Champagne of Teas
When the British got tired of the heat they went to the mountains, we were hot and tired in Kolkata so we went there too. Apparently this happened to them a lot, so they found a little patch of fog in the Himalayas and built a small city up there. Posters on the walls of travel agencies offer views of Mt Everest from town, but the reality for us, in the middle of monsoon season, was just clouds. The fog would roll in and out all day, but never cleared enough for us to even see the next hill. It reminded us of northern California. All of these clouds make it quite damp and chilly, the perfect place for a cup of tea I suppose. Indeed, it the tea that keeps this place going. Darjeeling is famous for producing the “Champagne of Teas”.
All this rain didn’t keep us inside though, there was plenty to keep us occupied. Sadly, we didn’t do any real hiking despite the many trails in the area. The region’s political situation means permits and guides are required, and we didn’t feel the need to hire a whole pack-animal-supported expedition just to follow the two of us around through the woods for a few days. We still got a bit of exercise though, just walking around town. Darjeeling is built on the top and sides of a hill so getting anywhere requires a bit of climbing.
All of our walking up and the hills brought us to several interesting sites in town. We visited the zoo and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. The zoo was especially proud of its red panda breeding program, they also had a few Bengal tigers – one of which was on display for the first day when we visited and we got an up-close view of him. The mountaineering institute is a school that was founded by Tenzing Norgay after his famous first-ascent of Everest, we didn’t take any of the courses but the museum was interesting. Tenzing’s tomb is also right out front. We walked around a temple that was on top of the hill above the main square, this one was crawling with monkeys. Luckily they didn’t bother humans too much, unlike the monkeys we encountered in Bali. There are also other temples in the area, a lively bazaar area, and there was even a torch relay that went through town related to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi this year. The torch bearer was rumored to be Tenzing’s son, though we didn’t get a chance to talk to him to confirm it.
Another thing on the list was to explore the tea culture. A large sign downtown proudly announces that Darjeeling Tea has recently been officially awarded the same geographic labeling status as Champagne. There are 84 tea plantations, or gardens as they are called here, in the hills surrounding Darjeeling that have rights to use the name. However, as with anything so prestigious, there is some fraud. One tea shop owner told us that every year there is usually around 10 million tones of tea exported from the area, but 60 million tones are sold worldwide. We toured one garden, Happy Valley, which they said was one of the first to be started by the British. The company is still owned by someone in the UK, and all of their tea is exported either there or to Japan. You can’t even buy it locally. It was kind of a short tour, but we learned about the whole production process and got a short lecture about brewing. The tea was indeed delicious.
There are a few other interesting events here that are worth mentioning. Though this region is part of India, there is an independence movement. The story we got is that a group of Nepalis gained control of the area and aren’t too interested in being Indians. Their proposed country is called Gorkhaland, they even have a flag which is displayed all over town. One afternoon there was a small demonstration in the main square, there is a noticeable presence of Indian military on the streets, and there was even an assassination of one of the leaders of the movement during a crowded rally a few weeks ago. Luckily we missed that, it was also lucky that we missed the strikes. As a sign of protest, all the restaurants, hotels, and taxis periodically go on strike for weeks at a time. That would have made our trip a little more challenging. We did have one little snag with the infrastructure though, it turns out the “24 hour ATMs” are actually only open three days per week, and not for 24 hours. We got stuck there for an extra day until we could get enough cash to leave.
On the positive side of things, we managed to get invited to someone’s house for dinner and drinks one evening. We met this guy while waiting for the jeep to leave on the way to Darjeeling, he was coming to town to visit his grandson who attends one of the many boarding schools in town. We happened to run into him again at a bar that evening with a teacher from the school. They were already on their second glass of whiskey when we walked in, and were in quite a good mood. As always, it was good to have a chance to talk to some locals. They also had a lot of questions for us about America. On the jeep ride back down the mountain we met a Buddhist monk from New Jersey. He is studying the Tibetan language in Darjeeling for most of this year. Very interesting guy, it was good to get opinions and some other information about the area from someone after living there for six months.
We didn’t expect much other than cool weather and tea from Darjeeling, but ended up getting a lot more. It would have been nice to have a chance to see the Himalayas, but it was still a neat place. The diversity and politics also keep things quite interesting for a city of that size.