Mountains, Gandalf, Mountains!

(Disclaimer: I wrote this one a few days ago but haven’t had internet access until now, hence the double-entry day today.)

            We didn’t travel aboard the Darjeeling Limited.

            Instead, we departed Kathmandu last Wednesday on Buddha Air flight 954 bound for Bhadrapur, a small city in the south-east corner of Nepal. Bhadrapur is located in the Terai, the plains region of this country, and at a grand ol’ altitude of 300ft. We then loaded into three jeeps to make the four-hour journey to Darjeeling, India, a small city in the foothills of the Himalayas and famous for its chiya (tea) and situated at an elevation of nearly 7000ft. Think about that. We traveled that difference in altitude in a matter of a few hours. Now picture what the road must have looked like. Starting off flat, the road quickly hit the base of hills and our climb commenced. The road switchbacked up the terrain, through lush jungle-like forests and alongside tea plantation after tea plantation. Our driver had decked out his jeep with brown shag carpet covering his dashboard and had an affinity for the sweet tunes of Shakira. Hearing the familiar songs distracted from the nausea-inducing road, which never remained going straight for very long before switching back in the opposite direction with potholes that often spanned the entire width of the road. The road wasn’t very wide to begin with, and when we encountered vehicles heading down the hill, our car, being the one away from the edge, had to pull all the way off the road to allow the other to pass.

            We did eventually make it to Darjeeling. Up until 1816, Darjeeling, and the area of India west of the Teesta River, was a part of Nepal. That year, Nepal’s king signed a treaty with the British government and agreed to grant that sliver of land to India after Nepal lost a brief war with the Brits. But Darjeeling still feels like Nepal to this day. In fact, the language spoken is Nepali (which enabled us to continue to improve our speaking). Darjeeling today is a part of the Indian state of West Bengal, which stretches all the way to Calcutta. Most people in the Darjeeling Hills feel unrepresented in the government because they remain so far away, both physically and culturally, from the political center of their state, located hundreds of miles away. For this reason, there has been an effort (basically since Independence in 1947) to create a separate state, known as Gorkhaland (Gorkha is the name given to Nepali-Indians). All over Darjeeling and surrounding towns, green-white-and-yellow flags fly and “WE WANT GORKHALAND” signs are posted on the sides of buildings. It doesn’t appear like anything will change in the near future.

            Darjeeling is located in very close proximity to the Himalayan peak Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain. Unfortunately, Darjeeling is perpetually in a giant cloud and views of the mountain can only be captured early in the morning, if at all. We figured it would be worth it and arose before the sun one morning and made our way to a lookout to watch the sunrise and cross our fingers that we would be graced with a view of the range. We picked the right morning. It was beautiful. There’s something about big mountains (especially some of the biggest); they have a way of making me realize just how small I really I am in the scheme of things. Check out the pictures.

            It wouldn’t be a visit to Darjeeling with out delving into the tea culture and cultivation. The next time you pour yourself a steamy mug of Darjeeling black tea, think of this region in northeast India with more tea plants than you could ever fathom. I hope I’m not spoiling anyone’s pristine image of this world-famous type of tea by divulging the fact that tea is in fact not native to the area. The British began to settle in the Darjeeling Hills as an escape from the heat in Calcutta and were so taken by the climate that they decided to attempt to grow tea as an export for revenue from the colony. They transplanted plants from a Chinese variety of tea plant, which ended up being perfect for the conditions. And thus started the Darjeeling Tea phenomenon. We visited a tea cooperative and a tea plantation during our weeklong stay. Both were Fair-Trade certified and organic – and available on the international market. The tea cooperative, known as Mineral Springs, consists of a group of individual farmers who grow tea on their property, along with ginger, pineapple (who knew pineapples grow on the ground?), cardamom, and other crops and submit only their tealeaves to the Mineral Springs cooperative for a profit. The tea plantation, Salimbong, is an old-fashioned British colonial estate, spanning hundreds of acres and growing only tea plants. It employs people from the surrounding areas (nearly every woman in town as tea-pickers) and has a factory for the actual drying, crushing, and packaging of the tea. We were able to watch the entire process. The machinery used looked like it should be included in a museum exhibit entitled “19^th-Century Darjeeling Tea Factory” and not actually utilized for the process. But they all seemed to function properly.

            If you’re lucky, I’ll share some of my Darjeeling tea bounty with you when I return.

            We returned to Kathmandu after a week of living in a cloud, and drinking delicious chiya. While it was a great escape from the heavily polluted air and congested streets of Kathmandu, I must say I was ready to get back “home.”