In and Around Darjeeling

I have been spending the past couple of weeks visiting a couple of friends in a village near Darjeeling, India.  Their village is called Lamahatta, and it is an eco-tourism village which means that several of the local families offer home-stays and the tourist attractions are geared more towards enjoying the beautiful surroundings.  It really is a gorgeous place!  If you've ever thought about visiting India, I highly recommend this spot.

Here’s the entrance to Lamahatta

Here are the friends I am staying with, Samuel and his wife, Subala, in front of their house.  You can see part of the city of Darjeeling on the hill in the background.

Here is their house with their cabbage field in the front and a view of the third-highest mountain in the world, Mount Kanchenjunga, in the background.

Darjeeling is world renowned for its fine teas, and the hills surrounding Darjeeling are covered in tea plants.

Here are the hills of the Lopchu Tea Estate near Lamahatta.

Last week Samuel and I visited the nearby town of Takdah and went to an orchid research center there.

There are over 500 different orchid species in the Himalayan foothills of Sikkim and West Bengal.

This greenhouse is full of orchids and some other plants like begonias.

They research many other plants at this facility as well.

Here is Samuel with his friend Lakpa in a greenhouse full of starts of a plant locally called Maya.

Here are outside beds full of various plant species.

An orchid growing on a tree. 

Needless to say, the nature-lover, gardener, and scientist in me were all fully satisfied by this place!

We then stopped by an old British house that is being renovated by a local politician.  The workers let us go inside and snoop around.  Such a beautiful house!

This past Sunday, Samuel and I went to church in Darjeeling at St. Andrew's church, one of the oldest churches in Darjeeling.  It was built in 1843 as an Anglican church by the British.

Here is the outside.  The church just received a large sum of money from the government to renovate the building.

Inside St. Andrew’s church.

We then walked around Darjeeling a bit.  It’s an interesting place with many old British stone buildings mixed in with the more common concrete Indian style buildings.

Here is the new government building under construction across the street from the church.

An old clock tower in Darjeeling.

The streets of Darjeeling. 

Yesterday I visited some lakes with Samuel and Subala.  These lakes are actually the water supply for all of Darjeeling.

Samuel and Subala In between the two lakes.

Her I am!

Such a beautiful and serene place.