freespiral's birthplace or hereabouts!

Some time ago freespiral  wrote about her parents and having lived on a tea plantation near Darjeeling for the first few years of her life.  So yesterday I went to visit it....

What a day – started off from the Mandarin hotel at Koluk where I slept well and was the only guest. They lent me a dongle for an hour so I could upload yesterday’s photo. The road to Darjeeling was just as bad as all the others have been and we rocked and rolled our way down to the river that divides Sikkim from West Bengal.  After climbing up the other side and stopping to take a picture down the mountain of the river I heard thunder and barely got back to the car before there was a downpour.  Thunder and lightning was followed by heavy hail and we missed the turning down to Glenburn Tea Garden Estate which was the focus for today.  We turned back and found the turning after passing a tribe of very wet monkeys begging for food.  Having read reviews about the estate I knew the 10k road down was terrible, but with the hail and rain it was horrendous.  We asked the way of several truck drivers coming up the track and they all warned us about sliding off and taking it very carefully.  In two minds about continuing I decided it had to be done otherwise there was no reason to have come to Darjeeling at all.   We bounced and rocked and slid – I felt for the wife and baby of my driver who have persisted in staying the course – and we finally slid down the last bit of track ending up in front of a large white factory building and green roof of an open barn.  There was a group of small shack shops so we parked there and I went to look at the estate and left the driver to have chai and something to eat.  The heavy rain continued to fall and I went up to a very lovely bungalow with a verandah around it.  The current manager was there and he told me it was the original mid 19th century manager’s home and that a second one had been built which was probably the one freespiral's parents occupied.  He told me they had heard the news that rain was on the way last night and everyone had been dancing for they had had not a drop of water since October 15th.  Pity it had to come on my day though for I just couldn’t take photos – except under the verandahs and through the windscreen of the car.  I was given a cup of delicious tea and shown the second bungalow (see picasa photos) and was given a couple of pamphlets  but had to buy the packet of tea they brought me!  I didn’t see the factory as it isn’t the season for picking - I didn’t stay long – the thought of getting up the track again was agitating me and we found the first bit almost impossible as we didn’t have four wheel drive. We had to back down and run at it 3 times before succeeding in reaching the top of the slope.  School traffic and children were returning home and we had to be incredibly careful not to slide sideways when passing them on the single track.   Reached the top in thick fog and peered our way to Darjeeling about 18k away.  The whole place is a maze of streets hitched onto the sides of the mountain – had to climb many stairs from the road to reach my hotel – the thunder continues to roll and lightning to brighten my room but it has ruined the wifi connection so this is being posted v. early in the morning now the connection is back  (it is still pouring with rain with occasional thunder).  The extra is of the view that freespiral would have seen from her home (no such luck for me - this is from the brochure). It is mount Kanchenjunga, the world's third highest mountain at 28,169 feet (about 60 miles from where the photo was taken).  I have added the map which if you play with it will show the windiness of the roads round the mountains but no elevation. The Glenburn estate is at 3,100 feet and we had to go down from 7,500 feet.  not very good picasa pics here