Why the Ridge Villages Exist Above the Tourist Town
Darjeeling's fame compressed everything onto one ridge and one road. The mall, the toy train platform, the viewpoint at Tiger Hill, all of it stacks within a few kilometres, and in peak season that compression shows. Tinchuley and Takdah were never resort towns. They were tea and cardamom country, connected to Darjeeling by the same hill roads but oriented toward the valley and the mountains rather than toward visitors. That orientation is still mostly intact.
