A New Season

So here we are, back in our Himalayan life, and despite being hundreds of miles away from all our loved ones, literally floating above the clouds due to the lingering monsoon, I must admit it feels good to be back. As I sit here on our sparkling white veranda sipping an ice cold Kingfisher in the warm evening listening to the chattering cicadas, it all feels lovely and exotic.

We have only been back a week but we already feel like we never left.  There is a real ‘back to school’ atmosphere among the staff, and I am embracing this by handing out very boring tasks every day which mostly revolve around ‘cleaning’. I think their pleasure at seeing us return might have worn off by now…

We started the week by having meetings with all the different departments, and this proved successful (and also amusing) although the meetings were a little slow to get going. The staff are always very reluctant to tell you of any problems, and often when asked, ‘are there any problems or things broken that need fixing?’ they insist that there are not. We have learnt however, that if you wait, and repeat this question more than once, the truth eventually comes out. For example, it wasn’t until 15 minutes into our meeting with Housekeeping that they told us that the washing machine and the dryer had broken. The Bearers also insisted there were ‘no problems’, before later breaking out into a rather aggressive discussion about washing up issues, uniform problems, timing concerns and goodness knows what else because most of it was in Nepali. Sadly though, none of them thought it important to tell us that the main freezer had not been working for at least a week, and that it had been abandoned full of cartons of cream which are now in a very bad way. Unfortunately I discovered this for myself this morning…

The Gardeners however, were the happiest of the departments and only had one complaint. This was that their new shoes were making their feet smell ‘very very’ bad. I felt for them on this one.

All in all though we do feel that things are actually very under control. The staff seem enthusiastic and energised, and the hotel is looking beautifully smart having been painted and revamped a little. We are also still appreciating how much easier everything seems this year in comparison to last. We know who everyone is and what roles everyone plays and generally understand how things work up here. We really were rather clueless and naïve this time last September! I am sure however that there is still more to be learn which we will discover soon and which will make us realise we are still clueless in some ways…

 

As for the guests, it has been pretty quiet since we got back as we are still building up to peak season which season starts in October. Having said that though, the few guests we have had have proven to be very entertaining already.  One group who arrived on our first day stepped out of the car furious with us for the road conditions and demanded to know why we weren’t improving it. They took a while to calm down but were quite pleasant once they had. Although last night I wasn’t overly impressed when the leader of the group addressed the room (in which there were sitting 4 women and 4 men) saying; ‘Gentlemen! Do you mind if I smoke?’ One woman took huge offence at this (understandably) and replied; ‘what is WRONG with you?? There are 4 women here. And YES I do mind!!’ Luckily at this point dinner was served so Will and I were saved from further tension…

Since that night however, we have already learnt of another major source of tension that we fear is going to be a recurring theme at the dinner table over the next few months. Brexit.

I think the ‘Brexit Discussion’ has come up at the dinner table most nights since we returned.  Unsurprisingly the topic is always broached by a ‘non-British’ guest, and is always received reluctantly and uncomfortably. Last night was extremely uncomfortable for me in particular as I was sitting between a lovely Gujarati man from London who was extremely pro-Brexit, and an equally pleasant English expat living in Nigeria who was very anti-Brexit. The topic was introduced by an American at the other end of the table who asked rather too cheerily, ‘so who voted to stay and who voted to leave?’ I really did disapprove of the direct nature of this question, and it resulted in a rather tense debate which dominated the entire dinner. Having discussed this topic on most other nights previously, Will and I fell in to bed quite disenchanted and considered whether we should put a sign up at the entrance to the dining room which reads: ‘NO BREXIT DISCUSSIONS ALLOWED AROUND THE TABLE’. …simply for the sake of our own sanity over the next four months!

As for Will and I generally, after a wonderful summer of being a normal carefree couple, we have very much resumed our ‘work’ relationship. Our conversations are already reaching a new low, particularly over breakfast….

‘These plant pots need weeding don’t they?’ ….‘What do you think about getting salt and pepper grinders instead of these shakers?’ …. ‘ ‘We really should get this teapot spout cleaned properly don’t you think?’…….!

We must ban ‘work’ conversations at meal times or else we are going to become the world’s most boring couple.

Other than that…off we go into the busy season!

 

 

A change of tone at Glenburn…

The season is turning again here at Glenburn, and I am enjoying some peace and quiet on my veranda this afternoon watching the rain clouds drift in and around the hills.

 

The rains come almost every afternoon at the moment serving as a welcome relief after such hot mornings. Whatsmore, we have only Indian guests staying at the hotel this week, and they have a very strict routine of taking a long nap after lunch. This post lunch napping, combined with the post lunch rain, is leaving Will and I with rather peaceful afternoons!

I feel this is deserved however, as it has been a rather stressful couple of weeks involving huge water shortages, staff absences, and Will having to make two trips back to the UK in two months for his second grandmother’s funeral. Suffice to say he is fast asleep at the moment suffering from rather severe jetlag!

There was one particularly stressful day last week whilst Will was away when everything just seemed to be going wrong. The printer broke, then the entire computer died, the water ran out in the bedrooms and the kitchen, we were extremely short staffed with a full house of rather demanding guests, and Kate was ill in bed and unable to help. I had therefore been running around the hotel all afternoon chasing staff, guests, food, and drivers, and by 7.15pm I was in desperate need of a shower. I had a 15 minute window before drinks, and so rushed into the shower only to discover that I also had no water in my bathroom. Wearing no clothes by this point, and with no time to go and get a bucket of water to wash with, I realised my only option was to wash with a bottle of mineral water….unfortunately there was only one bottle of mineral water in my room that night!

Having quickly donned my evening attire, I hurried upstairs, grabbed a large glass of white wine, composed myself into ‘hostess’ mode, and ran out to chat with the guests. To my utter disbelief, the first thing one of the guests said to me was; ‘you must have such a relaxing job working here, it must be quite a doddle.’ (!!) I took a deep breath, smiled and nodded, and decided it not worth my breath to try and describe quite how wrong he was that day. Instead, I tried to take this comment positively, and decided that if I had managed to exude a sense of calm that day despite the circumstances, then I was doing a really great job at being a good hostess! I obviously had not hidden my emotions from the staff however, as at the end of the day one of them asked me ‘are you okay ma’am? Your face is not looking so good today’….

Despite the recent stresses, there have also been some very happy and peaceful times this last month. I was lucky enough to have my two old bezzies Maria and Guy visit for a few days which provided much hilarity and fun. They also provided huge entertainment for the staff what with Guy being 6’’4 and Maria 6’’.  When they arrived our gardener Prakash (who is only about 4’’6) stopped dead in his tracks and just stood awestruck staring at them muttering ‘sooo bigg…just so sooo biggg’. This wasn’t quite the welcome Maria and Guy had hoped for but they took it very well! We had a fun few days walking, picnicking and shopping in Darjeeling and a fun final night dressing up in Indian garms to celebrate the Tea Estate Advisors birthday.

 

We have also been really lucky and have had a lovely selection of guests staying. As it is the Indian holidays it is mostly Indian families visiting for the next couple of months, and they have been so interesting to meet and all very appreciative to be escaping the heat of the plains. In the past, Indian guests have been our most ‘challenging’ to say the least, but this has not been the case recently which is a relief! Surprisingly the other night at dinner some hilarious guests from Delhi insisted we told them all the stories of all the difficult guests we have had over the months. We amused them by telling them about a large Indian group who came a few months ago with three members of staff, one of which was employed to brush his employer’s teeth for him….

A number of the older Indian guests don’t speak English however, and they take to just speaking to me in ‘Hinglish’ (a combination of Hindi and English) which I find hilarious.  I can understand the odd random word and then I just have to make a vague guess at what they are asking of me. I have become pretty good at this method of communication now and can generally sense what is being said. The staff find these ‘Hinglish’ exchanges between me and the guests particularly amusing. Will and I had a very sweet goodbye in this nature yesterday with a lovely Indian couple. There was lots of hugging and smiling and love exchanged… and very few words. Other ‘Hinglish’ speaking Indian guests are less endearing however…last week one lady started walking towards me shouting ‘SAMOSA’, until she was eventually up close to me shouting ‘SAMOSAAA’ in my face. This tested my patience slightly.

