After visiting Giddapahar tea estate it was late in the afternoon. We grabbed a bite to eat at a restaurant that overlooked the tea fields in Kurseong. There Mr. Lochan suggested we stay at the historical Darjeeling Planters club, a 150 year old building that overlooked Darjeeling. What a perfect place to rest after a tea filled day.
The old colonial building was once a gathering place for the very first English tea planters in the area which established a gentlemen’s club in 1868. In the aging building not much has changed. The lobby in the front is adorned with antique cannons. The billiard room has tiger skins dangling beside black and white old boy club shots, on faded walls.
Not much has changed in the rooms either. The furnishings are rundown, authentic pieces from ages ago. And at exactly 7:00 PM an old man, seemingly as old as the place, will come in and start a fire in the large fireplace beside the bed.
Sipping on a cup of Darjeeling orange pekoe by the night fire, pen in hand, is the way Darjeeling was truly meant to be enjoyed.
Peace
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