Trip to North East India (Day 5)

Day 5
This was a day full of travel. We had to reach Shillong from Gangtok.

5:30 AM
We had requested the hotel reception for a wake-up alarm at 5:30 AM. We were told that it takes nearly four hours to travel from Gangtok to New Jalpaiguri station. Our connecting train was scheduled at 11:00 AM and so we wanted to leave Gangtok well in time.
After quickly freshening up, we checked out of the hotel and hailed a shared taxi to NJP. The hotel receptionist provided a helper to carry our luggage to the boarding point which is around five minutes walk from the hotel. There were only two seats left in the Sumo-type of taxi and we had to pay Rs. 150 per head for the ride. The taxi departed from Gangtok at around 6:00 AM.

9:30 AM
The taxi ride was as usual very scenic with the River Teestha in the backdrop for more than half the journey.

The driver had to overtake many a lumbering truck on the narrow winding highway. As we approached NJP, people started getting off at their respective places. Initially we were a little apprehensive whether we could make it in time for the train. However to our pleasant surprise, the taxi reached NJP at 9:30 AM, half an hour before expected. We had breakfast at the IRCTC canteen in the station.

11:20 AM
We had nearly an hour to spare till our train arrived. We spent the time in the upper class waiting room on the railway platform. From the Statesman we learnt of the storm that had lashed West Bengal the day before and the widespread destruction it had caused. Providentially we had escaped the fury of the tempest by just 24 hours! There was some entertainment for us in the waiting room when an irate passenger took the railway staff to task over the ill-maintained toilets there. The Rajdhani express bound to Guwahati arrived on time and we boarded it at 11:00 AM. The train left NJP station by 11:20 AM.

6:30 PM
The train journey was uneventful and we traveled through the length of Assam. As we neared Guwahati, we had the first glimpse of the great River Brahmaputra from a railway overbridge. A fellow passenger pointed us to IIT Guwahati in the distance, several kilometres before the railway station. The scheduled time of arrival for the train was 6:30 PM and the train did keep up to its schedule. However just outside the station, there was a big signal which stalled the train for over forty five minutes. Hence it was nearly 7:15 PM by the time we could come out of the station.

7:45 PM
There are a couple of exits from the Guwahati station and we had a very harrowing time trying to figure out which way to go to catch a taxi to Shillong. Each of us had a heavy bag to carry and it was exhausting to run about from one end to another. Finally a police official directed us to the private taxi stand behind the station, but the worst was yet to come. We had to go to a place called Barapani where our hotel was situated about 15 kilometres before Shillong. There were touts all over the place who gave us misleading information about the mode of transport to take. At last one of them led us to a reluctant taxi driver who demanded some Rs. 1200 to take us to our destination. His claim was that he had to come back empty from Shillong which was not very credible. Besides we had heard that the usual fare was Rs. 300 per passenger. It was getting late and so we haggled with the driver to take us for Rs. 900. He agreed but he was waiting for more passengers to share the taxi with us.
Fortunately or unfortunately for us, there was an army man and his colleague who were also waiting to go to Shillong. They were also firmly bargaining with him over the amount to be paid. Finally after what seemed like eternity and heated arguments, they agreed to join us and the taxi left Guwahati at 7:45 PM.

10:30 PM
That taxi ride was one of the most difficult rides we ever had. The army chaps kept rebuking the driver continuously throughout the journey for demanding excess fare. We were in the dark as to whether it was sincere or whether they were in cahoots with the driver for some fiendish plan. The drive takes nearly three hours and the road was not very good for the first several kilometres of the stretch. Moreover it was pitch dark with few vehicles on the road for some distance. The driver was also driving a bit rashly. Finally we reached the Umiam Orchid Lake Resort in Barapani at around 10:30 PM. The army guy made us pay only Rs. 500 even though the driver kept insisting on getting Rs. 900. Altogether we were a bundle of nerves by the time we landed in our hotel room.

11:30 PM

We had pre-ordered dinner in the hotel over telephone. Cold parathas and a vegetable curry awaited us in the hotel room, and we consumed it before retiring for the night.

Trip to North East India (Day 4)

Day 4
9:00 AM
Breakfast at Hotel Sagorika, Gangtok.

10:00 AM
Leave for the 10-points tour arranged from the hotel reception. Actually there are two different tours called the 7-points tour which includes Enchey Monastery, Ban Jhakri Falls, Tibetology Center, Ropeway, Flower Show, Handicrafts Emporium and Charten Stupa, and the 3-points tour which includes the Tashi View-point, Ganesh Tok and Hanuman Tok. Each of these tours could be completed in a few hours time. We were told that the Ropeway was under repair apparently after an unfortunate accident and hence we would not be able to go there. We opted for both the tours as a single day-long package for which we were charged around Rs. 1700. The vehicle that was provided for the tour was a Maruti Omni along with a driver-cum-guide. It was raining throughout the day but we did not allow that to dampen our spirits.

10:15 AM
Visit the Charten Stupa. Our driver seemed to have his own ideas about which places to take us to and was initially very uncooperative. After a phone call to the hotel, his behaviour was much better! After all, their main livelihood is derived from tourists like us and they cannot probably afford to lose hotel orders what with competition from several tour operators.
The Charten Stupa is a traditional Buddhist stupa along with a monastery. It has the usual rotating cylinders or the Dharma Chakras.

10:30 AM
Visit the Tibetology center. This is right next to the Charten Stupa in the same complex. We saw several paintings and idols of the Bodhisatthavas inside the center. They depict the life story of the Buddha. Photography is prohibited inside the center.

11:45 AM
Arrive Rumtek Monastery. This place was not included in the original itinerary, but since it is a large and famous monastery in Gangtok, we requested our driver to take us there at some extra charge. It is nearly an hour's drive from the city and it was raining heavily throughout the drive. All along the way, we could see many rivulets and small waterfalls rushing past from the surrounding rocks, making the drive a spectacular experience.
Tourist vehicles have to be parked outside a big gate, and visitors have to walk around half a kilometre on a steeply ascending road. Here's how the monastery looks from the outside:

There are security guards at the entrance who check visitors before allowing them to pass. There are beautiful murals such as this one painted on the walls next to the main door:

Taking photographs is strictly prohibited inside the monastery as the notice board proclaimed:

So we had to be content with taking a few snaps outside the main hall. Just behind the monastery is the Karma Shri Nalanda Institute which is a residential school for the Buddhist monks. Next we visited the Golden Stupa nearby which houses a stupa made of pure gold and the image of the Buddha. A security guard is stationed here too and photography is not allowed.

1:15 PM
It was afternoon by the time we completed seeing the Rumtek Monastery and we were feeling quite hungry. Luckily we found a small restaurant in the same complex and had a reasonably good lunch.

2:15 PM
We returned to our taxi and proceeded to the Ban Jhakri Falls. It was still raining but the drive was again very enjoyable due to the excellent natural beauty of the place.
The Ban Jhakri falls is part of an energy park that was inaugurated in 2008. It has a very nice man-made waterfall where one can see water falling with great force from a height. In fact, it is possible to go upto touching distance of the falls and feel the spray hitting you from the roaring waters. A signboard nearby declared that the water was not fit for drinking. There is a small bridge across the water from where one can get a good view of the falls and the water below speeding past boulders making miniature falls along its course.

There are some interesting models and sculptures of the Jhakri tribal people at several locations around the waterfalls. These depict some of the tribal practices such as the healing ritual of sick people.

4:30 PM

Arrive at the Sikkim Handicrafts Sales Emporium. This is sponsored and maintained by the Sikkim Handloom and Handicrafts Development Corporation. Here a variety of local handicrafts such as clothes, hats, bags, soft toys and mementoes are available for display and sale. The prices are somewhat on the higher side and we spent only a few minutes browsing and making a couple of purchases.

4:40 PM

Arrive Flower Show. It was late by this time and so we did not have much time to enjoy the flower exhibition. We had a quick look at the well maintained garden. A little farther on, there is a green house chamber containing various plants but we did not go inside.

4:50 PM

Arrive Enchey Monastery. This was closed by the time we arrived there, but this is how it looks from the outside:

On the way out, we could espy several Buddhist monks around the monastery and some of them gave us a nice pose:

5:15 PM

Arrive Ganesh Tok. Our driver informed us that the word 'tok' means height. Ganesh Tok is a Ganesh temple located atop a hillock. We had to climb several steps that took us to the shrine. There is a big idol of Lord Ganapati to which a priest offers regular pujas. Photography is not permitted inside the shrine. However there is a viewpoint just outside from where one can watch a panoramic view of Gangtok.

We were also scheduled to visit the Hanuman Tok, a temple dedicated to Lord Hanuman but we could not do so since it was quite far from Ganesh Tok.

5:50 PM

Back to the hotel

6:30 PM

After having freshened up a bit, we left for the market. The city of Gangtok is arranged in layers: a few roads and buildings at one level, and then quaint narrow flights of stairs leading up to the next level. It is almost like  a huge multi-storied building where it is easy to get lost if one has not carefully noted some landmarks. We were directed to the market on M G Road, one of the main roads of Gangtok that is well maintained. The road is cobbled but was very slippery due to the incessant rainfall. Vehicular traffic is not allowed on the road and there are seats at regular intervals on the pavement where one can relax and drink in the sights and sounds of the place. A bust of Gandhiji adorns the middle of the road.

It was Tuesday the day we went there and it was the weekly holiday for the local markets. However the shops on M G Road remain open till around 8:30 PM. After shopping for an hour or so, we returned to our hotel for dinner and rest.

Trip to North East India (Day 3)

Day 3
3:45 AM
Wake-up call. Today we were supposed to take the three point tour, the three points being the Tiger Hill, the Batasia Loop and the Ghoom monastery. We had made the tour booking in the hotel itself in advance and had been charged Rs. 900 for this tour. We had been provided a dedicated Toyota Innova vehicle with a driver cum guide.

4:15 AM
Leave for Tiger Hill from the hotel. Tiger Hill is a famous spot in Darjeeling from where one can witness the grand spectacle of the rising sun. It was drizzling and the weather was very misty outside as we set out from the hotel. The visibility en route was very low, and at some points we could not even see a couple of meters ahead. Fortunately our driver was experienced under such conditions and took us safely to our destination.

5:00 AM
Arrive Tiger Hill. There were a lot of tourist vehicles that had already arrived there, indicating the popularity of the spot. The driver had to park some distance behind and we had walk up to the view point. Here's a view of the view point building:
The building reminds one of a cinema theater with different classes. There were some three floors in the building with different rates for different floors. We chose to visit the Deluxe lounge for which we had to pay Rs. 30 per head. It was raining incessantly, the sky was very cloudy and the sun god was playing hide and seek. After waiting for more than half an hour, we had to be content with watching the view from the enclosure. Two or three hawkers were selling Darjeeling guide books and mementoes at a premium there, advertising their wares with loud raucous voices.

5:40 AM
Leave Tiger Hill after taking some photographs outside. Many vendors sell traditional Darjeeling tea outside the view point building, carrying the beverage in big airtight drums. A sip of the hot tea is certainly welcome to ward off the early morning chill!

6:00 AM
Arrive Batasia Loop War Memorial. There was an entrance fee of Rs. 10 per head. The place has a war memorial to commemorate our brave soldiers. Here's how it looks:
The toy train that runs to Darjeeling makes a loop around the war memorial and that's probably the reason why the place is called the Batasia Loop.
A couple of hawkers were doing brisk business by dressing up ladies and children in Darjeeling native dress and getting them photographed. It takes them just two minutes to wrap the dress around their customer, put some pins, hang a couple of necklaces and bingo they are done. They were charging Rs. 20 for one such dressing. Easy money, eh? For their part, the tourists did not seem to mind the drizzle in their eagerness to get themselves photographed in the native dress.

7:00 AM
Arrive Druk monastery. Actually we were supposed to visit Ghoom monastery, but our driver convinced us that the Druk monastery was bigger and we would like it better. This is how the monastery looks from the outside:

The Buddhist monks in the monastery follow the practice of rotating several big cylinders, the Dharma Chakras, round and round in the belief that it brings world peace.


7:45 AM
Back to hotel after completing the three point tour.

8:30 AM
Breakfast at the hotel (bread toast and bananas).

9:00 AM
Leave hotel for some shopping. The local markets have shops selling all kinds of wares, mostly sweaters, jackets, umbrellas and memorabilia. It was drizzling constantly and we had to keep our umbrella out always.

10:00 AM
Check out of the hotel and leave for the Mixed Point tour which was priced at Rs. 1200. We were presented white souvenir scarves by the hotel receptionist.

10:45 AM
Arrive Japanese Temple.

