In Darjeeling, we paid a visit to St. Paul's school. It's an English boarding school that was founded in 1819. That makes it 4 years older than the oldest school in Singapore, Raffles Institution. It's situated at the summit of some hill in Darjeeling, so we spent the better part of an early afternoon walking uphill, asking for directions and just what about this school could be so interesting that made the visit recommended.

At the entrance, the school doesn't look all that grand. It has a crest with some coat-of-arms thingamajig as one only expects of English boarding schools.



But we walked in a bit more and it started to look like a really impressive place. The building s are really quite pretty, and there's a nice parade square/courtyard. For dramatic effect, a student cricketeer bounds youthfully across the photograph.


A nice gentlemanly but a bit shy chap who could easily be a secondary 2 student in an equivalent institution in Singapore enquired about our presence, and on hearing that we were there as tourists, offered to show us around. His manner and courtesy spoke well of the education that he received. He brought us through the school and all the way to the top of the hill, from which we could look at the school from above. The view would hav e been quite commanding and wonderful if not for the fog which rather disappointingly limited our field of vision. That the school has tennis courts lend further emphasis to the fact that it was no o rdinary school. How many schools in India have tennis courts? And nice, well-maintained ones a t that?

We asked t he helpful student how much his school fees were. 200 lakh (200,000 rupees), he replied. That's more than 6600 SGD (per year we think). About as much as subsidised univeristy tuition fees in Singapore! And it's only a high school! Some survey placed it in the list of 10 ten sc hools in India.

Admittedly, it's a boarding sc hool. So 200 lakh includes the boarding fee. But still, it's no small sum in India. It's a pretty place to board at too. This is what a typic al boarding house looks like.


Tim gazes in wonderment at the school and fondly remembers his secondary school days.

A classroom. Chalkboard, wooden furniture. V ery quaint
Board of achievements. It seems to be de rigeour for any top school.

Map of the school grounds. A big school.

The ornately framed notice boards are familiar.
Obligatory group photo
The school chapel
A shot of the long walk down that doesn't really do justice to the effort that we put in to ge t to the school.

As a bonus, we snuck onto the rooftop of a guesthouse to take these great panoramic shots of Darjeeling.