The local story
Ram's village above the river
Ramdhura's name joins Ram, the hero of the Ramayana, with dhura, used locally for a village or settlement on a ridge. Nobody we asked could say exactly why the village took Ram's name, and we have found no written account, so we leave it as a name with a story still waiting to be told. The village sits on a pine-covered ridge north-east of Kalimpong, above the deep valley of the Teesta.
Like its neighbours Icchey Gaon and Sillery Gaon, Ramdhura has lived for generations from farming and the colonial-era cinchona plantations that cover parts of these slopes, planted by the British to produce quinine against malaria. Pine forest gives the ridge its look, with the needles thick on the paths and the smell of resin in the warm afternoons.
Tourism here is small and recent. Families have opened homestays along the ridge, mostly to visitors who want a village night within an hour of Kalimpong. From the right spot at dawn, the sun rises over the hills while Kanchenjunga lights up across the Teesta valley.