This is a Buddhist temple and monastery. We had to remove and leave our footwear outside before entering the temple. The prayer was in progress in the prayer hall on the first floor when we arrived there. We also sat down for some time and prayed by beating a round plate with a small stick rhythmically. We met a Tamilian family in the temple which had also come there for sight-seeing.
Just adjacent to the temple is a Peace Pagoda which is simply magnificent to behold. It is pure white in colour and has an image of the Buddha embedded in it. There are two silver coloured lions guarding the entrance. The structure reminds one of the Vidhana Soudha dome in Bangalore.

12:00 PM
Arrive at the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. There was an entry fee of Rs. 30 per head. The park is a one of its kind high-altitude zoo which houses several rare species such as the snow leopard, the Tibetan wolf, the Red Panda and the Himalayan bear. Besides we saw other animals like the common leopard, tahr, sambars, pheasants, langurs, yaks and the slow loris. We could espy the red panda lying curled up in its enclosure:

We also got a clear view of the Himalayan bear:

And the Tibetan wolf:

However we were not fortunate enough to get a glimpse of the famous snow leopard. There were two or three big enclosures with its name mentioned on the signboard, but we could not spot it anywhere. Maybe it had taken shelter from the rain somewhere inside.

After spending over an hour in the zoo, we visited the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute which is just adjacent to the zoo. We visited the Everest museum that houses several photographs and articles used by famous mountaineers such as Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary. There's not much else for the average tourist to see; however there's a training centre for mountaineering enthusiasts.

2:30 PM

Break for lunch. There's a small restaurant just opposite the zoo where we had a nice lunch of chapattis. A short distance away, the driver pointed us to the Tenzing Rock where beginning mountaineers are trained.3:00 PM
Arrive at a typical Darjeeling tea estate where freshly packed tea is sold in sachets. The scenery is very enchanting there. We could explore the tea estates on our own, but since it was raining, we were cautioned not to venture far due to the slippery wet ground. We bought some tea at the rate of Rs. 300 per kg after sampling the beverage prepared from the very same tea leaves.

4:00 PM

Leave Darjeeling for Gangtok. There's a point from where shared taxis leave regularly for Gangtok. We got into a Tata Sumo that was jam-packed with passengers and were charged Rs. 130 per head for the five hour ride. The driver was a sullen chap with few words but he drove very carefully. Initially there was a traffic jam with a lot of vehicles piled up in either direction. The drive from Darjeeling to Gangtok is simply breath-taking with splendid scenery all along the way with the River Teestha providing the backdrop for more than three quarters of the journey.

7:30 PM

Brief halt at Rangpo where we bought some assorted sweets in a sweetmeat shop.

9:00 PM

Arrive Gangtok. The shared taxis halt at the main taxi stand of Gangtok from where local taxis are available. We had an advance reservation at Hotel Sagorika which is about 10 minutes by walk from the taxi stand. Initially we had some difficulty what with having to lug our baggage in an unknown place. After a few minutes, we found a coolie who agreed to carry our bags to the hotel for Rs. 30. We had dinner at the hotel after refreshing ourselves and finally called it a day.

Stay tuned for the Gangtok story! Coming up soon...

Trip to North East India (Day 2)

Day 2
10:00 AM
Arrive at New Jalpaiguri (NJP) railway station from Kolkata on the Howrah-NJP Sup Special Express. This is an important junction for most of the trains bound for the North East. Here's a view of the junction.
We had breakfast at a small canteen in the station. There is a separate big counter in the station exclusively for defence personnel. This counter is meant for making train reservations for defence personnel and their family members. Our nation takes care of its soldiers well.

10:45 AM
There are quite a few shared taxis available to take one to Gangtok from NJP. However there are few or no such options available for Darjeeling. Of course, there are private taxis available but they charge much higher (anywhere from Rs. 800 to Rs. 1500). We found one shared taxi whose driver agreed to take us and even loaded our luggage on the top. However after a few minutes he refused to come, probably because he didn't get sufficient passengers. This is how it looks just outside NJP station. The commonly followed practice of reaching Darjeeling from NJP is to first go to Siliguri and then catch a shared taxi to Darjeeling. We took a shared seven-seater autorickshaw to Siliguri from just outside NJP station. The ride takes around half an hour and costs Rs. 15 per person. The rickshaws are old and rickety and passengers keep getting in and out all along the way. NJP town itself looks quite barren and impoverished.


