FTGFOP1
November 21, 2011
If you look carefully at a Koi cup, you will find Darjeeling printed on it along with names of other places in India and Sri Lanka famous for their tea. Darjeeling has a thriving tea industry and has numerous tea estates. We visited the easily accessible Happy Valley Tea Estate about 30 mins walk from town.
It was a pleasant walk through the plantation. A man offered to show us around the factory which was not in operation when we visited. He asked for tips at the end of the tour which totally caught us off-guard. I decided to buy time by asking him where's the toilet. I told my donkey friend to flee once we're done and don't look back lol.
Blind Date is a small and clean restaurant located above Fancy Market at 12 NB Singh Road. We had mixed chowmein (one serving turned out to be sufficient for two of us), spicy fried potato and mixed vegetable soup. Cheap and delicious. Recommended.
It also has a nice view overlooking the hill station.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town
and searching for Radhika & Son in Chowk Bazaar. It's located along the same stretch as Mukhia Seeds, a stall that sells "all kinds of vegetable seeds" (as written on their signboard).
Radhika & Son was very patient with us. He introduced us to different grades of tea and we spent 1 hr 15 mins at his shop blowing and smelling the aromatic tea leaves.
Since all of them smelled irresistible to me, I decided to buy at least 100g of each grade of tea - first flush, white tea, supreme, organic and finest tippy golden flowery orange pekoe. We spent Rs 1,100 (S$14.75) on 1.45kg of medium to high grade tea.
We drink Darjeeling tea everyday and we have fallen in love with it. Thanks Rough Guides for recommending Radhika & Son!
It didn't make sense to try a tiny cup of expensive tea here after we just bought packets of tea at much better price.
I was thrilled to see Kangchenjunga appearing! We rushed up to viewpoint to catch a glimpse of it before the sun set.
Dekeva's was closed so we had dinner at Kunga for two consecutive nights. A cosy Tibetan family restaurant serving great food. Thentuk (Tibetan hand-made noodles with mixed vegetable, mushroom topped with slices of fried egg) was awesome! Must try. Besides the food, Kunga left a deep impression in me with Dalai Lama's The Paradox of Age pasted on the wall. It was thought provoking and a meaningful way to end the day on my birthday :)
It was a pleasant walk through the plantation. A man offered to show us around the factory which was not in operation when we visited. He asked for tips at the end of the tour which totally caught us off-guard. I decided to buy time by asking him where's the toilet. I told my donkey friend to flee once we're done and don't look back lol.
Blind Date is a small and clean restaurant located above Fancy Market at 12 NB Singh Road. We had mixed chowmein (one serving turned out to be sufficient for two of us), spicy fried potato and mixed vegetable soup. Cheap and delicious. Recommended.
It also has a nice view overlooking the hill station.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town
and searching for Radhika & Son in Chowk Bazaar. It's located along the same stretch as Mukhia Seeds, a stall that sells "all kinds of vegetable seeds" (as written on their signboard).
Radhika & Son was very patient with us. He introduced us to different grades of tea and we spent 1 hr 15 mins at his shop blowing and smelling the aromatic tea leaves.
Since all of them smelled irresistible to me, I decided to buy at least 100g of each grade of tea - first flush, white tea, supreme, organic and finest tippy golden flowery orange pekoe. We spent Rs 1,100 (S$14.75) on 1.45kg of medium to high grade tea.
We drink Darjeeling tea everyday and we have fallen in love with it. Thanks Rough Guides for recommending Radhika & Son!
It didn't make sense to try a tiny cup of expensive tea here after we just bought packets of tea at much better price.
I was thrilled to see Kangchenjunga appearing! We rushed up to viewpoint to catch a glimpse of it before the sun set.
Dekeva's was closed so we had dinner at Kunga for two consecutive nights. A cosy Tibetan family restaurant serving great food. Thentuk (Tibetan hand-made noodles with mixed vegetable, mushroom topped with slices of fried egg) was awesome! Must try. Besides the food, Kunga left a deep impression in me with Dalai Lama's The Paradox of Age pasted on the wall. It was thought provoking and a meaningful way to end the day on my birthday :)
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