On the road
Everyone around your journey lives in the mountains they show you. Most guests meet four or five of them; a Bhutan or trekking journey adds a few more. This is who does what once you land.
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Your driver
Your driver meets you at Bagdogra arrivals and knows which tea shop opens at seven, which washroom is clean, which bend holds the view worth stopping for, and how long the queue at Rangpo really is. They drive these hills all year, monsoon included.
Photo: Arghyadeep Manna / Unsplash
Local guides
One for Darjeeling's railway and tea gardens, others for Kalimpong, Gangtok, West Sikkim and the Kathmandu valley, and naturalists on wildlife journeys. Each is chosen for the place, and for how well they read a monastery or a forest.
Photo: Soumyojit Sinha / Pexels
Bhutan
Bhutan requires every tourist to travel with a licensed guide. Yours meets you at Paro arrivals or the Phuentsholing gate, orders lunch in Dzongkha, holds your place at a festival and stays with you to the departure gate.
Photo: bradford zak / Unsplash
The kitchen
He writes the dietary brief sent to every kitchen on Kitchens of the Hills, cooks the hill dinner offered on The First Time, and packs the border-day hamper on Three Kingdoms.
Photo: Aperture Photography / Pexels
Trails and estates
On the Goecha La trek, a licensed Sikkim trek guide, a cook and porters; on the Singalila Ridge, a senior guide beside the registered local guide the park requires; on tea estates, the estate's own walking guides.
Photo: Lay Naik / Unsplash
Any hour
The Darjeeling team answers +91 86178 24110 by phone and WhatsApp at any hour while you travel. Your driver's number and that one are the only two you need, and WhatsApp still gets through on hotel Wi-Fi.
Photo: Sujitabh Chaudhary / Unsplash
Your designer
Your travel designer, at the office in Salbari, builds the plan and books every house, drive, guide and permit, then answers your questions before, during and after the journey. Tell them who is coming, and the people around you are chosen to fit.
Photo: Boudhayan Bardhan / Unsplash