Dhupi Dara · Kalimpong · 2,300 metres
Stone walls, thin air, and Kanchenjunga for a neighbour.
Five rooms, a stove that eats a tree a winter, and the third-highest mountain on earth on the skyline — when the cloud allows.
Book a stay →Kharka · A high pasture · since 1926
01 — The house
Built out of the hill it stands on.
A working smallholding, not a hotel. Four generations have lived here; five rooms are for guests. There is no television, and nobody has ever complained twice.
The house was put up in 1926 by a road engineer called Man Bahadur Rai, who quarried the stone a hundred metres uphill and had the slate carried down from Lava on mules. The walls are sixty centimetres thick, which is why the rooms stay cool in May and why the wi-fi gives up at the second one.
The stove is lit at five. After that the house is warm and nothing else matters.
There are five rooms. No television, no bar, no music in the corridor — the wind does the soundtrack, and around four in the morning it comes up the valley like a train. Hot water runs off a wood boiler and gives out by nine, so we suggest you wash in that order. In winter there are hot-water bottles in the beds before you get in, and a second quilt in the trunk.
Breakfast is at eight: paratha, eggs from the four hens behind the kitchen, and tea strong enough to stand a spoon in. Lunch and dinner only if you tell us by ten in the morning. The market is an hour down and the road is not wide enough for an argument.
02 — Rooms & rates
Named after what you can see from the bed.
Rates are per night for two, breakfast and evening tea included. Extra bed ₹900. Logs, hot water and the stove come free. Taxes extra, and nothing is charged until you arrive.
Ground floor
Kabru the window room
The thickest wall in the house, a brass bed, and a window seat set deep enough to sleep on. The snow is directly in front of you and the sun hits it at about ten past six.
2 guestsBrass double bedWood stoveRidge view
Veranda
Pandim the veranda room
Opens straight onto the terrace. Two cane chairs, a blanket each, and a view that makes people stop talking for the first ten minutes. The correct room if you have come to do nothing.
3 guestsDouble + daybedPrivate verandaTwo blankets
First floor
Siniolchu the loft
Up the wooden stair, under the old beams, with a round window that frames the ridge. Warmest room in the house in January, because the flue runs up beside it. Families take this one.
4 guestsPlatform bed + 2 singlesDormer windowBest for children
The whole house, if you'd rather not share the stove.
All five rooms, the terrace, the sitting room and Bimala-di's cooking for up to twelve people. Two nights minimum, and we will light the second stove for whoever is turning forty.
At twenty to six the snow goes the colour of tea with milk. It lasts four minutes, and nobody who has seen it talks about anything else at breakfast.Pratap, on the view from the terrace
03 — Things to do
Five ways to spend a day, one of them involving nothing.
Nothing here is packaged or ticketed. Ask at breakfast and we will point you at the right path — or walk you along it ourselves, which is usually faster than explaining.
Kanchenjunga at 5:40
The terrace faces the massif. Take the blanket off the chair and the tea we leave in the flask at half five, and stand there. It is the only thing in the district that has never disappointed anybody.
5:30 a.m. · freeThe rhododendron trail
A stone path climbs from behind the house through dhupi and rhododendron to a burnt-out forest rest house at 2,700 m. In April the whole hill is red. Two hours up, ninety minutes down, one leech in June.
3½ hrs · from the gateThe stove, and momos
Bimala-di makes momos on Thursdays and will let you fold three before taking the dough away from you. The stove is the warmest seat in the house and the correct place to spend a wet afternoon.
Thursdays · 4 p.m.Kalimpong, and the nurseries
An hour down: the bazaar, three monasteries, and the flower nurseries that sell orchids to half of Bengal. We will send you with a driver who knows where the car can actually park.
22 km · half a dayNothing at all
A chair, a blanket, a book you will not finish, and the cloud coming up the valley at four. This is what guests write about in the book by the door, and they write about it more than the mountain.
All day · freeHover a row to see where it happens
04 — Photographs
Shot on film, over one winter and two monsoons.
No filters, no styling, no borrowed furniture. What you see is the house on an ordinary Thursday.
05 — Who you'll meet
Bimala-di cooks. Pratap drives. The stove is the third member of staff.
Bimala Rai was born two valleys east and came here as a bride in 1974. She keeps four hens, a kitchen garden and a firm opinion about how much salt is enough. In winter she puts the hot-water bottles in the beds before you have finished your dinner, and she will not be talked out of it.
Her son Pratap runs the smallholding, drives the jeep down to Kalimpong twice a week, and can tell from a single look at the cloud whether it will rain by two. Tenzing, who is ninety-one and no longer works, sits by the stove and corrects everybody's Nepali. The dog is called Bhaloo, which means bear, and is very obviously not one.
Nobody here will perform the mountains for you. But if you ask Bimala-di about her momos, clear your Thursday afternoon.
Bimala & Pratap RaiKharka, Dhupi Dara
06 — Find us
Twelve good kilometres, then a jeep track that argues with them.
Take the Lava road out of Kalimpong, turn at the yellow water tank, and do not trust the map after that. Call from the tank and someone will come down on the motorbike to fetch you.
Kharka Homestay
Dhupi Dara, above Lava
Kalimpong 734314, West Bengal
2,300 m above sea level
- By railNew Jalpaiguri (NJP) — 78 km, about three hours by road. Overnight trains from Kolkata and Delhi.
- By airBagdogra (IXB) 85 km / 3½ hrs. We can send a car, ₹5,000 either way — ask before you book the flight.
- By roadKalimpong, then the Lava road. The last two kilometres are a concrete track: do not attempt it in a low car, and not at all after dark.
- On arrivalCheck-in from noon, out by 10 a.m. Breakfast at eight sharp — the parathas do not wait and neither does Bimala-di.
- Best timeOctober to December for the clearest snows, April for rhododendrons. We are honest about the monsoon: it rains, the cloud sits down, and the house is wonderful.
- Weather2,300 m. January nights fall to −2 °C and it sometimes snows. Bring shoes with grip — the stone steps are wet more often than they are dry.
- SignalsNo phone signal for the last three kilometres, and the wi-fi is honest but slow. Guests are, on the whole, relieved.
| Tariff | Per night |
|---|---|
| Kabru 2 guests | ₹3,800 |
| Pandim 3 guests | ₹5,200 |
| Siniolchu loft 4 guests | ₹6,200 |
| The whole house up to 12 | ₹21,000 |
| Extra bed / mattress | ₹900 |
| Lunch or dinner per person | ₹500 |
Rates include breakfast and evening tea, logs for the stove, and hot water while it lasts. 12% GST applies. Children under six stay free. We ask for one night's advance by UPI, refundable up to seven days before arrival.
07 — Enquiries
Tell us the dates. We'll tell you if the mountain is out.
We are a small house and we answer our own mail. One of us will write back within a day — usually Pratap, usually at night, usually from the veranda with the stove going.