Travel With Rithu

In my summer vacation, I am visiting my house in Kerala. In the summer, my parents, my uncle, and aunt decided to travel somewhere in India together. Eventually, we decided to travel to Darjeeling! On the first day of the trip, we took a taxi to a place called THE MALL ROAD (one of the major shopping spots in Darjeeling). On the way, we told the driver regarding our plan to go for the “Joyride”. The driver then said that there is a shortcut from the mall road where cars can’t go. Then, after some shopping, we headed for the joyride by means of a toy train by Darjeeling Himalayan Railways. For most of the time, the path we used to walk was very narrow, but we did not mind because the path was the shortcut. When we reached the railway, most of the rails were occupied with engine cars, and there was also a table turner which even my parents were seeing for the first time! Some rails were also occupied by passenger cars connected with engine cars.

After taking what seemed like hundreds of photos, I heard a very loud ‘ding dong’. At first, I didn’t understand what the sound meant, but when I saw a lot of people rushing to board the train, I realized that the sound meant the train was about to depart.

In the first few minutes, there were nothing to see outside until I noticed that we were going round and round. Totally confused, I asked my uncle why. Then he said, “We are going around in a famous place called the BATASIA LOOP!” He said it like it was such a special thing but I said, “Huh?” Afterwards I decided to google it up and I found out that it was built for trains to climb up the hilltop in a spiral way because it was steep. Anyways, I was super bored until we reached the hilltop which is a war memorial where the train stopped. Then the train assistant announced that we have to get back on the train after 15 minutes. From the moment I stepped out of the train, all I could see was several different types of flowers!! There were bunches of daisies, dandelions, roses, hydrangeas and many other flowers I’ve not seen before! That place was simply both magnificent and ultra beautiful! After taking lots of pictures, 15 minutes was up and we all hurried to board the train.

My Dad said that ideally, we could see the famous mountain, Kanchenjunga, from there, which is the 3rd largest mountain in the world. Unfortunately, we could not see it as it was very foggy. Finally, we headed back towards Darjeeling Himalayan Railways, from where we boarded, leaving the hilltop for other times to visit. When the train is moving, you can also see black smoke and white smoke shooting up separately! The whole experience is a 2-hour ride, and in my opinion, you may try it; at least it’s worth it. It was a good experience for me as it was my first time riding a steam and coal train.