On a shopping trip in the Himalayan foothills, Christina Pfeiffer finds some unexpected plant life.

Until the mid-19th century, the area around Kalimpong was ruled by the kingdoms of Sikkim and Bhutan, whichever happened to be the conquering nation of the day. When the British occupied India, Kalimpong was developed as an alternative hill station to nearby Darjeeling.

These days, it may be far smaller than its neighbour, but Kalimpong's bustling market makes it an ideal daytrip from the more touristy Darjeeling. It's a hub for the locals and the best place in the area to stock up on fabric.

My guide, Mickey, has strict instructions from his wife to bring home a fine piece of material. And I'm keen to go shopping with a local. At the first material shop, the proprietor leads us down a narrow set of stairs to a room packed to the rafters with bales of colourful fabric. Some haggling occurs and soon Mickey motions for us to leave. "Too expensive," he says.

Further down the street, another shopkeeper unrolls swaths of shimmering silk with a flourish and lays the material out on a carpeted platform. These are more to Mickey's liking and he chooses a flowing lemon-coloured cloth that would make an elegant women's Salwar Kameez, or traditional dress.

Our next stop is a dry goods store from which he buys packets of dry noodles to take home to his extended family. "In India, each time a family member travels away from home, even if it's a daytrip only a few hours away, we're expected to bring home a gift," he says.

We pop into a number of shops that sell thangkas, or wall hangings, ornamental caps and other Buddhist artefacts. Following the spirit of Indian gift-giving, I stock up on colourful wall hangings for my own family and friends in Australia.

After our shopping, we drive up a hillside to visit Pineview Nursery where grower Mohan Pradhan has defied all the odds to create one of the largest collections of cacti in Asia. Pineview has 1500 specimens of cacti, some extremely rare.

Nestled in the eastern Himalayas in the state of West Bengal at an altitude higher than 1200metres above sea level, this sanctuary for prickly cacti is just a short drive from the town of Kalimpong.

Even if these spiky plants are not your thing, it's easy to become fascinated by the great variety and the incongruity of finding such a collection in this location.

Like many growers in the area, Pradhan began his horticultural pursuits by growing orchids - not a surprising choice, considering that more than 300 species of orchids are grown around the Kalimpong area. The conditions also allow wild sunflowers to grow in abundance by the roadside and for gladioli to thrive (about 80percent of India's gladioli are grown in the region).

Lured by the challenge of cultivating a rare plant in that part of the world, Pradhan decided to try his hand at growing cacti. It wasn't long before he was hooked. "My interest began when I received a gift of a few cacti from an overseas associate. I thought that growing cacti would be something new and exciting for India and in those early days I went to great lengths to import cacti from various corners of the world," he says.

Pradhan has added many exotic and rare varieties of the plant from Africa, Mediterranean, Jamaica, Cuba, North and South America to his collection. His dedication has won him 10 awards in India.

He sprints nimbly around the nursery from hothouse to hothouse, pointing out varieties with names such as Oreocereus trollii (more commonly known as Old Man of the Mountain) and a 40-year-old specimen of Espostoa lanata (or Peruvian Old Man Cactus). In the miniature hothouse, he draws my attention to the Pebble Cacti that are so tiny I have to peer at them very closely before I realise they aren't actually pebbles.

I soon find myself struggling to keep up with the tongue-twisting names that begin with words like Gymnocalcium, Matucana, Neoporteria and Parodia. He proudly shows off his piece de resistance, a grafted rare Blue Cactus (Pilosocereus magnificus) with a head that looks like a fan.

Given the temperature, rainfall and topography, growing cacti in the Himalayan foothills comes with major challenges. Although cacti can handle a wide range of temperatures, the cool hills of Kalimpong are simply not ideal. The area has five distinct seasons - spring, summer, autumn, winter and monsoon. Steep slopes and soft, loose topsoil lead to frequent landslides, especially during the monsoon season between June and September.

As cacti thrive in warmer weather, Kalimpong's winter temperatures of about minus 4 degrees make it necessary to house the plants within climate-controlled hothouses, and to protect them with polythene covers which Pradhan designed himself.

Although Pradhan doesn't follow scientific methods in caring for his cacti, he has managed to overcome these difficulties through years of trial and error. These days, his hobby has become a full-time vocation and he spends a large proportion of his time tending to his cacti.

One of the activities that he looks forward to is grafting - where the tissues of one plant are encouraged to fuse with another. Over the years, he has developed many of his own hybrids.

After visiting the different hothouses, we sit beneath a thatched rotunda in the garden, sipping on Darjeeling tea and gazing at the breathtaking snow-clad peak of Mount Kanchenjunga peeping above the clouds.

The writer was a guest of the Government of India Tourist Office.

TRIP NOTES

Getting there: Singapore Airlines (phone 131011, see http://www.singaporeair.com) flies to Kolkata where you can connect to Bagdogra, which is about a four-hour drive from Darjeeling. Indian Airlines and Jet Airways operate regular services from Kolkata to Bagdogra.

More information: Pineview Nursery is at Atisha Road, Kalimpong, West Bengal, India. Phone +913552255843, email pineviewnursery@yahoo.co.in or see www.pineviewcactus.com.