Kalimpong, market day
Twice a week the villages come to town with vegetables, spices and churpi, the hill cheese. Skip the rows of identical shawls: here is when to go, what to taste and how to ask the price.
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Wednesday and Saturday
The Haat fills on Wednesdays and Saturdays below the bus stand, when villages bring in vegetables, churpi and spices and the cloth sellers set up alongside. Market days are worth confirming for your week.
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Since May 2023
The same ground has also held a Thursday haat that sells only local and organic goods: churpi, honey, pickles and sel roti among them. It began in May 2023, so check it is still running the week you come.
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What to taste
Look for butter wrapped in leaves, dalle chillies by the handful and churpi, soft and hard. Soft churpi is for cooking with greens; the hard blocks are chewed slowly, like a candy that lasts an hour.
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Street food
Phumbi is the jelly left over from making phing, the mung-bean glass noodle of the old Tibet trade, cut into cubes and tossed in chilli at the stalls. For lunch, momos at Gompu's.
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Kati ho?
Arrive before the crush, ideally with a guide who buys the way the town buys and knows whose churpi is fresh that week. 'Kati ho?' (KUH-tee ho) asks how much. Stalls prefer cash or UPI.
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Planning
Arrive on a Tuesday or a Friday and your first full day falls on the Wednesday or Saturday market; a Wednesday arrival meets the Thursday haat instead. Even in the monsoon, the haat fills on its days.
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