North Bengal - Lava, Lolaygaon, Rishop

As a photographer, I have always been inspired by rustic beauty of our mother nature.It has always been my endevour to get to the wilderness and capture the beauty of the nature as it is. Hence on a very hot and humid day in the month of April, we jumped in Darjeeling mail to get to NJP and then to Lolaygoan via Lava.
This part of west bengal is still not that popular among our welknown bengali tourists and hence we could taste the natural beauty with utmost serenity.Talking about serenity, Lolaygaon gave us that with a beautiful charm. We had our stay booked at a wonderful resort name 'Tree Fern'. This is a new resort and has great visuals from all the cottages.

Weather at the mountains are always unpredictable and here we were presented with a follgy weather.And yes, the great Kanchenjunga gave us a miss...
Travelling through the lanes of lovely Lolaygaon gave me some wonderful visuals. In one corner of the street, I saw little kid playing on his own. I could not resist to freeze the frame with my -55mm kit lens.We walked and walked and walked to reach the famous canopy bridge, quite infamous due to 'jok' a kind of parasite which sucks blood silently. The jungle was quite dense and reminded me of some of the wellknown thriller movies of hollywood and even to some extent our bollywood's 'Raaz'. Foggy and dense, and the silence of the forest made this an experience to remember. And I got a great image of the foggy atmosphere and the hanging bridge.

Next day, we travelled to Rishop. Road to Rishop was something which I have never experienced before. There was no way yet we made throgh by a 4x4 Mahindra jeep. The driver told us that the way is just for trekking, it has only made a Jeepable road by force. Only all wheel jeeps can afford to get into such a rough surface.On the way I took several pictures and one with the Jeep wheel made me happy.
Reached Rishop, just to find out that it does worth all the hard work to get here.Such a superp atmosphere out there. Though Kanchenjunga, as we expected remained hidden behind the clouds all through.
We had booked at Lovely Resort and the flowers and plantations just inside the resort made my days. I could get some of my favourite flora images during my stay here. I also got soem macro images.Next day, I woke up quite early and took a walk around Rishop during sun rise. I could not resist taking some images of breathtaking Rishop.
Although I love capturing nature, yet my ultimate hunger is for portraiture. I love taking picture of beautiful people. Here I was accompanied by my family and by brother in law's family. I took some portraits mostly in the beautiful resorts where we stayed.
Please have a look at all my images at my flickr site:www.flickr.com/phots/biswajitkumar