpong Tourist Spots). It was quite a distance from the Monastery, totally on the opposite side. It took us quite some time to reach there, there were some entry fees, which I don’t remember at this point. But the scenic beauty was on some next level, it’s beyond expression. We spent some time gazing at the scenery. After that, we had coffee and chips outside Delo Park.
7. Evening Adventures and Hanuman Ji Statue
It was getting dark now, back on our way down we visited a huge Hanuman Ji Statue on a hilltop. It was time to head back to our resting place now, on our way back to the hotel we asked our driver how much would it cost for a trip to Lava, which is famous for its Pine forest. We booked him for the next day for INR 3750.
8. Dinner and Nightcap
We had dinner at the same Bistro as last night and headed back to our Hotel. We spent the rest of the night on the balcony having soft and hard drinks. And it was the end of Day 2 in Kalimpong. A day well spent exploring Kalimpong Tourist Spots.
You can read part 4 here.