Anyhow, with three weeks left out here before we return to the UK for the summer, Will and I are hoping our patience won’t be tested too much, and that we are in for a smooth home run.  Fingers crossed……!

Drama at Glenburn!

 

 

March and April have been somewhat of a blur of people, excitement, drama and hilarity, and neither of us can quite believe it is nearly May. Having waved off the last of my family (who seem to be coming in droves to see us at Glenburn!), and with only five guests in the hotel and storm clouds looming, there is an oddly quiet atmosphere here at Glenburn.  It is quite a welcome relief however after a rather hectic and at times dramatic few weeks.

The biggest drama we have had recently was during my dear sister’s visit. Jade and her husband Avi left yesterday after their somewhat extended visit to Glenburn. They arrived off a 24 hour train from Varanasi full of energy and excitement and both a picture of health (especially Jade who had just finished her Yoga teacher training), but within 12 hours, things had changed. Whilst we all got dressed up and ready for dinner, Avi said he wasn’t feeling well and told us he was going to bed.

Not giving him much thought we were all enjoying ourselves until halfway through our dessert we heard a shouting. Will and I immediately thought it was a drunk local who had somehow got into the hotel so we rushed out to try and usher him away. It quickly became apparent however that the shouting was coming from Jade and Avi’s room, where we found Avi lying on the floor having what appeared to us to be a seizure…

As luck had it we had four doctors in the hotel whom I rather frantically summoned away from their desserts.  One doctor was a cancer surgeon, another a dermatologist, another an eye surgeon and one a plastic surgeon, and unfortunately the last thing Avi needed was a facelift or a skin graft. Eventually however, despite some rather conflicting diagnoses’, it was decided that Avi was suffering from dehydration due to diarrhea, and a very high temperature, the combination of which, had caused his body to go into spasm (something quite common apparently?!). Unbelievably all it took to bring him out of his seizure was some deep breaths and a few sips of water and in no time he was laughing and sitting up in bed…albeit still with a very high fever.

Meanwhile our new intern Kate who had only been here a few days, had remained at the dining table attempting to maintain some civilised conversation in between the shouting and general mayhem (worsened by me frantically running in and out of the room in panic mode). We all agreed that somehow the evening had turned into a scene from a Murder Mystery…’Avi in the pink room under unknown circumstance…!’

Anyway, after a rather sleepless and feverish night for Avi, the next day Jade and I decided we should take him to Darjeeling hospital; an experience we shall never forget. On arrival we were ushered into the ‘Emergency Room’ which was in fact just a corridor outside the staff room which had one chair in it (we gave Avi the privilege of sitting).

After huge amounts of discussion, Avi was checked over with instruments that looked like they were from Florence Nightingales time, and we were eventually summoned to the ‘Blood Testing Center’. This was a separate building around the corner which was in need of a thorough clean, a lick of paint and also a door…(I actually refused to go in and hovered around outside).

 

Despite all of this, the doctor herself was very professional and intelligent and we were soon reassured that Avi did not have Malaria or Dengue Fever, and instead just needed to rest and re hydrate.  We returned to the idyll of Glenburn as quickly as we could and decided that for any other medical emergencies we would be attending the private hospital in Darjeeling.

After a few days things returned to normal. Jade adopted the role of resident yoga teacher, the weather began to warm up so we started to have ‘al fresco’ dining in the evenings,  and the hotel returned to a place of calm.

 

This was until the earthquake and the forest fire.

By this time my Grandmother and her friend had arrived and we were all having tea and cake on the veranda admiring the beautiful dusk light.
Suddenly however, we saw a rising strip of fire spreading through the tea fields towards the hotel.

There was huge commotion as all the staff ran down to try and calm the fire and the tea estate manager drove in at about 100mph in his truck in an attempt to save his tea bushes. Meanwhile, as we all stood rather hopelessly in anticipation watching over the raging fire, the ground began to shake beneath us in what was quite obviously an earthquake.  A family of four guests came running up asking whether they had drank too much or if it really was an earthquake, and Will and I did our best to stay very calm and pretend we were used to them here…!

