Suntalekhola, Dooars

Suntalekhola is a small village and a tourist spot in the Darjeeling District of West Bengal. The altitude of the place ranges from 650 to 950 m. In Nepali, Suntaley means orange and khola means stream.This place is nearly 5 km from Samsing. Suntalekhola is also one of the entry point of Neora Valley National Parks.

There are a few home stays available in Suntalekhola, but best place to stay is WBFDC cottage. Several trek routes originate from Suntalekhola, most of which are within the Neora Valley National Park. It is known for its beautiful landscape with green tea gardens.

The non-stop music of mountain streams, rays of golden sunlight will call you again and again. We two (with my friend cum brother) started our journey on 17^th of Aug 2012 from Sealdah station. We reached Sealdah station 15 minutes before the actual departure of Kanchankanna in evening. This time we chose – an offbeat trail of dooars; Samsing Suntalekhola, Chalsa, Murti, Mouchuki, Rocky Island.

When we arrived at New Mal Jn – it was already 09.50 in morning. Normally peoples hired cab from New Mal for Suntalekhola, It takes Rs.1000 to Rs1200 for Suntalekhola. But we two choose different route. First we go to Chalsa. There is a train (55429 NJP BAMANHAT PASS NMZ 10.05 CLD 10.13) for Chalsa from New Mal at 10.05 (the train fare for New Mal to Chalsa is only Rs-2, and the distance is 8 K.M). From Chalsa we took local tracker for Meteli (the local fare for Meteli is Rs. 10). It was a wonderful journey with lots of Tea states. From Meteli we took another tracker for Samsing (the local fare for Samsing is Rs. 10) which is 18km from Chalsa. We give some more money to the driver and request him to drop us in Suntalekhola WBFDC cottage. Though there are many Home stays are available, Suntalekhola WBFDC cottage is the best place to feel the nature. After reaching Suntalekhola we two can’t resist our self to take a bath in mountain streams. After lunch we take rest and spend whole day in Suntalekhola.

In the next day morning we start our small trek towards Rocky Island. This is a beautiful place in Samsing with normal trek route. Tracker and other cabs are also available for Rocky Island. After returning from Rocky Island we start our 2^nd trek of the day for Mouchuki. Mouchuki is one of the entry poing of Neora Valley National Park; it was a good experience with lots of bird around you. We return to Suntalekhola around 4.40 P.M and stay in Suntalekhola.

In the third day we decided to do some birding at Suntalekhola after that we started our journey towards Murti. First we came to Samsing through tracker and from Samsing we came to Chalsa. For Murti we have managed to hire a cab in only Rs. 400. We spend some beautiful time in Murti River, near Gorumara forest and returned to Chalsa. As our train was from New Mal Jn at 6.30 P.M, we came to New Mal through BAMANHAT PASS around 4.20 P.M. Our beautiful journey ends here with lots of good memory, beautiful tea garden, beautiful birds, mountain streams and rays of golden sunlight.