Hotel Anand Palace

Up here in Darjeeling, things move a bit slower, especially on S M Das Road where we sit. Hotel Anand Palace is right in the middle of it all at number five. If you walk past the shops and the noise of the town, you’ll find us easily enough. Arbind Kumar Manjhi is usually busy in the kitchen as the executive chef, making sure the food is ready for whoever is staying with us. It’s an old building, so the floors sometimes creak when you walk on them, but it has a certain character that new places don't have. The mist comes in thick some mornings, and you can hardly see the road from the lobby windows. We spend a lot of time cleaning the rooms and making sure there are enough heavy blankets because it gets really cold at night in the mountains. We aren't one of those big, shiny resorts you see in the travel magazines. We are just a local hotel run by people who live and work here. The lobby isn't very big, but there’s a place to sit and talk. Sometimes the water takes a while to get hot in the morning, and we have to explain that to the guests. It’s just part of life in the hills. We handle the bookings and the check-ins, and mostly we just try to keep things organized. It’s a lot of work, especially when the tourist season starts and everyone is looking for a room.