11:15 AM
Leave Siliguri to Darjeeling. The autorickshaw from NJP dropped us off at a point where shared taxis ply from in Siliguri. I was taken into a small office where it appeared that a receipt would be issued for the taxi. However as soon as the guy learnt that we already had a hotel reservation in Darjeeling, he was quick to let us off. These people try to market their own hotels as well as take care of the transportation. We were able to find an available shared taxi without much difficulty and were charged Rs. 120 per head. The shared taxis are normally Tata Sumo kind of vehicles which are packed as much as possible. Here's a picture of the shared taxi we travelled by.

Most of the taxi drivers are quite young, some of them even in their late teens. The tourism business, it appears, is the main source of employment for the youth there.

There is a toy train track that runs parallel to the main road all along the way. This mountain train takes seven to eight hours to reach Darjeeling from NJP and is patronized by patient tourists with an eye for natural beauty. Indeed the nearly three hour drive to Darjeeling is very scenic and offers lots of photo opportunities for the enthusiast.

On the way up to the hill station, we caught a glimpse of Jaswant Singh, the only BJP MP from West Bengal. He was apparently giving a thanksgiving speech after having got elected from there. The local press reported that he won from the Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency mostly because he was sympathetic to the Gorkhaland cause.

2:00 PM

Arrived at Darjeeling town, which is at an altitude of approximately 2000 m above sea level. The taxi stopped at a point which was some distance away from the hotel we had booked. We were carrying two not-very-light bags and were wondering how to get to the hotel when a lady coolie approached us out of nowhere and offered to carry our bags to our hotel; we gladly accepted the services of the coolie-cum-guide.

A characteristic feature of the hill stations we visited is that they are arranged in vertical layers. It is almost as if the people live in a large structure that is several stories high. To reach our hotel, it turned out that we had to climb several feet up to the next level. It was amazing how the lady coolie carrying two heavy bags could walk so fast up the steep paths while we brought up the rear with some difficulty, puffing and panting along.

3:00 PM

Hot water bath and lunch at Hotel Snowlion Homestay.

The hotel is a very nice place to stay even though it is slightly on the higher side of room rents (Rs. 1500 + taxes per night for a normal room). The all-vegetarian menu was decent and the room service was prompt and courteous. The meal charges were also quite reasonable. We rested for some time after lunch to relax our tired muscles.

9:00 PM

After dinner which consisted of Aloo parathas, rice and dhal, we went out for a stroll on the streets. The weather was cool and very pleasant. The bazaar was just winding up for the day, and we did some brief shopping on the way. The town goes to sleep at about 10 PM and we did the same!

In my next post, I will describe our sight-seeing in Darjeeling. Keep reading!

Trip to North East India (Day 1)

Hello all. Here's a new post after a looooong break. This is not a technical post, but a chronicle of our trip to beautiful North East India. Last week my wife and I got the opportunity of visiting Kolkata, Darjeeling, Gangtok and Shillong over a period of one week. Here's the timeline of events.

Day 1
7 AM
Leave home for Bangalore International Airport by taxi. I have now traveled a couple of times with CelCabs and have found their service to be very punctual and comfortable. As of this writing, they charge Rs.14 per km for either Indica or Indigo type of vehicle 24 hours of the day. No extra charge for late night or early morning travel. Moreover they have an attractive offer of Rs.11 per km for the return journey if booked 2 hours before the scheduled time of arrival.

12:15 PM
Arrive Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata. We had a hard time finding an empty luggage trolley, but thankfully were able to find one after a few minutes. There was a booth of West Bengal Tourism inside the airport and we tried to see if they could arrange for a half-day tour of Kolkata city. We did not have much time to spare in Kolkata since our onward train was scheduled to leave in the night. After spending about 30 minutes of fruitless time trying to get a tourist taxi at a reasonable fare, we gave that up and decided to go our own way. Interestingly a Jet Airways employee was seated inside the WB Tourism booth and seemed to have better knowledge of taxi availability than the people manning the booth!

1:00 PM
Hired a regular taxi from the prepaid taxi counter at the airport. The charge was Rs. 220 to Howrah Station. As soon as we exited the airport, the Kolkata heat hit us... hard. It's the kind of humid weather that one comes across in coastal cities like Mumbai or Chennai, the kind that keeps you sweating continuously. The temperature was at a scorching 35 degrees celsius.

