Darjeeling

The last lap of our 7 day Sikkim tour package was a day of sight-seeing in Darjeeling. And the first event was the famous sunrise over the Kangchenjunga peak over Tiger Hill. To see the sun rise over the majestic Mount Everest is a surreal experience. Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world. It lies partly in Nepal and partly in Sikkim.

We had to wake up at 3:30 for this. We were at the hill by 4:30, one of the first ones to be there.

We were shivering in the cold.

There was nothing on the hill top except for people selling gloves and scarves and coffee. 

But in less than an hour, the whole place was teaming with people and there was not an inch of spare space to set foot.

The construction of the new observatory is under way and the outcome sure looks exciting. 

The Kangchenjunga peak glowing with the first rays of the sun. This pic from my mobile camera does no justice to it. Wish I had a super fantastic professional camera.

The sight of the changing hues of the peak in the span of 30 minutes or less makes it worth the suffering in the early morning ruthless chill and the dazed eye from lack of sleep.

The reverence to Kanchenjunga is palpable. Hotels and houses are routinely named after it. As tourists, every place we stop, every bend we take, we catch ourselves constantly trying to catch a glimpse of the peak. 

While in Darjeeling, the adventure sport you must try is white water rafting in the Teesta River. 

Entrance fee to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and to the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park is part of the MMT package but we had to pay from our pockets as they did not inform us. Both these places are worth a visit. The zoo is very well-maintained and quite unique in the way the cages are built. As we walk up the hilly slopes of the zoo, we peer into the cages that are dug out far below. It's an interesting view for us even as the animals are blissfully unaware of people staring at them like fools.

This gorgeous tiger gave us all the sighting of our life by pacing back and forth and roaring.

I hardly saw any clinic and hospitals both in Sikkim and in Darjeeling.

The driver said there are actually very few.

They mostly use traditional herbs and the rest is taken care of by walking. 'Pahadi log' (mountain people) do not have much use for the doctor. So I couldn't resist taking a pic of this clinic that I found inside the premises of the Tsuk Druk monastery.




Darjeeling is famous for 3 T's - Tourism, Tea and Timber. Justifiably, Happy Valley Tea Estate is a spot in the MMT itinerary.
Here is the picture of the cup marking the marriage of Princess Diana sent to the Tea Estate.

Japanese temple built in 1972. There is a large prayer room upstairs. We were lucky to be just in time for the ongoing prayers. We were given a small drumming pad and a stick. We chanted a Buddhist verse to the beats of the drum. The temple was founded by Fuji Guruji for world peace. He is believed to have witnessed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The Peace Pagoda is the tallest structure in Darjeeling and gives a beautiful view of the town surrounding it. It is believed to have taken the Japanese architect three years to build it. 

The Peace Pagoda has four avatars of Buddha - sitting, standing, sleeping and meditating. All the statues are polished in gold color. This one below is my favorite:

The Tibetan  Refugee Center is on the itinerary too. Skip this in case of shortage of time or if you are not too much into the history of the Tibetan-Chinese territorial conflict. There is a display of photos tracing the events of the illegal Chinese occupation of Tibet & the tragic loss of Tibetan way of life.

You can buy lots of interesting things from here but all the items are expensive. It is better to buy from any of the shops in the town selling almost the same things. However, a board like this will melt your heart and you will be tempted to splurge for the 'cause'

India has been a land of acceptance. Many of those who suffered from religious persecution the world over have sought solace here - from the Jews who settled in Kerala to the Buddhists. Many Buddhist refugee camps dot the length and breath of this great nation.

The Druk Sangag Choling Monastery is a must visit. It is a beautiful structure. You can be a part of the prayers or simply watch the monks and pupils as they scurry around their daily work in their long saffron robes. The monastery houses an orphanage. Poor parents leave their little boys on the footsteps of the monastery to be raised as scholars and monks. 

The beautiful women selling mostly non-vegetarian fare in the evening market.



Most of the small shops, hotels and eateries are run by Nepali origin people. The ethnic tribes like Lepcha, Nepali and Sherpas run the show here and it is evident. Eve-teasing is almost not heard of here.

Darjeeling is already partially autonomous and there is a demand to be separated from West Bengal. They harbor a great disdain for Mamata and her cronies.

You might hear from other people that Darjeeling is congested, a modern slum, too commercialized and so on. But from what little I saw of the city, I didn't feel that way at all. Maybe that's because as tourists on a short visit, we stick to the main lanes and rarely venture into the squalor of the city's underbelly.

