The Inspiration
I wanted to make a trip to Bhutan ever since I read debarshims Bhutan travelogue (
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ng-bhutan.html). The original plan was for end of April 2015. But having failed to make a plan for the festive week of Sep-Oct 2014, we preponed the Bhutan plan. I got a lot of useful tips from debarshim, avrendu, himadrimondal and other fellow BHPians.
If you are reading this travelogue because you are also planning a road trip to Bhutan, then I strongly recommend that you read debarshim's travelogue as well mentioned above since it is full of very useful information. I also found this travelogue (
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...an-tawang.html) by himavanth_m to be very helpful in planning my trip.
The Preparation
This time I got my vehicle (Tata Safari Storme VX 4x4) checked and got some underbody damages repaired from the service centre. I always have a one litre bottle of coolant in the truck. Apart from that I did not make any other preparations for the truck. This time I did not even have a tyre inflator since it conked out couple of weeks back.
We had 27th Sep to 5th Oct at our disposal to plan the trip. I could not get the entry permit from Kolkata since the Royal Bhutan Consulate was closed from 5th Sep to 15th Oct. We could get the entry permit and vehicle permit only on Monday, the 29th Sep at the border town of Phuentsholing, Bhutan since the immigration and the RSTA offices are closed on Sundays. But we did not want to waste one of the weekend days (27th and 28th Oct) at home. So, we decided to start on the Saturday, 27th Sep from Kolkata and spend the Sunday, 28th Sep at Jaldapara National Park which is about 30 kms from the Bhutan border at Jaigaon. Therefore, I booked a room for 28th Night in Jaldapara Tourist Lodge. The website
www.holidayhomeindia.com proved to be helpful in finding the contact information for the reservation. This tourist lodge is about 0.5 km from the entrance of the national park. There is another lodge, Holong Bungalow, which is inside the park and lets you watch animals across the creek from the garden of the bungalow.
I booked Wangchuk Hotel in Thimphu city for 3 nights (29th Sep-2nd Oct) and Wangchuk Resort in Taba area for one night (2nd Oct-3rd Oct) based on availability. The website
www.hotel.bt was very helpful in finding the hotels and their contact information. The booking was done by calling the hotels and transferring 50% of the money to the Axis Bank, Jaigaon account of some Mr Tshering Dorji.
For our stay for the night of 27th Oct in Siliguri, I booked in my favorite Vinayak Inn through
www.booking.com.
I and my wife made sure to pack adequate munching stuffs and load videos on the iPad to keep my 2 year old daughter, Srishti, busy on the long drives. It worked pretty well. We also carried ample of mosquito repellent strips for the baby, liquidator repellent for use in hotel rooms (just in case the hotels dont provide) and sunscreens (both baby and adult).
Day 1 (27th Sep, 2014) Kolkata to Siliguri through West Bengal
With all bookings done and bags packed, we were ready to set off on my dream trip. We took the Kolkata-Burdwan-Bolpur-Suri-Moregram-Farakka-Malda-Dalkhola-Siliguri route going against the advice of himadrimondal. It proved to be a disastrous decision since it took 18 hours (6.30 AM-12.30 AM) to reach Siliguri. Below are some pictures of the journey.
Ready to go B1-1
We saw three such accidents that morning between Kolkata and Burdwan B1-2
Breakfast at Cafe Coffeday, Singur B1-3 & B1-4
Near Amar Kutir, Bolpur B1-5
Somewhere after Suri B1-6
Hotel Royal, Umarpur this is a good option for lunch with reasonably clean washrooms B1-7
The road from Kaliachak to Dalkhola was very bad and had terrible congestion. It took about 7 hours to cross this stretch. To make things worse, it started raining very heavily when we were about 40 kms from Bagdogra horribly impairing visibility. Finally we reached Vinayak Inn, Siliguri past 12.30 AM. They had kept our dinner ready in our room as we instructed in advance.
Day 2 (28th Sep, 2014) Siliguri to Jaldapara
We started around 10 AM in the morning from Siliguri and reached Jaldapara around 1 PM. Here are some pictures of the journey.
The famous Coronation Bridge B2-1 & B2-2
Teesta River B2-3
The Monkey Business B2-4 & B2-5
Jaldapara Tourist Lodge B2-6 & B2-7
After a wonderful lunch at Jaldapara Tourist Lodge, we went for the jeep safari. The jeep safari can be booked and starts from the Lodge. We shared the jeep with one other gentleman and had to pay Rs 1000 out of Rs 1450 (rent of a one jeep safari that can accommodate a maximum of 6 adults). Here are some pictures.
We were the first safari group of the season (as told by the staffs at the gate) B2-8
Elephants carrying their dinner B2-9
A baby elephant B2-10
A falcon B2-11
Monkeys and Peacocks B2-15 & B2-16
We had booked elephant safari for next morning at 6.30 AM and got the confirmation of the booking at dinner time. The elephant safari is very popular and has very limited availability. There are only three trips per day 5.30 AM, 6.30 AM and 7.30 AM. Moreover, preference is given to visitors staying in the Holong Bungalow. Therefore, we happily went to bed after getting the good news. The cost of the elephant safari came to approximately Rs 1600 including entry pass for my vehicle and elephant safari for two.