Rangpo - Sikkim Border town

left: The border checkpoint right & below: views from the jeep

By the time we met at the jeep stand there were eight of us going to Sikkim. We were sad that Silke had to go back to Kolkata and ... work. The idea of forced kidnapping was tossed about. In the jeep we had Matt and Jen from Boston, Ben a Chicago transplant to LA, Lemor and Yarden from Isreal, Stephan from France who had some pretty amazing travel stories to tell as well, An from France, and An, also from France. All except Matt & Jen were traveling independently and had met in Darjeeling. It took about half of the day before I really started to realize what an amazing bunch of folks I was stuck with.

Ok -- now for the excuses: I'm no photographer, but with that said, there just seems to be no way to fit the scale and beauty of these mountains into a photo. The jeep ride from Darjeeling to Gangtok was to be about 5 hrs. Due to the amazing scenery, it seemed to go by in a flash.

To my, um, surprise, the region is mountainous in the way that get from point A to point B, you pretty much have to up up up up over high mountains and then down down down down into deep valleys, repeating the process several times. The views were .. stupendous. The average nothing-special valley seemed to drop down about 4-5000' feet and the mountains are decorated with houses, villages and terraced rice fields. It was a bit hazy and the pics look worse than it was. I didn't get pictures of he monkeys sitting on the side of the road...

It's hard to get a sense of scale from these photos unless you look really close. The drive through these mountains would be worth the cost and trouble of the flight over here alone.

In Gangtok, we spent way too much time in the hotel eatery discovering and re-discovering the local brew -- "Hit" -- and getting to know each other. What a great group. It was harder than you'd think trying to explain what a "pun" was to the French and Isreali folks. Someone floated the idea of a river raft trip.... It was the Teesta River -- and it turned out to be a *really* long jeep-ride, mostly back down the road that we came in on. But beautiful. And it wasn't exactly the wildest river as the water was low. It wasn't easy to stand up through the rapids and take photos, but possible. However it was still such an amazing way (and relaxing) way to see the mountains and valley. The water was cold, but the air was warm due to the low altitude so that was a nice break. At the end the sun was going behind a mountain so we all ended up cold, but food at a *very* local restaurant downriver seemed to make everything right.

We got back to Gangtok late...

We stayed at Pelling. The plan from there was to leave all of our stuff at the hotel and walk to Khecheopalri Lake, then from there to Yuksom and take a jeep back. 2-3 days.

It was cloudy (and have I mentioned, cold) and so the views that it's so famous for were non existant (see photo of what we were missing at the top of this pagej that I managed to get later).

The hike was a bit longer than we expected -- we missed a steep but effective short-cut.

There was a monestary above the lake that we _didn't_ hike to. The lake is considered a holy area -- the dock going out is lined with prayer wheels on either side. Near the lake there was a [?buhdist-chapel?] containing a huge prayer-wheel that took some real muscle to turn.



Near the lake there was a teeny-tiny village w/ a guest house. I think this was my first $1 room on the trip so far. I elected to pay an extra 20rs ($0.40) for an extra blanket as we could see our breath inside the hotel by 8pm or so. I was just hiking w/ the clothes I was wearing, a bottle of water, camera and tooth-brush. They served meals which seemed to take for ever (even for asia) -- it almost became a bit frustrating until we went and looked and the kitchen and that explained a lot. The pic isn't great, but you can an idea of the plaster stove that they were cooking on.

Mat & Jen took a Jeep back to Siliguri and on to the airport and to Laos. A bright and funny pair -- it was really sad to see them go...

Someone knew enough to order "Tomba" -- a locally brewed/fermented beverage from millet. Brewed locally, as in "out behind the house." It's served hot in special containers w/ lids and sipped through a bamboo straw. All Tomba is not created equally -- no one ordered a second one. It had that really-young-home-made-beer taste to it. [we had some much better Tomba a few nights later].

Why are these bridges so scenic? But they are. Each one meant a nice long cookie stop... Towards the end of the hike was a *long* drop down into a valley and then a long hike up a mountain on the other side. At the top was Yoksom.



Yoksam is where the high-altitude treks leave from and was said to be good for dayhiking. What no one seems to mention is the beauty of the town itself. Quaint and very remote, but still with a restaurant or two a the center of town to hang out at. At around 9pm the police come around w/ sticks and strongly suggest that it's time to return to the hotel.

yes, there's internet in Yoksam

We crashed a post-trek party being thrown for a tour of trekkers from Singapore. Actually we crashed the FIRE (heat was hard to find up there) but were made very welcome. More Tomba ... and then dancing.



Finally the weather got really clear. We ended up staying an extra day and just hanging out. Ben, An, Chris & Shannon (the latter two, Canuks we met there) decided to stay another day before making their way to Varanasi, possibly by bus. Lemor, Yarden and I went back to Darjeeling for a few days in hopes of getting train tickets.

The heading sums it up. The jeep left full w/ two riders on the back. About 30min into the 2 1/2 hr trip, 4 people along the road wanted a ride -- someone one of the passengers knew. The rest of the passengers (tourists & locals) were none to happy but in they went anyway. So, 13 inside and 2 on top. My feet fell asleep and legs hurt like hell and the overweighted jeep seemed to lean a bit too much around each turn. "My these cliffs are steep." But nice views.

I'll note that I've been assembling the last few pages in Varanasi. There is yet another music festival next to my hotel. The stage is litterally in the Ganges River which my hotel overlooks. It's 12:30am and someone has been raging on an incredible tabla solo backed w/ ambient harmonium chords for about the last 35 minutes. I'm delighted to be catching every note up here. I got a lesson today on how hard those things are to play, strength-wise. Incredible.... Ok -- now it's being accompanied by celebratory gunfire. ? ? ? Why not...