the tea is fresh in bangladesh

greetings from sunny bangladesh! we have been here at the teatulia tea estate, which is called the kazi & kazi tea estate (KKTE) in bangladesh, for a little over two weeks now. it is 180 degrees different from where we were in india - and i don't just mean because it's that much hotter.

for one thing, this was what walking looked like in makaibari:


maggie, standing up straight. not trick photography, just the himalayas

meanwhile, everywhere here is as flat as can be, for as far as the eye can see.

after a long, grueling trek from makaibari, including a 3km walk uphill (see previous photo), a 1.5-hour shared jeep ride down to the plains, 2 hours of lugging our stuff all over hot, crowded Siliguri trying to find a bus, a 2 hour bus ride, a 20 minute flatbed cycle rickshaw ride, a cup of tea with money exchangers, 20 minutes filling out immigration forms, getting our passports stamped at multiple tables and seth telling the Indian border officials that his favorite movie is City Lights , we made it to the bangladesh border, which we walked across.


maggie on the flatbed cycle rickshaw as we neared the border


how they expect us to quickly drink, let alone hold, a glass filled to the brim with piping hot tea, i don't know. not that i'm complaining, though - try getting some free fresh tea at a currency exchange office in the US!


the border

we were met at the border by two representatives from KKTE, who instantly recognized us. not surprising as we were quite likely the only two white people to walk across that border in a long time. one of the representatives was dhali bha (brother dhali), the division manager at the tea estate, who has been our host since we've been here. he's awesome.


dhali bhai in action, cruisin' through the tea

we've since spent our time soaking up everything we can about organic tea production in bangladesh (this is the only organic tea estate in BD, by the way), and everything else this amazing company is involved in. we've got a ton to say, and you can bet we'll say it, but for now we're finishing up our last couple days here before heading down to dhaka, the capital city of bangladesh, to see the tea's first destination once it leaves the factory. wish us luck!

sikkim the most eco state of india

31 march 2009

or is that just because it is the least populus and most remote? sikkim, the indian state just to the north of where we've been staying in the Darjeeling Region, was it's own country up until 1975.

in darjeeling we thought we were at the cross roads of the world. this is even more true in sikkim, which borders nepal to the west, bhutan to the east and tibet (on some maps we've just seen it identified as china) to the north. and speaking of china, they do not recognize that sikkim is now part of india.

after 3 hours spent in darjeeling getting our permits to allow us to enter sikkim we were ready to begin the 1 1/2 hr shared jeep (like a bus but smaller to pass on these narrow windy mountainous roads) ride to the north. getting back to these permits-they are only required for foreigners. they do not cost money-just time.

it involves going to the magistrates office and filling out a form. the person at the window transcribes (by hand-at government offices i rarely see any computers) all of our personal information into a large ledger book and then stamps our form. we then walk our form across town to the foreigner's registration office, where another man transcribes all of our personal information into a large ledger book (again by hand!) and then stamps our form. we now walk the 30 minute walk across town back to the magistrates's office and in exchange for our form we are given our permit. oh india.


complaint and suggestion boxes in the magistrates office building. i wonder if anyone ever checks these boxes?

with our permits in hand we decided to refuel before beginning the journey north so we went to hotel lunar for lunch. this was one of several general listings in our guide book and by far one of the best meals we've had in a restaurant on this whole trip. the service was attentive while giving us space and time to enjoy our food and conversation. i love how many restaurants have personalized tableware


gobi parantha, aloo gobi, chana masala, rice and crazy indian pickles (which maggie likes and seth doesn't)


after we ate they gave us each little bowls of warm water with lemon wedges to wash our fingers. feels so nice!

we made our way back down to the shared jeep area. all of these narrow windy unpaved roads would be even more treacherous in a bus so most of the public transportation is in large jeeps. this would be safer for everyone except more often than not the outside is covered with men. you usually don't have to pay if you hang onto the back or ride on the top. a nice bonus since you'd probably be instantaneously killed in case of an accident. it is good to see the efficiency of travelling with so many people in (and on) one vehicle. the highest we experienced (on another ride) was 21 people.



life on the wild side. note the tea growing along the side of the road.

our time in sikkim was limited, so we decided to head to the less tourist-visited areas in the western part of the country. here are just some of the highlights-


orchids are so plentiful here that restaurants used long stalks full of them on each table as centerpieces.

we spent our first night in Namchi. everything we had read about Sikkim hyped it up as the cleaner smarter cousin of India. we were still shocked to see when we arrived that towns actually were cleaner. the town center had a lovely fountain and aquarium-it felt strangely european. plastic bags are banned in Sikkim ('though we did see some) and they have plans that all vegetables grown there will be done so organically by 2010.

one weird thing we discovered about Sikkim is that many restaurant names begin with the word 'hotel', so it makes it a bit misleading when looking for lodging.

the town of Namchi is putting itself on the map with the construction of large Buddhist and Hindu monuments.
first we visited Samdruptse, the world's largest statue of the Buddha, an impressive 138' of pure happiness. His Holiness (himself) the Dalai Lama laid the foundation stone on 22 oct 1997.


and what makes the Buddha so happy? the longhorns, that's right!

