October 7 - from the itinerary: Day excursion to Darjeeling/ Glenburn Tea Estate (B,L,D) Depart from Glenburn at 9.30 am with packed lunch. On arrival in Ghoom first visit the Yellow Hat Monastery in Ghoom prior to embarking the toy train. The train departs from Ghoom at 11:40 am and reaches Darjeeling at around 12:20. The car will meet you at the Darjeeling station. Afterwards, visit the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (established in 1954 by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary who first climbed the Mt Everest in 1953). The Everest Museum here has photographic and archival record of all attempts ever made to scale the world's highest peak.
Next visit Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park (also called the Darjeeling Zoo) was opened in 1958, and is spread over 68 acres and is the largest high altitude zoo in India. It specializes in breeding animals adapted to alpine conditions, and has successful captive breeding programs for the Snow leopard, the critically endangered Himalayan wolf and the Red panda. The Zoo and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute are in the same complex. At the end wander through the Mall, shop for local crafts and antiques along the way, drop in to the famous Das Studios for a peek at their collection of old black and white photographs of the area, and stop for a cup of tea or coffee at Keventers or Glenary's, two famous old cafeterias on the Mall. Visit the grand old Planters' Club, once the Palace of a local Maharaja, and enjoy the views of the surrounding hillside from Chowrasta, where the bandstand still conjures up old colonial memories of days gone by. Evening return to Glenburn Tea Estate.
The hotel's plan for today was to look at the tea operations and then hike downhill about 5 miles to the Tea Estate cottage on the river for lunch and and be driven back up after lunch. Also I should hear about my night in Sikkim and if that will become a reality. Big kerfuffle occurred when I showed my travel agent communicated a different itinerary for today. This came as a surprise to Andrew (the manager), who, it appears, missed an email.
Back to today. Early tea and a very nice breakfast of eggs Benedict. Also spotted another big black butterfly.
I waited for the crew to get organized for today. After a back and forth and general disorganization we decided that the big hike will occur tomorrow and be followed by the Darjeeling itinerary which was set for today. Wasn't sure that was the greatest idea since I'm not sure how much energy I'll have to see Darjeeling after a 15 mile hike and 3000 foot elevation gain. The clouds are low today, with temps in the 70s, but with very high humidity. No view of the mountains today as thunderstorms are predicted.
4th plucking winter- dark tea and worst quality. Monsoon is best tea. Autumn tea is stronger and darker and more is taken off the plant. There were 5 kinds of whole leaf teas (from milder to harsher): green, silver needle, moonlight, first flush, second flush. Second flush might be used in masala chai. We are now in the autumn season of the tea pick. They serve tea to us all the time, but we are never offered sugar or milk and, quite frankly, the tea is wonderful without it.
The tea factory building was built in the 1800s and looks old, dirty and rather unsafe with patches in the floor.
That said, they do seem to have a number of machines that crush, steam, wash, and sort the tea. I found their factory rules rather funny.
What was even funnier was seeing the factory on their website which looks nothing like what we saw today.
The leaves are dried upstairs and then put in a bin and thrown downstairs through a trap door.
Where they are then pressed
and brought over to start the sorting process
After the tea factory tour we went out on our walk down to the river for lunch along the unpaved road. The walk down was about 2.75 miles - about half way down. I was able to get an interesting angle on one of the big spiders.
They met us with a jeep to take us the rest of the way in order to have time for lunch and an after lunch walk. Chris decided to ride in the truck bed while Liz and I were in the cab. This was a VERY bad road and a very rough ride for 45+ minutes. Also, there were a lot of spider webs which they were driven through as a function of being in the truck bed. An experience which wasn’t very nice for them.
The Teesta River ran by the site and was running very fast. I put my hand in and it felt very refreshing.
There were some pretty yellow butterflies along the bank.
The picnic site was at Glenburn’s remote cabins where you can overnight - there are 2 rooms with en-suite bathrooms, but no electricity.
The lunch today was barbecue, starting with grilled barramundi fish and vegetables. I had a beer which tasted wonderful in the heat. After appetizers there was rice, Dahl, a wonderful spicy watermelon salad, potato salad and pumpkin quiche. Dessert was something like bananas foster - cooked bananas with hot caramel/molasses sauce.
After lunch we went on a 2 hour walk to the bridge connecting West Bengal to Sikkim. The walk started across a cane bridge which looked rather unstable and crossed the Rangeet River which feeds into the Teesta. The sign above said that those entering needed to pay a fee, but there was no one to collect it.
We had a downpour along the way which felt pretty good in the heat. The bridge is now all metal, but the current bridge - built in 1899 - was originally cane and replaced the bridge washed out by a typhoon in 1899. Just 10 years ago the cane walkway was replaced by metal. Here are some views from the walk
and some views of the bridge and the Teesta River
Westerners entering Sikkim require special paperwork, so we had to stop at the other side of the bridge and turn around.
As we got to the other side of the bridge we saw several men carrying big loads of boxes on their heads and down their backs. It turns out these were boxes of liquor being smuggled out of Sikkim where the taxes were higher than Bengal where they can get 3x the price. Each load carried by a single man across the bridge was 200+ pounds.
I mentioned there were a lot of cicadas singing and finally found a photo of one of them.
This evening there were more guests arriving from Germany Vazi and Isabella and a family Anishka/Alexandra/Simon/Avani where Anishka and Alexandra were children. Vazi and Isabella had just driven the ten hours from Gangtok in Sikkim which they said wasn't a nice trip. I still haven't heard if I will be traveling there.
Here is the dinner menu and some shots
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