The taxis in Kolkata are still old yellow Ambassador cars driven furiously by impatient drivers. The streets are chock-a-block with people reminding one that Kolkata was after all the most densely populated city in India. It was lunch hour and traffic was moving at a crawl near the city center. One sight that people from other cities might not have seen is of the trams. The tracks go right through the middle of the streets and the trams chug their way along slowly, often honking to make their way. Altogether it is an utterly chaotic scene, what with taxis, autos, buses and trams all struggling to get their way and hasty pedestrians interspersing their way in between.

2:30 PM
Arrive Howrah Station. The station is very big with more than 20 railway platforms. We left our luggage in the railway station cloak room. They charge a nominal amount of Rs. 10 per day for every piece of luggage. Note that this service is only available for train passengers; one needs to produce a valid train ticket to avail the facility. Thus freed from the burden, we had lunch at the railway station food court.

3:00 PM
We wanted to visit the Belur Math, made famous by the great spiritual teachers of India, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda. The Math is around 10 km from Howrah Station and so we thought it would be a good idea to hire a taxi. The moment we stepped out of the station, we were swamped by taxi drivers offering to take us anywhere we wanted. The flip side was that they were quoting anywhere from Rs. 160 to Rs. 200. We finally convinced a taxi driver to take us by meter. There are also regular bus services from Howrah Station to Belur Math. We had to pass through Howrah en route to the Math. The squalor and filth in which the people live there is really appalling. It is no surprise that the great seers like Swami Vivekananda had their roots in Howrah and took up the work of assuaging the wretchedness of mankind with such zeal.

Upon reaching our destination, we were in for a nasty surprise when the taxi driver demanded double the meter fare. After a few minutes of heated argument, we got away by paying a little over the meter fare and swallowing unjustified abuses hurled at us. The government should really bring in stricter measures to regulate the errant taxis in the city.

4:00 PM
Belur Math opens for the public. First we visited the museum that traces the chronology of the Ramakrishna Mission. One can also find several rare personal belongings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda there. We had to leave our shoes and slippers at a free counter and walk barefoot on the hot gravel. And it was really hot at that time and the ground was burning.


Next we visited the Ramakrishna temple where people worship an idol of Sri Ramakrishna. Talking and otherwise making noise inside the temple hall is not allowed and we sat for a few minutes there in the calm silence. Photography is strictly prohibited inside the Belur Math premises and so we had to be content with storing the images in our minds!

The Hoogly river flows just behind the temple and people enjoy boating on the river. Having relaxed on the banks of the Hoogly for several minutes, we made our way to some shops that were selling items manufactured in the Math. We found bags, purses and carpets made of jute as well as books, photos, CD's and other memorabilia of the Math.

6:00 PM
Catch a bus to from Belur Math to Esplanade. The bus service in Kolkata comprises frequently plying small buses that carry around 30-40 people and look quite like matchboxes. Most of them are old and ramshackle, many with window panes broken. The drivers tend to ply the buses rashly, but that is the situation elsewhere in India too. The best part is the ridiculously low fare; traveling from Belur Math to Esplanade which is easily more than 10 km cost us only Rs. 5.50 per head! Thus the buses offer an inexpensive and fast means of transport for the common man.

7:00 PM
Catch another bus from Esplanade to Kali Ghat.

8:00 PM
Arrive Kali Temple. This temple has a historical significance in that the name Kolkata has been derived from "Kali Ghat", the area in which the temple is located. We had a rather tough time locating the actual temple from the Kali Ghat bus stop. Although there was a huge rush inside the temple, the streets one block away were close to deserted and we had to ask several passersby before we could finally locate the shrine.

