A trip taken around two years ago, facts may have gone a little haywire but the memories of the brew still remains as fresh as it was then…
Looking down the hill, right from the edge in the wee hours of early morning with the morning dew seeping underneath my feet through my chappal sides I breathed in the fresh air with a hungry gasp!
Fresh, yes… fresh air, wind, water and a fresh place. Surrounded with hills for miles around, all I could see was tea plantations. A few minutes later the familiar colorful heads of the tea pluckers would also come into view. It was almost 7am. Looking behind, I gazed at the 124-year-old English bungalow. It looked resplendent and magnificent against the green and blue backdrop, while a well manicured lawn covered the distance between us.
I walked back to the bungalow, to wake up my friends.
How about starting from the very beginning? At the age of 24, I had already grown quite comfortable to flights and I was boarding a train after ages. I looked at my friend SGB quite unconvinced. “Are you sure we won’t need a chain? What if our bags gets stolen?”
The chains to keep the luggage secure was not a very hopeful sight, but still, peace of mind made me buy one.
We both were the north Calcuttans waiting for our South Calcuttan friends at Sealdah station to board the Kanchankanya Express for a getaway! Four days away from our mundane life, four days of basking in nature’s file, and four good friends. Bliss?
As always I had no hand or mind in planning for the trip. I am more of the kinds who loves going on group trips, enjoy and then write about it. Group trips are inevitably out of any one individual’s control and planning for it always makes me disappointed about the n number of things I would have otherwise included but couldn’t due to the lack of group consensus. Better to lay off the planning completely, eh! But nevertheless, with time some thoughts are bound to come- tickets? Check. Hotel booking? Check. Food? South cal is bringing. What about ways to kill time? Uno.
People might have even considered us to be the brand ambassadors of Uno, considering the amount of time we spent playing the card game using innovative rules and methods.
We were to get off at Mal junction, after some 18 stops that the train would make overnight. It was SGB’s idea, and even though we grudged about the endless journey, we thanked him true for what waited at the other end. A green side to the otherwise rickety country of mine. Very few travelers write beyond the dirt and poverty they see in my country, but it is definitely more than just that. Landing at Mal Junction, I just felt it more. And here began my tryst with tea tourism that has had me planning for more of such ‘tea’ breaks.
A quiet station set in the valley surrounded by hills Mal Juntion was by far one of the cleaner stations that I had seen till then. And then came Prasant Bhai, our driver, conductor, tour instructor for the next few days.
A little less than an hour’s drive later and gradually climbing and rambling through tea plantations all around, we reached Zurrantee, the Heritage Getaway. Climbing out of the car, the bungalow with just three bedrooms (including a deluxe family room) seemed to embrace us with open arms. Beyond the porch, the first right took us into the television/drawing room, opening in on to the pool room, which in turn opened on to the garden that circled the bungalow and could be accessed from the rooms as well.
The first left led into the dining room. Moving down the corridor, three doors opened on to three bedrooms – two to the right and one to the left. Straight down was the kitchen and the ‘hospitality quarters,’ as I would like to call it for the lack of a better term, since I have never exactly approved of the term ‘servant.’
We moved into the two rooms to the right. Spacious with gigantic beds and huge wardrobes, the rooms had equally enormous bathrooms which literally made me feel at a loss considering there was only so much space available in our urban pigeon holes. What added further to the appeal was the woodwork all around, right from teak furniture to creaking wooden floor boards.
Since we bought ourselves a packaged trip we did not have to worry about a single thing right till our departure. A sumptuous and lazy lunch comprising of potol bhaja (fried pointed gourd or parval), yellow dal (lentil soup), mixed vegetables, two kinds of fish and chicken later, we drove down to the Murti river before evening fell upon us. It was time for some quiet time by the tranquil river and stopping for some of the group shots that would soon shoot up to my cover photos for social media sites.
A little later we were taken off to Rocky Island at Samsing, a camping site for the adventurous, when it started raining and we had to cut the trip short. Ending the day with a game of pool (for me it was more of an attempt at potting the balls) and later resigning to Uno only to be pleasantly disturbed by yet another delumptious meal.
Here it is extremely important to point out that three/four days at Zurrantee means you are going to come back with extra baggage – on yourself. The food is plain amazing. Right from simple Bengali cuisine to continental, Punjabi, Rajasthani, to German stroganoffs. Be prepared to be surprised by the culinary skills of the cook up there. A must-try however are the tea leaf pakoras. An ingenious creation, a sip of the brew and a bite into the fried leaves coated with batter was a heavenly evening break on each of the days.
The next day, we went up to the Bindu Dam followed by a stop at Paren for a simple lunch of rice, dal, veggies and chicken at the forest bungalows nestled in the cleavage of a dense forested hill. Come evening, we were back at Zurrantee for a traditional santhal dance performance by the locals. Joining in and matching steps with them, it was perhaps my first experience of jiving to the drum beats and getting a taste of tribal India.
Day three moved on extremely fast with a trip to the Zurrantee tea factory. Not only was the process of tea leaf making explained in details as our nostrils were filled with the delightful aroma of the freshly ground tea leaves, but for the first time it made me realize how we often end up taking certain things for granted. The addictive cup of our morning tea that awakes our senses meant hard work on the part of hundreds of people working for meager few rupees. And yet again, most of their hard work did not even cater to their own country but were mostly exported to the Global North. Amazing! And here I was thinking that the tea people always got the best deal while all they drank was the ‘dust’ from the processed tea leaves.
A drive through the tea estate took us from the freshly planted tea bushes to year old ones. And lo! We came across a leopard cage. It was here that we learned about how often wild animals, such as mountain leopards and elephants, walked into the tea plantations. Leopards often took away few of the workers for their meal and that led to the need of cages around the estates. For all we knew, a leopard may have been lurking anywhere in the plantation right at the moment as when we stood there.
Given it was an off-season, the Gorumara National Park was closed off to visitors. The only part open was the Rhino Park and off we headed over for a post-lunch sleepy catch-up with Rhinos before they took off for the night. Climbing on to a bullock cart from the main gates of the camp, it was a rickety ride to the watch tower as we caught glimpses of a gigantic elephant on the other side of the river. Atop the tower, it was a long wait till the rhinos decided to make a move and be distinguished from the boulders and bushes around. In total, we saw around three rhinos, including a young one (oh so cute) over three hours, while quietly tolerating some of the most insensitive and insensible fellow citizens of the country rubbishing the tower with empty biscuit and chips wrappers, banana peels and well more (read paan or betel leaf spit). Sadly all the verbal protests only fell on deaf ears. I could only do so much as to not push those shameless men over the tower walls.
And there ended our three days of sheer blissful delight of seeping in all that’s nature only to be left with a desire to never leave and perhaps carry on for a few more days. To remember the getaway well, each of us were gifted with a pack of the Zurrantee Tea Estate’s tea leaves, which are otherwise not on sale for visitors and tourists. Cheers to the cuppa that sits in my hands now.
Trip pointers:
Check out Zurrantee, the Heritage Getaway at http://zurrantee.com/index.html
Located at Dooars, District Jalpaiguri (North Bengal), it is a 3hour drive from Bagdogra Airport and 2hours 30 minutes from New Jalpaiguri Station. Nearest railway station would be Mal junction (information courtesy Zurrantee website).
Tip: The packages are always a good deal including stay, food and local tours. For four, we spent INR 32,000, during off-season of August 2012. The local market is quite a distance away and in case you do need anything it is best to keep it stocked with yourself or pick it up en-route to the various tourist spots.
The Foodie's Travel Talks 