Luckily no damage came from the quake, and the fire was eventually put out without too much harm done to the tea bushes. The dinner conversation that night was very excitable, and once again Glenburn had become a place of drama!

Since then, life at Glenburn has returned to normal, and things seem to be running smoothly again.

There have however been a couple of incidents this week that suggest Will and I might be a little overtired.

The other day we had been instructed that a new guest arriving was allergic to feather pillows, and so Will instructed the housekeeping girls to make sure there were no feather pillows in the room. Unfortunately they had completely misunderstood him, and on checking the room we found that every pillow in sight was a feather one. Will assured me that he had spoken very clearly with minimal stuttering…but alas, the room was now inhabitable for the lady with the feather allergy.

I myself also had rather an embarrassing moment when greeting a guest yesterday. We shook hands and he introduced himself as ‘David’ and (apparently) I immediately replied with; ‘lovely to meet you JOHN’. Nobody corrected me and so I continued to call him John all afternoon and even wrote ‘John’ on his place name at the table. It was at this point he came up to inform me I had completely misheard him. I was quite horrified at how I could have misheard ‘David’ for ‘John.’

Suffice to say I think our holiday to Thailand next week is coming at a good time, and we shall no doubt return energised, alert and ready to tackle the last few months of this season!

 

The Week of ‘Fever’

Nearly three weeks in and I think we are beginning to get the hang of things. As I write this however, we are rather reluctantly awaiting four new arrivals (two of which are flying in by private jet).  I say ‘reluctantly’ as our energy levels are somewhat low this evening as we have both been struck by what the locals calls ‘fever’. At least half of the staff are off ‘sick with fever’ this week. Initially I thought this was something really quite serious and threatening, and I was fearful I had not got the right vaccination against it, but now I realise it is a rather dramatic description for the common cold…

We have the Dutch to blame for this outbreak of ‘fever’. Eleven Dutch ‘Tea Tourists’ descended on the estate for five nights this week, and they were all struck with the ‘fever’.

‘Tea Tourists’ are people who travel between Tea Estates tasting, buying and talking about Tea. Some of them even drink different teas with each course at dinner. They have opened my eyes to a whole new world of tea!

This week we have had some very interesting guests. In particular, a new arrival last night; Robert Dessaix  (the famous Australian author). He is one of the most inspiring men I have met in a long time.  Initially I thought him quite intimidating, but when we sat together at dinner I was totally engrossed by everything we talked about. He is gay and lives in Tasmania with his partner whom he has an open relationship with. He believes it impossible to meet one person in life who will provide you with all the desires you need, and so promotes the idea of open relationships. He is travelling India researching his new idea for a book which will be about ‘Travel Anxiety’. This is essentially a study into how people get so anxious about filling their time doing the ‘right’ thing when they are travelling. He is a promoter of doing little and instead, absorbing the world around us…

We talked about so many things over dinner (which meant I totally neglected the Singaporean Cathay Pacific Air Hostess on my left), and I went to bed feeling totally inspired. Will was also rather chuffed (and slightly uncomfortable) when I told him what Robert had said about him at dinner. Towards the end of the evening he leant over to me and whispered; ‘Isn’t Will just spectacular?’ ‘Does he know quite how spectacular looking he is?’ I just laughed and nodded in agreement!

Sadly Robert has left now, but he made me realise that the guests are such an essential element to our experience out here. Some days we get a bit of cabin fever, as there is nowhere to ‘pop’ to easily for a change of scene, but when you have inspiring and interesting people around this is less of an issue. Furthermore, the guests remind us how lucky we are to be here, because already for us it is becoming normality.

The local people are also inspiring to us in a very different way. More and more am I really coming to learn how  very hardy they are, yet also calm natured and peaceful. We have had some terrible rain this week which has caused a number of landslides. One member of staff came in yesterday morning and said; ‘Ma,am, I need to take the week off. My house has been ruined by landslides and we need to move house. I will be back Friday.’ He seemed surprisingly relaxed about this. A few minutes later we received an email from a guest com    ing in October stating her dietary requirements: ‘No oil, dairy, meat or sugar. I will eat fish once a week and I like an egg white omelette once a week too on a separate day.’ Talk about opposing priorities!!

