Glenburn Tea Estate

How to say it all?  We spent 3 full days and 4 nights at Glenburn Tea Estate "near"  Darjeeling as guests of the estate owner who was a classmate of ours. The old planter's bungalow is now a beautiful guest house with all the mod cons except wifi. And with terrific food. We experienced
- tour of tea leaf drying, rolling, and sorting.  Tea tasting of first flush to other pickings. Lesson in tea plucking.
- drive to Darjeeling and back with visit to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute with a major Sherpa climber as our guide
- a drive down to the Rangeet River through jungle of teak and bamboo.
- Fantastic views of the Teetse valley and surrounding mountains with Darjeeling to the west and Kalimpong to the east, Kanchenjunga to the north.
- body shaking jeep rides on the roads down to Glenburn and down to the river (and back up again). These are the roads for which 4 wheel drive was invented.
- 3 hour drive to nearest airport which took 5 hours due to blocked mountain road and then traffic jams in city. We did make our flight!