This morning we take a short, but exciting jeep ride to the Happy Valley Tea Estate, on the mountainside just below Darjeeling. We are shown around the factory and then part of the tea plantation by a lovely man with a unique interpetation of the English language. We are then passed over to the madame of the estate tea house who claims to be 71 years old. The tea must have excellent preservative qualities. She is a very sharp operator and succeeds in selling most of us some tea at 3 times the going rate elsewhere.
The jeeps are due to take us back to the Windamere for a pukka lunch but we run into a total traffic snarl up at the bottom of the town. Apparently there is some kind of student demo going on and we are advised that it will be quicker to walk. The demonstrators are nearly all in school uniforms and marshalled by their teachers. They are campaigning for a free Gorkaland state within India.
The walk from the bottom of the town up to our hotel certainly saps the strength so we opt for an hour's snooze after lunch. When we wake up at 4 p.m. we discover that we haven't missed much as the shops had shut in support of the protest. At 6 p.m. there was an exhibition of local folk dancing in the hotel garden - a lot more interesting than it sounds.
This morning we take a short, but exciting jeep ride to the Happy Valley Tea Estate, on the mountainside just below Darjeeling. We are shown around the factory and then part of the tea plantation by a lovely man with a unique interpetation of the English language. We are then passed over to the madame of the estate tea house who claims to be 71 years old. The tea must have excellent preservative qualities. She is a very sharp operator and succeeds in selling most of us some tea at 3 times the going rate elsewhere.
The jeeps are due to take us back to the Windamere for a pukka lunch but we run into a total traffic snarl up at the bottom of the town. Apparently there is some kind of student demo going on and we are advised that it will be quicker to walk. The demonstrators are nearly all in school uniforms and marshalled by their teachers. They are campaigning for a free Gorkaland state within India.
The walk from the bottom of the town up to our hotel certainly saps the strength so we opt for an hour's snooze after lunch. When we wake up at 4 p.m. we discover that we haven't missed much as the shops had shut in support of the protest. At 6 p.m. there was an exhibition of local folk dancing in the hotel garden - a lot more interesting than it sounds.
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