Darjeeling tea garden and mountain view

Founded by the British as a hill retreat and sanatorium, Darjeeling soon came to be known as the 'Queen of Hills', the finest hill resort of the Raj. Famous for its delicate tea, the hills all around the town are draped in vibrant green tea bushes. The skillful fingers of thousands of pickers pluck the fresh shoots from each plant every week or so during the summer months. Later the tea is carefully graded and sold at auction as it starts its journey around the world. Yet Darjeeling is famous for much more than tea. Its location on a 7,000 ft ridge with clear views of Kanchenjunga make it a perfect place to escape the pre-monsoon heat of the plains. The earliest British settlers here reveled in its cool temperatures, fresh breezes and crisp mornings and evening.

Wandering around the promenades of Chowrasta and The Mall today you are surrounded by echoes of Darjeeling's past. The solid stone British-style houses are also complemented by more fanciful wooden-fronted buildings that are more like idealized Swiss chalets with their steep roofs and carved eaves and gables. Hotels old and new crowd the center of town but can still hardly accommodate the rush of visitors in the peak seasons at the start and end of summer.The remarkable 'toy train', or Darjeeling Himalayan Railway to give it its proper name, chugs up from the plains in an eight hour journey that involves more than 7,000 feet of ascent - hard work for the little steam engines that pull the miniature carriages on their winding route up the hills. Faster, but less unusual, transport around the Darjeeling hills is provided by jeeps which can take you on breathtakingly beautiful trips along the tortuous narrow roads of the district.Just a short drive from Darjeeling is Tiger Hill, famous for the superb views of sunrise over the Kanchenjunga Himalaya that it affords. On the way you also pass the famous Ghoom monastery, one of many Tibetan Buddhist centers in the Darjeeling area. Some tea gardens are open to visitors who want to find out how the beverage makes its way from hillside to teapot (and perhaps stock up on some high-grade leaves at factory prices). The Tibetan refugee community also produces handicrafts and welcomes visitors.

But the special charm of Darjeeling remains in the town itself with its mix of cultures - the population is overwhelmingly Nepali in origin but also colored with settlers from the Indian plains, Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet - and sense of history. The pearl of the British Raj is still shining today and attracting visitors from across the subcontinent and across the world.