So life out here is going pretty well at the moment….my favourite time of day, when my appreciation for where I am reigns strong, is just after dusk. As darkness falls and the humidity loosens its grip, sparkling lights start to appear on the surrounding hillsides, like hundreds of fireflies glimmering in the distance. Smells of cooking smoke rise up from the villages and very often Indian music drifts up as families gather for religious puja’s. Eventually the cicadas start to speak out, and they are louder here than I have ever heard.  All the stresses of the day seem to lose significance at this moment, and a sense of calm overwhelms me.

The other night however, I sat and watched the light change at the office window, and to my great surprise I started to hear someone shouting through a megaphone. I couldn’t figure out what was going on until one of the staff came in and told us it was Bingo Night! Bingo Night in the Himalayas? Why not!

I have just been interrupted by the arrival of the two ‘private jet setters’ we were awaiting. As the man stepped out of the car just now his face was thunderous. I held out our ‘Glenburn scarf’ that we usually drape around peoples necks as a friendly welcome gift, and he just dismissed me saying, ‘I do not want that scarf, I am not feeling humorous. Get me a drink of something stronger than tea. That is the worst journey I have ever experienced’. Will and I were rather terrified. After one glass of wine however, he became the most charming and hilarious man. First impressions can be so misleading!

Early Days at Glenburn

Everyone tells me I should write a blog about my experience out here in Darjeeling. I’m not sure how to start, or what to write, or even who on earth is going to read this, but I have given into peer pressure.

This place is beautiful. A real oasis of calm and tranquillity in the Himalayan lowlands…a vast contrast to the journey you have to entail to reach here which is one of great turbulence and exhaustion. I had high hopes of arriving looking sophisticated and managerial, but after 4 hours of clinging to my passenger door handle whilst my entire body was thrust up and down repeatedly, I felt and looked totally dishevelled.

Much to my surprise however, the staff still thought I was worthy of a royal welcome, and greeted me with a cold glass of homemade lemonade and an icy towel to mop my sweating brow.  This was shortly followed by a pot of Darjeeling tea, lemon cake, samosas and pakoras, all served on the beautiful veranda overlooking the Himalayas and tea estate grounds. It all felt totally surreal.

Since arriving in fact, I have been offered tea and food nearly every hour of each day. The staff call me ma’am, they do my washing and clean our room every day, and give us fresh towels. I feel like I am living the colonial life. What is worrying though, is how quickly I have got used to it….

Over the past ten days we have had to learn a huge amount. Considering neither of us have had any managerial experience it was quite a challenge arriving here as the ‘managers’ when we know nothing about the place, and most of the other 53 other staff have worked here for years. I felt awkward and reluctant at first, and still do at times, but we are learning fast, and the people are so friendly and helpful which makes it much easier.

Will and I are still figuring out our respective roles to prevent any disagreements. At the moment he is becoming rather obsessive over the staff ‘sign in’ sheet (as most of the staff never sign in), and he is trying to be more ‘aggressive’ he says, as he thinks this will help. I think this will work very well for me as they will prefer me to him in the long run. Furthermore, Will is taking longer to learn the names of the staff than I am. Instead of not addressing them by name however, he attempts a word that sounds a bit like what he thinks their name is. I find this extremely awkward and uncomfortable when I see the looks on their faces. Again though, another bonus for me. There are some hilarious cultural differences that we are also trying to get our heads round. The Indian head wiggle for example….very disconcerting! Initially I was also taken aback by the rather stern faces of the staff and the cautious glances given to me, but I have discovered that as soon as you talk to them and smile, their faces turn to warmth and friendliness. In his book which I was reading last night, Michael Palin describes the mountain people of the Himalayas as ‘patient, taciturn and politely wary of survivors. Masters of survival.’ This captures what I have been trying to understand and explain since I arrived.

Overall we are getting there slowly, and enjoying it too….although it is about to be fully booked so I may be speaking too soon!

