Himalayan Orchid Exports

Up here in Kalimpong, things move a bit differently than in the big cities. We use P. O. Box No 4 for our mail. The air is thinner and cooler, which is good for the orchids. We spend most of our time with the plants, making sure they are growing right. It’s not just an office job. There is a lot of dirt under the fingernails and walking through the rows of flowers. We export these orchids to different places, so the packing has to be done very carefully. We do it ourselves in the shed. The weather can be unpredictable with the mist coming in over the hills. Sometimes the roads get tricky after a heavy rain. We’ve been doing this for years, and it’s more of a lifestyle than just a business. We don't have a big storefront on a main street. It’s more about the land and the greenhouse. We talk to the post office people a lot since that's how our letters get to us. It is a quiet kind of work. We aren't trying to be the biggest, just trying to keep the orchids healthy. The floor of the workspace is usually damp from watering. We have a few old wooden chairs and a stove for making tea when it gets chilly. It’s a simple setup but it works for what we do. It takes a lot of patience to wait for them to bloom.