Romancing the Himalayas and experiencing the Tea Estate stay

 

Traveling was always in the blood of our small family. 

Whenever there is time we flee to the mountains or jungles, two very favored destination well maneuvered till date.  Staying in well maintained budget hotels or home stays was always an average experience to a budgeted family but this time wife suggested to get an experience onto a stay in a tea estate bungalow. We both are a tea lovers preferably green teas in order to burn the extra flesh of our body and satisfy our mind and soul and drinking beautiful fresh manufactured first flush teas especially during the plucking of the season in early April fresh from the garden is refreshing. Accordingly she browsed through the net and figured out few lovely picturesque sketches of tea estates in north east Darjeeling district. As contemplated, I took an off from the work and get ready with the baggages.

 

We selected a retreat called Chamong tea estate

which is almost 2.5 hours away from the bagdogra airport.  We come out of the airport and there waited our driver kamal with a placard with my wife’s name typed neatly to greet us and help us with our baggage on boarding the well maintained clean Tata Sumo vehicle. Sumo as suggested by our trip advisor Mr Bikram from the retreat is the best strong vehicle to ride the steep mountains with broken roads and precisely we found his advise quite healthy.  The first impression of the tea estate staff start off with our smiling driver cum guide kamal who led us to the top of the hill with maximum guiding of the surrounding places as covered during the sojourn.  The beautiful tea gardens all perched steeply in the mountain roads and the women folks plucking teas with big basket strapped in their forehead is a view which always adorned our mind and soul. The robust tiny hamlets or bungalows or small houses perched alongside the mountain roads is interesting to eye upon. Nepalis with small eyes are busy with their usual day either in shopping or buying vegetables from the market and going up and down the mountain roads as our vehicle keep moving upwards is a moment well cherished during our steady ride.  We took the Mirik road in order to reach the tea estate.

 

Finally when we entered the estate, the greeting from the entry point and getting inside the bungalow rooms, meeting the retreat manager Bikram is a memory well nourished during our brief stay forever. The bungalow room allotted were not only have a mesmerizing mountain view from our window but also the room was cozy with ample space consisting of big double beds, a side bed with a writing table and a fantastic toilet attached inside.  The service staff of the retreat were all very hospitable and never turned our requests on food or whatsoever whenever asked for.  Culinary part was not up to the satisfactory level. The food was bit oily and the taste was not very homely. We bring this to the manager’s notice but it was not well dealt upon during our stay. The first grievance we noticed inside the retreat.  The retreat was surrounded by lush green meadows on a 350 acres land with a small Shiva temple perched inside the meadows which is 3 mins away from our room. The mountains were eye soothing and the weather was glittering during the part of April. The massage parlour or the spa designed and maintained by the well experienced keralite staff is worth mentioning. The massaging of the body by the experienced hand was so relaxing that you get transcends to a tranquil world for a brief moment.  We happened to visit the estates tea garden which is 10 mins away from the retreat. Bikram was kind enough to arrange a vehicle to visit the tea factory and watch the making of teas

which was well explained by the instructor of the factory in charge Mr Naresh. We purchased good amount of green and first flush teas accordingly.   Next day of our stay we planned to visit the mighty Darjeeling which is now well populated and polluted too. We visited the ghoom monastery

and zoo and the Himalayan mountaineering institute.

The experience was nice and the street food mainly the momo and thuppa was a great mouth refresher during our visit to the Darjeeling town. The time of travel from the retreat to the town is almost 2 hours.

 

We finally come to the end of our 2 nights stay in a tea estate bungalow which was filled with thrill and a memorable experience amidst the bounty of nature and a serenity that prevails in the surroundings. We bid farewell to the retreat manager and the rest of the staffs for giving us such a wonderful hospitality and promised to return back again besides reminding on keeping the quality of culinary details. Getting assured on the same, we finally boarded the same sumo with kamal as our nice suave smiling driver who whizzed us off the tea estate towards the bagdogra airport.