WEST BENGAL››Darjeeling››General Info

Straddling a ridge at 2134m and surrounded by a tea plantations, Darjeeling has been a popular hill station since the British established it as an R&R centre for their troops in mid-1800s. People come here now, as they did then, to escape the heat, humidity and hassle of the north Indian plain. You get an indication of how popular Darjeeling is from the 70 or so hotels recognised by the tourist office and the scores of others which don't come up to its requirements. Here you will find yourself surrounded by mountain people from all over the eastern Himalaya who have come to work, to trade or - in the case of the Tibetans - as refugees.

Outside of the monsoon season (June to September), the views over the mountains to the snowy peaks of Kanchenjunga and down to the swollen rivers in the valleys are magnificent. Darjeeling is a fascinating place where you can see Buddhist monasteries, visit a tea plantation and see how the tea is processed, go for a ride on the chairlift, spend days hunting for bargains in colourful markets and handicrafts shops, or go trekking to high-altitude spots for closer views of Kanchenjunga.

Like many places in the Himalaya, half the fun is in getting there and Darjeeling has the unique attraction of its famous toy train . This miniature train loops and switchbacks its way up the steep mountainsides from New Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling.

History

Until the beginning of the 18th century the whole of the area between the present borders of Sikkim and the plains of Bengal, including Darjeeling and Kalimpong, belonged to the rajas of Sikkim. In 1706 they lost Kalimpong to the Bhutanese, and control of the remainder was wrested from them by the Gurkhas who invaded Sikkim in 1780, following consolidation of the latter's rule in Nepal.
These annexations by the Gurkhas, however, brought them into conflict with the British East India Company. A series of wars were fought between the two parties, eventually leading to the defeat of the Gurkhas and the ceding of all the land they had taken from the Sikkimese to the East India Company. Part of this territory was restored to the rajas of Sikkim and the country's sovereignty guaranteed by the British in return for British control over any disputes which arose with neighbouring states.
One such dispute in 1828 led to the dispatch of two British officers to this area, and it was during their fact-finding tour that they spent some time at Darjeeling (then called Dorje Ling - Place of the Thunderbolt - after the lama who founded the monastery which once stood on Observatory Hill). The officers were quick to appreciate Darjeeling's value as a site for a sanatorium and hill station, and as the key to a pass into Nepal and Tibet. The officers' observations were reported to the authorities in Kolkata and a pretext was eventually found to pressure the raja into granting the site to the British in return for an annual stipend of Rs3000 (raised to Rs6000 in 1846).