Our next stop was the Selim Hill tea estate where we delighted in the beauty of our accommodation and surrounds. The estate was home to my great-grandmother and her family for many years and being there made me feel so glad for them - that they were blessed to have lived in such a lovely place (although I'm sure there were many challenges... one of the letters from my great-grandmother refers to India as 'that cursed place'!).
We luxuriated in the spacious wooden rooms, white tipped tea and being waited on hand and foot. The meal schedule was tough but fair: bed tea and biscuits, then breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, evening ‘snacks’ and then once we were able to button the top button of our pants again we would finish with a 3 course dinner. We are not going to be the sort of people who lose weight while in India.
Introducing beautiful Selim Hill - the family estate sits atop the hill above left.
Dad blended in seamlessly with the local pickers while Kate preferred more of a supervisory approach...
We did occasionally take breaks from eating to wander through the tea plantations and factory buildings, visit hyper-active Kurseong, numerous other places of historical interest to our family and to check out an excellent ‘forestry’ museum where we stroked the fur of long dead tigers.
Above left is Kurseong which must have the best reception in India and on the right is the gravestone of my great-grandmother's brother who died as an infant. The region was uninhabited prior to the arrival of the British who brought the Nepali people down to work on their plantations. The town has a strong Buddhist feel but is open to more modern philosophies too, such as the Jennifer Aniston quote at the local internet cafe: 'There are no regrets in life, only lessons'.
One of the perks of visiting all of the plantations where our ancestors had lived was the free samples!
Time for a shameless plug: the Selim Hill estate has only recently opened as an eco-tourism resort and is in need of customers. If anyone out there is looking to stay at a tea estate in India this one is really fantastic (http://www.selimhill.com/the_hideaway.html).
We luxuriated in the spacious wooden rooms, white tipped tea and being waited on hand and foot. The meal schedule was tough but fair: bed tea and biscuits, then breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, evening ‘snacks’ and then once we were able to button the top button of our pants again we would finish with a 3 course dinner. We are not going to be the sort of people who lose weight while in India.
Introducing beautiful Selim Hill - the family estate sits atop the hill above left.
Dad blended in seamlessly with the local pickers while Kate preferred more of a supervisory approach...
We did occasionally take breaks from eating to wander through the tea plantations and factory buildings, visit hyper-active Kurseong, numerous other places of historical interest to our family and to check out an excellent ‘forestry’ museum where we stroked the fur of long dead tigers.
Above left is Kurseong which must have the best reception in India and on the right is the gravestone of my great-grandmother's brother who died as an infant. The region was uninhabited prior to the arrival of the British who brought the Nepali people down to work on their plantations. The town has a strong Buddhist feel but is open to more modern philosophies too, such as the Jennifer Aniston quote at the local internet cafe: 'There are no regrets in life, only lessons'.
One of the perks of visiting all of the plantations where our ancestors had lived was the free samples!
Time for a shameless plug: the Selim Hill estate has only recently opened as an eco-tourism resort and is in need of customers. If anyone out there is looking to stay at a tea estate in India this one is really fantastic (http://www.selimhill.com/the_hideaway.html).
No comments:
Post a Comment