Darjeeling
Founded by the British as a hill retreat and sanatorium, Darjeeling
soon came to be known as the ‘Queen of Hills’, the finest
hill resort of the Raj. Famous for its delicate tea, the hills all around
the town are draped in vibrant green tea bushes. The skillful fingers
of thousands of pickers pluck the fresh shoots from each plant every
week or so during the summer months. Later the tea is carefully graded
and sold at auction as it starts its journey around the world. Yet Darjeeling
is famous for much more than tea. Its location on a 7,000 ft ridge with
clear views of Kanchenjunga make it a perfect place to escape the pre-monsoon
heat of the plains. The earliest British settlers here reveled in its
cool temperatures, fresh breezes and crisp mornings and evening.
Wandering around the promenades of Chowrasta and The Mall today you
are surrounded by echoes of Darjeeling’s past. The solid stone
British-style houses are also complemented by more fanciful wooden-fronted
buildings that are more like idealized Swiss chalets with their steep
roofs and carved eaves and gables. Hotels old and new crowd the center
of town but can still hardly accommodate the rush of visitors in the
peak seasons at the start and end of summer.
The remarkable ‘toy train’, or Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
to give it its proper name, chugs up from the plains in an eight hour
journey that involves more than 7,000 feet of ascent - hard work for
the little steam engines that pull the miniature carriages on their
winding route up the hills. Faster, but less unusual, transport around
the Darjeeling hills is provided by jeeps which can take you on breathtakingly
beautiful trips along the tortuous narrow roads of the district.
Just a short drive from Darjeeling is Tiger Hill, famous for the superb
views of sunrise over the Kanchenjunga Himalaya that it affords. On
the way you also pass the famous Ghoom monastery, one of many Tibetan
Buddhist centers in the Darjeeling area. Some tea gardens are open to
visitors who want to find out how the beverage makes its way from hillside
to teapot (and perhaps stock up on some high-grade leaves at factory
prices). The Tibetan refugee community also produces handicrafts and
welcomes visitors.
But the special charm of Darjeeling remains in the town itself with
its mix of cultures - the population is overwhelmingly Nepali in origin
but also colored with settlers from the Indian plains, Sikkim, Bhutan
and Tibet - and sense of history. The pearl of the British Raj is still
shining today and attracting visitors from across the subcontinent and
across the world. |