Even before one is able to enter the temple, the priests or pandas try to exploit the gullible tourists. They hang around outside the temple and promise tourists that they could avoid the crowds and have darshan of the deity very quickly by paying a certain sum of money to them. The day we went there was a Saturday, a festival day of special worship and there was a long queue of devotees waiting to have darshan. Since we did not have much time left, we paid Rs. 100 to one of the pandas who led us through bewildering mazes, what with scaling walls and all, and took us close to the deity. We were warned to take special care of our wallets, purses and mobile phones and also not to give money to anybody inside the temple even if they asked. Well, that last advice turned out to be a farce, since the people inside the temple are all hand in glove with the pandas. As much as the darshan of the Mother Goddess was elevating, it was equally distressing, nay appalling the way the priest in the sanctum sanctorum demanded money from us. Similarly we were next taken to the spot where the right toe of Sati devi was supposed to have fallen in the days of yore during Shiva's Rudra Tandava. The panda there was equally bad and demanded Rs. 500 from us; we flatly refused and somehow escaped from his clutches.

This kind of open exploitation of tourists by the pandas vitiates the sanctity of the temple. Altogether it was a very unpleasant experience for us.

9:00 PM
Catch a bus and arrive at Howrah Station. We had dinner at the IRCTC canteen in the station, retrieved our luggage from the cloak room and boarded our train to New Jalpaiguri.

I'll continue the narrative of our visit to Darjeeling, Gangtok and Shillong in my next post. So long then.

AMD64 Function Calling Sequence

Gone are the days when function parameters were passed on the stack. In earlier architectures, the stack frame looked like this:

[local variables]
old ebp
return address
parameter 1
parameter 2
parameter 3

The function parameters were pushed onto the stack starting from the rightmost parameter. This was followed by the return address pushed by the call instruction, and the old ebp register value pushed by the function prolog. Then came the stack space for the local variables.

With the advent of 64-bit architectures such as the AMD-64, this scheme has changed. There are 8 more general purpose registers in the 64-bit architecture (labeled r8 through r15) which can be used for parameter passing. These eight registers are labeled r8d through r15d if only 32 of their 64 bits need to be accessed.

The AMD64 Application Binary Interface (ABI for short) defines detailed rules about how these registers are to be used. We will look at only two important rules:

1. Registers rbp, rbx, r12, r13, r14, r15 belong to the calling function. Mnemonic: the B registers (rBp, rBx) and r12-r15 belong to the caller.
   
2. Integer arguments are passed in the following registers in order: rdi, rsi, rdx, rcx, r8, r9. Integer values are generally returned in the register rax.
   

Let us see what these rules imply.

Rule number 1. If function bar is called by function foo, then foo expects the values of the specified registers to be unchanged when bar returns. To adhere to this convention, the compiler generates code to preserve the values of these registers in the function prolog of bar. If you look at the disassembly of function bar, then you will see a few push instructions at the beginning; the number of push instructions depends on how many of the caller-owned registers are actually modified in the callee. Correspondingly the function epilog contains instructions to pop the saved values back into these registers before the function returns.

The other registers belong to the called function. Which means that the called function is not required to preserve the other registers and is free to modify their values.

Rule number 2. Notice that upto six integer arguments can be passed in registers. This covers the most common parameter types and eliminates parameter passing on the stack. This speeds up function calls quite a bit since there is no need to do memory reads and writes - just fill up the registers and call the function. Remember that memory access is two or more orders of magnitude slower than register access.

Neat, eh? Note that there are several other details involved that have been skipped in this description. You can refer to the AMD64 ABI for more information.

Magic Squares

A magic square is a square whose cells are filled with numbers such that the sum of each row, column and diagonal is the same. Here's how to create a magic square having three rows. Fill the 9 cells with the numbers 1-9 sequentially. Start with a 1 in the center of the first row (x denotes an as yet unfilled cell):
x1x
xxx
xxx
Now there are two simple rules to follow.
1) Try to move North-East. If there is no available cell there, then wrap around. If we go out of the top of the square, then we wrap downwards; if we go out of the right of the square, then we wrap leftwards. To understand "wrapping" better, imagine the square rolled into a cylinder behind the screen from top down or right to left.
2) If a cell is present to the north-east and if it is already occupied, then enter the next number in the cell directly below the current one. Similar action is taken after filling the cell at the top-right corner of the square.
Using these two simple rules, the cells get filled up like this:
(x1x)---(x1x)---(x1x)---(x1x)
(xxx)---(3xx)---(3xx)---(35x)
(xx2)---(xx2)---(4x2)---(4x2)

(x16)---(x16)---(816)---(816)
(35x)---(357)---(357)---(357)
(4x2)---(4x2)---(4x2)---(492)
The same procedure applies to any magic square having an odd number of rows.
Happy squaring!