Cardamom Homestay- my trip as a weekend destination

Hello everyone. Hope you are doing well.  Those who follow my blog, already you might know that i walk around in a little offbeat type places. Today I’m going to share a different kind of experience that I had lately in a location named Cardamom Homestay. If I had to describe the location in general, it is in the Doors Region in Garubathan block, Dooars, West Bengal. 

I will state here that this post is not for individuals who want to know how to visit Dooars; rather, this post is about visiting certain Dooars locations. This location is way above in altitude from Todey. I have found a wonderful homestay here – Cardamom homestay. Cardamom Homestay is located two kilometers above Todey on another offbeat route, and the remarkable thing  here is Cardamom. They produce cardamom organically and export them to local market through out the year.

My buddy Tanay told me about this spot and suggested that we spend some weekends there. However the last few Kilometers of road to Cardamom Homestay are really awful. so we’ll have to take bike or take another mode of transportation. But because there are no sharing vehicles on that road, we’ll be good at taking bikes. We will use the New Jalpaiguri  station’s share bike rental service.

We wandered so much that we didn’t have a train ticket at first, but it was already Friday night, so we decided that we had to go out somehow, and I had to return to the workplace on Monday, so our only hope was two seats on the Kanchankanya Express second setting. This is not the first time I’ve travelled in the second seating. Well before the trips, I had a lot of experience in second seating traveling. You can take a pause and ponder how it is possible. It was not an issue at all for us but the challenge was that there was no food services available in the 2S compartment. So usually they did not arrive. We had to get off at different stations for food. However what we did, we had picked up some foods at Sealdah station, and wherever the train put a halt at night, we ate small things, and we survived that night.

Now the second stage of our adventure arrived. After arrival to Siliguri Junction what we did was go directly to the bike rental service provider. We had a talk with the owner beforehand, so this official procedure didn’t take long to produce. We had chosen this option since it was pouring all around us. So we rode our bikes directly to the Mal Bazar, Siliguri. It was a lovely view, and the visual was extremely good to us as we were moving towards Mal Bazar by crossing Sevok.

Our drive from Malbazar via a separate steep route that went uphill and downward along the Jaldhaka river. We just climbed up and down once, but the view within the Chapramari forest after the last few kilometers was breathtaking. After crossing Khunia More, we encountered Chapramari forest.  All we can say about Chapramari Forest is that was a solitary jungle. Consider yourself travelling through a spooky atmosphere of darkness and sunlight. The forest road through the light and darkness lies, we drove for half an hour. We see nothing but green forest trees on both sides.

Finally, the chapramari forest came to an end, and after a little distance, we turned around at a place named Keram. The road takes on a new appearance from here. The road was as good and paved as it had been before, but the consistency it started to loose from here. The off road biking experience  was flawless, since none of us had ever had  such off riding before. But this journey was on another level entirely. We came to know earlier that the homestay owner Mr. Digel was waiting for us.  We met him near Jaldhaka police station, where he had been waiting for us since the morning. When we arrived he had a pleasant grin, he was not fatigued. but we have travelled a great distance. So we were hungry.

We didn’t linger there any more. He brought his own bike to receive us. We started off, but the road started to became uglier.  It seemed no initiatives were taken ever to build any proper road in this area. Even It is not feasible to elevate motorcycles  at this altitude since riding bike on the road was tough. Even it was impossible for the pillion to sit consistently. Tanay used to push the bike at times. I used to push the bike from behind sometimes. We struggled for almost one hour on the way.

Credits: Pritraj Sikdar

Then we finally arrived to the most awaited Cardamom Homestay. So, until morning arrived, we considered the odd silence around the night to be our sole refuge. The homestay owner – Digel bhai greeted, offered us to freshen ourselves in the room, and began making various arrangements at the homestay including saying that he could arrange our dinners in half an hour if we wished. We agreed to freshen up a little after such a long drive, but it was really chilly, so we put on a jacket, shivering in the cold.

Our eyes welled up with emotions the moment we stepped into Cardamom Homestead Kitchen. We had no idea such a lovely arrangement could be prepared in Homestay. Personally, I enjoy both types of chicken and pork dishes. It had everything- rice, tasty daal, veg curries, pork meat, chicken preparation, papad, salad. I enjoy having this type of cuisine. The more I thought about the enthusiasm for the preparation, the more I felt to taste because the flavor of the dish was significant. I guess the aroma is still in my tongue today. I wish I could capture the taste by any technology or modern device. We fell asleep shortly after eating so much food and because it was so frigid outside, we did not take much time to fall asleep. 

The sound of birds around us greeted us as we opened our eyes in the morning. I couldn’t believe we were so closer to nature, with so many birds chirping around us in such an elevation from the sea level. We were standing at Cardamom Homestay in a very rural area in West Bengal, with the border of Bhutan on one side and the border of Sikkim on another.   From a distance, the Nathula Pass can be seen. This place  appeared to be a really lovely destination to me. I asked Digel bhai what was around  the homestay, and he pointed to a peak, replied that in winter, there is a lot of snow upon the small peak, and the ground becomes completely covered with snow.

We won’t have to wait long until a large breakfast plate was placed in front of us. We were served bread omelets with tea today. We managed to complete them in a short amount of time. We stayed for  couple of hours. We talked about their culture and ended up playing with his child and pet dogs. Finally, it was our turn to say our final goodbyes. We took a lot of beautiful photos during our stay in cardamom homestay.

That’s how we spent the entire day, from evening to morning.   We didn’t have any more problems while returning after we got off because there was a strange thrill, a different kind of perfection. We were hoping to return to Kolkata. We hope you all will go to cardamom homestay after reading this post and will enjoy your stay there. Then you must ask direction to get there. I ‘ll be there to assist you. 

Let me know your reactions in the comment section.