Before our first Darjeeling visit, we were cautioned by friends that the town was not the quiet place that it used to be. Then, we discovered something further afield. The Kolkata-based Chirimar family that owns the Singtom Tea Estate, which is spread over several hundred acres, has lovingly refurbished the large house at the heart of the Estate where the Europeans who planted the tea bushes (most of the bushes are 200 years old) once lived. Around 800 mostly Nepali workers actively work the tea gardens and factory even today. They are not migrants, but original inhabitants, many of them educated in English in the schools that Darjeeling is known for. And a handful of these wonderful estate workers or their family members serve the property in turns, in a pleasing and hospitable way that made one suite of the mansion a home-away-from-home for our family as we stayed three nights at the end of September 2022.
Singtom Tea Estate is a place to immerse in calm and silence with simple vegetarian food crafted by the local women who do their best to customise the menu and serve guests most graciously. You can ask for as much free tea as you like through the daytime, or make it yourself with the in-room electric kettle and unlimited tea leaf packets (it's a tea garden, after all!) For our bigger foodie moments, we did our eating in Darjeeling town along with sight-seeing: the estate's excellent 4WD Tata Hexa was our morning hired taxi to town, and we called it again for our evening return. Note: For the catering and the vehicle services, be aware that one is in a homestead, not a hotel: it is a courtesy to inform any requirements a few hours early, and the staff, under the ever-present Mr. Nirmal, will do everything they can to be flexible.
Singtom Tea Estate is a great place from which to enjoy the stars in the sky, the star-like twinkling lights of Darjeeling (without the mayhem of Chowk Bazaar), and the glint off the top of Kanchenjunga – none of which you may see, though, if clouds are in the way! Since, in the right months, one can see Kanchenjunga from Singtom Tea Estate itself, we chose not to go all the way to Ghoom (with a 3am start) and Tiger Hill.
The Singtom Tea Estate staff can certainly take you to Tiger Hill for its unique clear-dawn view, but if Tiger Hill and the ‘points’ tours are your short itinerary, then staying in Darjeeling town may be more efficient for you. (Windamere, for example, offers a quiet, colonial hotel setting in town.) The lovely mansion at Singtom Tea Estate is not a resort of a hotel kind (no buffet breakfasts), nor a place for Zoom calls (there is no broadband, though mobile coverage is wider than you may expect). However, using the vehicle rates advertised on Singtom Tea Estate’s website, one can craft one’s own experiences – a combo of town as well as estate, as we did during our three nights’ stay. For example, we were not keen on tea factory or tea tasting, having experienced them in Ooty. But as engineers, my wife and I were intrigued by the presence of mini hydel plants in the area, such as Sidrapong (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidrapong_Hydroelectric_Power_Station). On our request, our gracious guide (Adarsh, also responsible for tea collection in a Division of the Estate) drove us through beautiful tea gardens down to the Balwabas river, Balwabas Bridge (Google Maps goo.gl/maps/umuKUzircJimac6v7) and another power plant. This rapid river eventually joins the Teesta. If we wanted to carry lunch with us, that would have been provided. If we wanted to trek down rather than drive, we would have been given directions and the freedom to do so. Or alternatively, we could go upslope, a much shorter distance, to the Ellenbrock 360 view sight-seeing point (Google Maps goo.gl/maps/nmEa1yNiktDFBoGE7). With all these drives or treks, ‘beautiful’ is the word that comes to mind again and again.
As far as I know, no other tea estate manor offers the balance of cost and comfort that Singtom Tea Estate offers. When we stayed, the newly-polished wooden décor and flooring were shiny-clean and the accommodation cosy: nicely done-up rooms, beds with duvets and electric bed-warmers, toilets with electric geyser, towels and soap etc, room electric heaters (Bajaj Majesty oil-filled radiators), hair dryer and electric kettle – all guest needs have been thought of. There is a plush common room with a warm fireplace and the only TV in the building, and a dining room that also has a shared ironing board in a corner. Meals and snacks can also be served under the canopies in the well-manicured garden.
The charges for food and transport may seem high, but private taxi anywhere in Darjeeling and the hills is costly: the local alterative is shared jeeps (available at the mansion’s gate, too, but daily commuters get priority).
On Google Maps, this is where the narrow and steep, tarred road, with 30- to 40- degree slopes and sharp hairpin bends from Singtom Tea Estate meets Lebong Cart Road in Darjeeling town, at Manidipa More, close to Singmari taxi stand and St. Joseph’s School, North Point: Google Maps goo.gl/maps/rqCq4Y9MAndkE9vR9 (altitude 6,560 feet).
And this is the location of the entrance gate to the Singtom Tea Estate house compound: Google Maps goo.gl/maps/htR89LHzgqy5SdEu6 (altitude 4,590 feet).
So the Singtom Tea Estate resort house is almost 2000 feet lower in altitude than Darjeeling town, and therefore a bit warmer as well (it never snows here, even on the rare occasions that it snows in Darjeeling). The 3.5km road distance to town takes 20 minutes, or 30 minutes if one or two vehicles cause a rare blockage.
If one wants to enjoy the journey and not just the destinations and ‘points’, then Singtom Tea Estate is a place offering much natural beauty! Yes, the guests’ overall budget will need to be slightly higher than with good hotels in town. During our stay, we got full attention as other guests were few. With commercialisation through ongoing construction of an annexe building and more rooms, I hope that the Singtom Tea Estate resort house will continue a high standard of personal hospitality and customised experiences!
Footnote: Singtom Tea Estate is part of a wider area called ‘Singtam Tea Garden’, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singtam_Tea_Garden, which should not be confused with a separate town near Gangtok called Singtam! Many of the South-East Asian sounding names in Bengal and Sikkim are of Lepcha ruling class origin. As you can probably sense, these parts of India are under-explored, and their history under-published!