The Great Escape!

I write to you today from the comforts of my private terrace where I am sitting in a very colonial style white wicker chair overlooking the most glorious blue sky day. Finally the Monsoon seems to have ceased, and the magnificent Himalayas have revealed themselves in full, a sight that every morning this past week has given me goosebumps. As the sun rises over them their colour changes from pink, to silver, to dazzling white; and they look truly magnificent. Kanchenjunga Mountain dominates the part of the Himalayan range we can see, and it is the third biggest mountain in the world.

It has been a while since my last entry, simply because we have been so busy…peak season is in full swing! Not only that, but this life out here is just becoming my normal everyday life which means there are less things I feel I need to write about. Perhaps this is me just getting used to things that originally would have seemed very different and interesting…I suppose this is a good thing as it means it is becoming home out here.

I am sitting here in my peaceful chair whilst Will is upstairs with the guests at lunch. I am feeling a little anti-social today and have very little energy to make conversation. I think that this is one of the hardest parts of the job…to constantly be ‘on show’. From 6am to 10pm we are ‘on’, and this involves a lot of enthusiasm and energy and conversation. Most of the time I love this and it’s great to meet such a variety of people, but sometimes I just hit a wall and have to go and sit quietly alone with my own thoughts for a while….Will rarely hits a wall. Perhaps he is just a nicer person than I am!

Since I last wrote we have done a little exploring of the area which has been great. We visited Darjeeling and Kalimpong, and were able to get a taster of ‘real India’. We live in such a bubble up here that sometimes we forget we are actually living in India. Darjeeling is a lovely mountain town. The air is cool and misty and it is bustling with a mix of tourists, monks, horses and locals. It is only about 20 degrees Celsius up there but the locals all wear ski jackets and woollen hats and gloves which amuses me.  Kalimpong is a little more bustling and hectic but it still has a good feel to it. There is a huge market that sprawls through the town selling everything you can imagine.

Yesterday however, we ventured further afield to Siliguri for the day with Parveez the Tea Estate Manager (and our father figure out here). We spotted a break in the diary when we had NO new arrivals and decided we really should go and buy some traditional Indian outfits to wear for Diwali. It was an essential trip. Sadly, the three hour journey down took four and a half due to a landslide on the road. The road just clings to the hillside and is so vulnerable to landslides.

Despite our delay however, we made it there by 3pm, and we drove into a multi storey car park and went into a huge modern shopping Mall and it felt so surreal. I feel like I live in another far off land up here and I have forgotten what it is like to do normal things…it felt great! Parveez’s wife and daughter accompanied us and directed me in and out of shops and in and out of various salwar kameez’s until I had decided on two rather delightful ones. Will also bought himself three fancy kurta’s (he now realises three was a little excessive) and a very jazzy silver waistcoat. We hope to look the part as we host Diwali on Wednesday 11^th!

After shopping we collapsed in a Tea Shop for a sweet masala chai served in an earthenware cup. We then decided (at 7pm), it was probably time to head back up into the hills ….via, it must be admitted, Domino’s Pizza. It is the first Domino’s I have ever had in my life, and I love the fact that I ate it in the back of a car in the Himalayas as manageress of a boutique hotel.

So, we have had our injection of civilisation for what will probably be quite a long time from looking at the diary. We have so many guests streaming in and out over the next few weeks…who knows who we will meet!

In fact, we have had a large number of ‘VIPs’ visiting over the past two weeks, and by VIPs I mean extremely normal people from the Kent or Surrey or Sidney or Melbourne. We have come to learn that when Indian Tour Agents email us with a warning that the guests they are sending to us are ‘VIPs’, this does not mean ‘VIP’ in the sense we know it. On numerous occasions Will and I have got ourselves all excited and worked up over our new ‘VIP’ arrivals, expecting ‘celebs’ of a sort, and each time we are disappointed (and also relieved) as we see Mr. and Mrs. Normal getting out of the car. We realise now that this is just the Indian Tour Agencies’ way of making us pull out all the stops for their guests…!

Talking of which, we have just had the five minute warning call alerting us that six new guests are only five minutes away so I need to go! More soon….