I actually really liked the place and if Kubera (the Hindu Money God) continues to smile upon me, I might go back there again. I enjoyed the food, the walks, the tourist attractions, the people's smiling faces and just the fact that I was so far away from home and family and yet the place felt all too familiar and easy to get along with. Except for the cold! The cold is treacherous! 

Sikkim - Part Two

Will I ever be a traveler like him? Jacket, bike, shades, food and my country's flag for company traversing through a foreign landscape, absorbing the sights and smells. 

Found this bike parked near the Hot Spring. Imagine travelling like this through the rocky mountains! We, of course, traveled in a Tavera. Five of us - we three girls plus the elderly couple from Delhi with us. Thank God, they were a friendly couple and quite accommodating too. Otherwise, imagine the deadly combination of bad roads and bad company on a week long journey!

This was how bad the roads were! Horrible! Drive on these not-there-roads five hours at a stretch just to be able to see one sight-seeing point and you will wish the viewpoints could come to you. 

Broken bridges and roads in disarray at many places. The Chief Minister, Pawan Chamling, of the SDF (Sikkim Democratic Front) has been in power since 1994!!! The party has won 1999, 2004,2009 and 2014 elections. Or rather, the people have voted him to power. Wonder what they saw in him or maybe they didn't have a choice at all. Such an important state for tourism and yet so badly neglected. When I asked this to our driver, he said that yes, they had made a mistake by re-electing him every single time and that it was time to let him "rest" the next time around. 

Sikkim is India's smallest state by population and second only to Goa by area. On the map, it is just a small speck of red! But as they say, small is beautiful. The landscape of Sikkim is breathtaking. 

The S shaped roads and the flowing water at twelve thousand feet, Yumthung Valley, famous for the flowers that bloom in April.

The roads that look like someone drew the curves on paper.  

The  glistening snow

I love these Buddhist prayer flags. They are so thin and light that they flutter constantly. Even the slightest movement of the wind is enough to set them in motion. The belief is that the mantras written on them are carried by the wind, spreading compassion and goodness into the world and purifying the air. 

The people continuously mount new flags as old ones fade. It is a reminder that life changes and we are all part of this eternal cycle of change, as new replaces the old.

These tiny shops, along the road to the Hot Spring, a tourist spot, sell tea, liquor and other knick-knacks. I sat in one of them and chatted with the lady of the shop while my friends explored the hot spring. She told me they have to pay a rent of Rs 70,000 a year. They travel more than an hour from their homes in Lachung to the hot spring. Since there is no government transport, they hitch rides on tourist cabs that ply on these roads. 

Sikkim has 11 official languages and interestingly, Hindi is not one of them. But most people speak Hindi as that is the only language that connects the tourists with the locals. I couldn't have conversed with the tea-shop lady if it weren't for Hindi. 

That's me all wobbly from that glass of brandy. Damn! I wish I had been sober and had played in the snow and stayed back till i carved out my own personal snowman. 

This was not my first time in snow. In Manali, Tanvi and I had played in the snow. But it was only for a few hours. And there were so many people and a handful of snow. The snow was brown and hard. We had been there end of August, the last of the snow on the mountains. But this, here in Zero Point, half an hour from Yumthung Valley, it was real snow, snow as I had dreamed all my life. It was soft and cold and pure white, glistening in the afternoon sun. 

In Manali, we had been to Rohtang Pass and had been covered in the appropriate snow gear, top to bottom, all rented - boots, suit, gloves, all hired locally. At one point, it was so hot inside that Tan and I took off our overcoats. But in Lachung and near Zero Point, it was sub-zero temperatures, freezing cold and I was in my Jockey thermals - not at all enough to ward off the biting cold. The brandy saved my life or this poor not-used-to-snow-South Indian would have died.  

That's the sparkling, freshly melted ice. There was soft snow even on the water. The water could chill a South Indian like me, who is new to snow-capped mountains, to death.  The locals themselves, for that matter, were tightly covered in the warmest sweaters and caps.

Please note that Zero Point (ZP) is not in the tour itinerary of most operators. The package trips include the drive up to Yumthung valley only. So you have to pay the driver extra to take you to ZP. No vehicles are allowed beyond ZP. Only army jeeps go beyond this point. You can see the Indo-Chinese border from around here but only if there are no clouds. Foreign nationals are not allowed as it is a border area. Security reasons, I believe.

We were in Sikkim when this landmark celestial event happened and the moon looked magnificent from between the mountains. 

You can't help but leave Sikkim with a persistent thought ki kaash inn Wadiyon mei apna bhi ek ghar ho (I wish I had a house in the valley)