Kurseong, Darjeeling district
Most visitors meet Kurseong for twenty minutes on the climb to Darjeeling: momos, a pot of tea, back in the car. Here is why we often stop for the night, and who should keep driving.
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Halfway up
Kurseong sits at about 1,483 m (4,870 ft), 32 km below Darjeeling and one to one and a half hours from Bagdogra, against about three for Darjeeling. A flight landing at two still leaves you a first evening.
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The name
Most people here say the name comes from the Lepcha kurson-rip, an orchid that flowers on mossy trunks in late winter and spring. If one is out above the road in March, your driver will stop.
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Milder nights
That 560 m (1,840 ft) makes the nights milder, which matters in December and January in houses without central heating. No long-run weather record is published for the town, so we quote no figure.
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06:30
The station is the middle of town. Train 52587 leaves at 06:30 and climbs 29 km to Darjeeling in 2 hours 35 minutes, used by school children and traders. It is a working train, not a joy ride.
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Muscatel country
Makaibari, just below town, was founded in 1852, and the district's first tea factory opened inside it in 1859. Castleton, planted in 1885, makes the muscatel that others are measured against.
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Eagle's Crag
A kilometer from the station, a watchtower of about 9 m (30 ft) looks north to a distant Kanchenjunga and south over the gardens to the plains you flew in from. Almost nowhere else in these hills shows you the plains.
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Giddapahar
Four kilometers out is the Bose family house where Subhas Chandra Bose spent seven months under house arrest in 1936, now a small museum. Its hours are not reliably published, so we call the day before.
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Here or higher up
If the mountain is the point, or you have three or four nights on a first visit, sleep in Darjeeling: Kurseong's bazaar is quiet by nine. Tell us your landing time and who is traveling, and we will say where the first night belongs.
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