One Day Trip to Temi Tea Garden of Sikkim
By now all of you have come to know that we visited Sikkim on the second week of May and I have already shared my experience in Rumtek Monastery here. Now it is the time to share my second experience. This time we move south ward and visited south Sikkim for a whole day.
The places which worth special mention during this trip are Temi tea Garden and the oldest rock house of Sikkim. Now let’s move on to the story
My Experience
We hired a small local car and started our trip to South Sikkim sharp at 10 AM in the morning. We were staying at Gangtok and the weather there was very cloudy and often we experience light to heavy shower. When we began our journey there was light rain in Gangtok. But, as soon as we entered south Sikkim we experienced a complete change in the weather. There was not a single drop of rain. The sky was bright and clear. The hilly road was surrounded by enormous green trees. Most of the trees were age old. There was cold soothing breeze. All we experienced is a freshness that we completely miss in Kolkata. Ah! What a relaxing moment. We simply forget all our urban stress and just went with the beautiful road.
On our way to the tea garden, first we came to the oldest rock house of South Sikkim. The place was well maintained and covered we green trees. We clicked some snaps there and then resumed our journey towards the tea garden.
Temi Tea Garden was the only tea garden of Sikkim. And it is meaningless to mention that this place is amazing. The lush green tea trees were spread through miles and this was pleasing experience for any eyes. One thing I want to mention here that this is an organic tea garden and is place completely free of plastics. So, I don’t need to say that this is a very clean place. Moreover, they don’t use any chemicals or pesticide to maintain the tea garden and hence there is no trace of chemicals there.
We get down from our car at the first view point and our guide, Ezrail Lepcha, eventually we were travelling in his own car and he was driving the vehicle, led us to the internal tea stall of the tea garden. But then we were not in a mood to drink a cup of tea there. So, we went to visit the garden. My 3 and half year old daughter was super excited to see such a vast garden and she just started to climb down the stone stairs. After spending some time there, we moved to the second view point and there also we clicked some snaps and purchased a packet of local tea, which costs Rs 250.
All we had there was a good two hours which we will remember throughout our life.
Some Info
Temi Tea Garden is about 18kms from Namchi The tea garden is owned by the State Government of Sikkim. It spreads across 440 acres of land on gradual hill originating from Tendong Hill. It produces about 100 tones of tea annually. The tea estate was founded in 1969. Prior to that there was a Sherpa village here as well as plant nurseries of Forest Department and missionary buildings.
One accommodation within the garden is Cherry Resort which has sweeping views of the tea garden and Kanchenjunga from its rooms and terrace. It’s a mid-range hotel and you can book online through their site.
Here is a short video of our experience just for you: