Why the Cool Months Change Everything
The Dooars in October is a different country from the Dooars in July. The monsoon has just released it. The Jalpaiguri district's floodplains are still wet enough to hold animals at the edge of the grass, but the roads are passable and the leeches are gone. Gorumara National Park, roughly 80 kilometres east of Siliguri, reopens to jeep safaris around mid-October after the monsoon closure, and the forest floor is still soft enough that a one-horned rhinoceros crossing a track leaves prints you can read like a sentence.