on the hill across town is Solophok, the sprawling Hindu complex still under construction. while he is 'only' 102 tall, there will be many more buildings than the Buddhist neighbor across the way. we were amazed that at a site under so much construction we were just able to wander around on our own. no one wore hardhats, i dont even remember seeing all of the workers wearing shoes. it was fascinating to see such detailed architecture in progress.


maggie with Lord Shiva the destroyer. let's hope all of this construction isn't for naught.

from Namchi we headed further northwest to Pelling, the land of hotels. and these were actually lodging hotels, who also had restaurants, and not just restaurants called hotels. we stayed at the Hotel Garuda, which had delicious local cuisine (stay tuned for more in a future posting). we had to know what to ask for and look on the last page of the menu as most travellers (disappointingly) don't have any interest in the local fare, said the hotel staff.

the main attraction of Pelling are breathtaking views of the Himalayas, however this time of year there is a lot of haze so we were only able to get a couple of small glimpses. those alone were very impressive and we would love to come back in the fall when the sky is clear. we imagine it would be like Montana Big Sky Country but with massive mountains instead of sky.

a few kilometers from town is Pemayangtse, the second oldest Buddhist monastery in Sikkim. there are 3 floors and as we climbed higher the detail of the paintings, sculptures and adornments increased as well.


Buddhist prayer flags in honor of victims of 9/11, coalition forces in iraq afghanistan and innocent civilians, late karma ishering and sonam zangmoo, sergio-de-lemo (UN Envoy) and Anna Lindh, madrid train blast, iran 2003 earthquake, and victims of genocide, mass murder ethnic cleansing around the world.


happy seth after spinning a ~12' tall prayer wheel. we have a video of this and when we can get a faster internet connection we'll put that up!

apparently seth's shoes are not made for walking because they have been falling apart at the seams. we'd been seeing shoe repairmen (never women-they are too busy carrying heavy things on their heads) in our travels and we finally had the time to have the work done. in the end it took about 25 minutes and it cost 60 Rupees (that's $1.20). it was beautiful to watch this man's hands at work.


the most environmental way to be - repair it, don't just throw it out and buy new.

when we read that there were hot springs in Sikkim we knew that no trip would be complete without a visit. fortunately our guidebook didn't give any more information than a passing mention. so when we eventually arrived we were the only non-locals. it was way more low-key that what we had been expecting. a line of sandbags pooled up the warm sulfury water from flowing into the adjacent Rangit River. i made sure to be well covered wearing a swim suit, under a t-shirt and long flowy pants. meanwhile local women already soaking away when we arrived were ready for the S. Padre Island Spring Break wet t-shirt contest.



seth in tato pani (tato=hot, pani=water) having cold river water poured onto him by a naked little boy.

tastes like dragon

the next couple of weeks were spent learning the ins-and-outs of cultivating and maintaining a 150-year-old (this year!) mountainside tea estate. we saw bamboo bigger than we'd ever seen before (it's freakin' HUGE), learned about the permaculture principles applied on the tea estate, made momos (tibetan dumplings) learned about the proper application of compost and mulch, made momos, learned the secrets of the biodynamic process, made more momos, and learned about proper pruning and "rejuvenation" techniques. hopefully one day we'll have enough bandwidth and be on a computer with a new enough version of internet explorer to make a couple posts on these experiences possible, but for now, you get the reader's digest version. (for the record, the fact that we are in rural southern asia and there is any internet access at all is amazing, so don't think we're complaining).

which brings us to our final week at makaibari. with the rajah in calcutta for family reasons, we were left to make our own schedule, and we decided to focus on the processing and tasting sides of things. so we got to the factory at 5 am to watch the final stages of the withering process of tea that was plucked the afternoon before. we followed the leaves from the withering troughs, where they are dumped after being brought in from the field, to the rolling machines, to the drying machine, and finally to the sorting room, where the processed tea is separated into countless different classes and grades of finished tea.


leaves wither from 12-18 hours, depending on moisture levels. a 15-minute difference in withering can mean a huge difference in taste.

that afternoon, we set up a tasting session with mr. sanjoy, the asst. manager of the factory. we met in the tasting room, where the woman who makes tea for visitors (i forget the nepali word for this position...) steeped 2 grams of 6 different kinds of tea for exactly five minutes each. they had prepared for us a sampling of their 6 main types of tea - first flush, second flush (muscatel), oolong, silver green, bai mu dan (white tea), and silver tips imperial.



we were invited to first look at the color (liquor) of the tea, then to look at the dried leaves, then to look at and smell the steeped leaves, and finally to taste the tea, using a specific slurping method to send the tea all around your mouth and open up the flavors (hoity-toity as it may sound, it really does help). we figure if we're ever going to make tea, we need to train our palates so we know if it's any good.


see how different the colors of these cups of tea are - all just through slight variations of processing.

mr. sanjoy was very helpful and informative, and after he left, we lingered for a while longer, inspecting the leaves and quizzing each other with blind taste tests. we left feeling exhilarated, alive, and ready to drink more tea.


white tea leaves


makaibari's silver tips imperial tea is by many accounts the most expensive tea in the world. seth thinks it tastes like licking a dragon, which he swears is a good thing.


maggie inspecting the bounty


seth blindly tasting