The Quest for Red Panda

Meals: On own
Accommodation: Lemon Tree Hotel

Arrive at Bagdogra Airport at 1315 hrs. You will be met by our representative and transferred to a hotel in Siliguri.

On this day, you will be taken to the Kakarbhitta border check-post located at the Nepal border, a 45-minute drive from the hotel, to get your Nepal access visas stamped and accepted by the border control authorities. Evening at leisure. 

Overnight stay.

PS: Even if the guests already come with a proper Nepal Visa, their passports need to be stamped. So, a buffer day to do all these will be recommended.

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner
Accommodation: Homestay

On this day, we leave early with packed breakfasts towards our destination. We climb the hills as soon as we leave the town borders and ascend to an altitude of 2000m, the area that is home to the growth and production of the world-renowned Darjeeling tea.

After a drive through green tea gardens and small forest patches and hill towns, we reach the border town of Maneybhanjang. Here, we will jump into the rugged Land Rovers, clear our forest permits, and enter the national park. En route, in the village of Chitrey, we stop and search the ponds around the village, for a lesser-known endemic resident of this region, the Himalayan newt, the only newt species in the Himalayan region.

After a drive on a ridge road that follows the Indo-Nepal border, with multiple stops for wildlife and Himalayan views, we reach Shikhar Lodge in the village of Tumling, our destination for lunch. We leave post lunch for a walk into the forests on a trail that leads into a valley, towards the village of Garibas. This walk cuts across pristine panda country and will be a great initiation for all to understand the forests of the region. At Garibas, we meet our vehicles and continue our journey further into the park for 2 hours, towards the village complex of Kalapokhari and Dobato, and settle into our homestay there. Today we meet our expedition team, the trackers, our chef, the porters, and the rest of the staff.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner
Accommodation: Homestay

Using our homestay at Dobato as the base, we will spend these days exploring the surrounding forests with our trackers, on foot, and by vehicle, to look for the pandas and other wildlife.

Overnight stay

Meals: Breakfast
Accommodation: None

After breakfast, check out from the hotel and drive to the airport for your onward flight.