Accommodation in Darj

In Darjeeling we had been recommended to stay in two places and both are worth describing.

We spent most of the week at Andy's Guest House, very clean and just up from Chowrasta. Be warned - basic hotels/guest houses in India expect you to BYO towels and toilet paper! Once we'd got over this hurdle, we thoroughly enjoyed Mr Gurung's hospitality, if not totally appreicating his taste in music - Jim Reeve's singing Christmas carols. He took us up on the roof the two mornings that the mountains were very clear. Up several flights of concrete stairs lined with plants in red painted pots and then a narrow wooden staircase up to Mr Gurungs 'glasshouse' and up an iron ladder contraption to preside grandly over the town with a 320 degree view, that included Tiger Hill behind us and Kanchenjunga herself spread out in front. The Gurungs, Genesis and Mathilda, are Nepali and Mr Gurung actually built Stewart Building at Mt Hermon School. Andy is their son who lives in Australia. We never met Mrs Gurung, but enjoyed watching her Christmas surprise present from her husband materialise over the days we were there - the front of the building spruced up and parts of it clad in stone, and the piece de resistance - black marble background with Andy's Guest House on it in stainless steel letters.

The Elgin Hotel was at the opposite end of the price spectrum - totally indulgent to be able to spend a couple of nights there. A hangover from the Raj, the decor is very Victorian. Lots of comfy sitting areas, with individual fireplaces that seemed to be constantly coal lit and kept the hotel sumptuously warm. Lovely to sit in front of the fire (our four reunion families were all there over the weekend) and drink Darjeeling tea and reminisce, while hearing the kids playing cards and Pictionary in one of the rooms above us. Hot water bottles were put in our beds at dusk - mind you, filled from the tap they were quite cool by the time we actually got to bed! Soft mattresses and super comfy pillows made it a very luxurious stay. Roxanne moved in with Kuruvin's girls, and Kuruvin and I shared a room and stayed up talking late until one of us fell asleep! Douglas prints of Nepali/Tibetan people on the wall shared space with the Christmas decorations - big folded stars and greenery stuffed with cottonwool to resemble snow.

One of Darjeeling's perennial problems has always been the water supply, and we were lucky to have hotels that both had hot water available as showers. Unfortunately at Andy's, it was unpredictable whether the water would actually be hot at a particular time, while at the Elgin, you could get one decent shower at a time - anyone else using the bathroom after you would be well advised to wait for another hour to give it a chance to heat up again. All of this was found out by trial and error, of course!