Three is the Magic Number - Kangchendzonga

---

Finally we were about to set off on foot into the mountains, our first proper foray into the Himalayas. We were already in a wonderful place both physically and mentally; the steep beautiful green valleys, the peaceful monasteries and smiling people made us feel a world away from our angst on the plains of Northern India. The exhilarating down hills and the breathtaking views across impossibly steep slopes had made us happy and relaxed and we were enjoying the wonderful free attitude that had been with us earlier in our trip and which we had lost in the plains of India. All this happiness was about to get even better as we entered the Kachenjunga National Park.

We were doing the Dzongri - Goecha La trek. This is the main trek promoted by the tourism department of Sikkim. In Gangtok we had tried to find out a proper break down of the prices for the National Park permits and the regulations governing number of days etc. but in the end had just had to pay a guide a lump sum that would cover everything. We were soon to realise that we were not really paying for anything. The procedure at the park entrance was very secretive and we never saw the paperwork that our guide had to get before we set off in to the park. We hoped at least that a good amount of our fee would go to the National Park and that it would be put to good use and we were encouraged by the signs prominently displayed at the entrance and at every lodge inside the park urging people not to light fires, drop litter, pollute watercourses etc.

Mountains for us are places of isolation, soul searching, simplicity and close friendships developed through sharing hardship and achievements. Our trek in Sikkim showed us a different side of the mountains. I had read about the trekking businesses and knew the Himalayas are exploited by companies which, although providing the local people with income, often don’t pay these people well or provide them with adequate equipment, and certainly don’t put environmental concerns very high on their agenda. This was the first time that we have had to pay for accessing a mountain and it rankled a little. Stop winging I may hear some of you saying, it's a National Park. Fair play, we stumped up the cash for the National Park, but again I am reminded that this is India and I wonder how much environmental protection my money will provide...

We set off shouldering our 15 and 20 kg packs respectively. We had enough food for the 6 day hike but were slightly nervous that we might be hungry having never eaten tsampa before and were not sure how filling it would be. Tsampa; ‘Tibetan porridge’, is cooked corn or barley that is then ground into flour. Budha our guide had assured us that all we needed to do was add boiled water, milk and sugar and this tsampa would turn into high energy mountain food. So trusting the local we packed kilos of the stuff and set off. Our first lunch stop was on a steep sided jungle clad valley of the Prek Chu River. The same river that three days later we were to follow up to its source on the glaciers around Kachenjunga. We boiled up the tsampa, to produce sloppy cement. Although the food was not appetising it was energy filled and powered us to begin the steeper part of the day’s walk. Our well maintained path had wound up and down through hot, sticky jungle all morning, crossing tributaries of the Prek Chu where the valley sides climbed up seemingly unending into the huge trees above us. It was with relish that we truly realised that we had left the world of motorable roads far behind. We were now in an area where every supply is brought in on your back or with a pack animal and all the routes around are walking routes.

We had been warned that the first day would be tough. The last climb up to the 10 house village of Tshoka (3000m) was steep, but it was not too bad. Robin and I love steeper slopes sometimes, it is exhilarating to climb fast and to quickly get different views. We realised as we sped past other groups of tourists, who despite carrying no weight were all out of breath and sweating profusely, that we were extremely fit; all that hard cycling in Sikkim had paid off! However our fast pace was soon slowed down by really enjoyable stops to spots loads of new birds, to gaze at the lush rainforest, with huge trees and massive rivers far below us in the steep valleys. At Tshoka we had reached the upper edge of this rainforest and the next day we would pass through pines, junipers and rhododendrons. In fact lots of massive rhododendrons were in bloom around the village. In the UK the ‘rhodi’ is an alien invasive species that crowds out our native plants and toxifies the soil for our plants. Although it is beautiful in the UK too, I have always been upset to see it proliferate there, where I know it does so much harm to the ecosystem. Here it was great to see this beautiful plant were it belongs and feel no guilt at enjoying it.

During the day we had been passed by many animal trains carrying vast amounts of equipment for other groups; we tried to figure out how many staff members and animals other paying clients had. We thought that each client probably had at least one staff member and one and a half animals, and that was a conservative estimate. Light weight equipment was unheard of and these trekking agencies just send up more and more people and animals to carry 4kg paraffin stoves, with 40 litres of paraffin (kerosene), huge heavy kitchen pots including luxuries like cheese graters and vast amounts of cooking oil so that the clients can enjoy deep fried food at high altitude. I suppose that the clients are actually paying a lot for their trip, but the ironic thing is that even taking all this heavy and luxurious food does not actually cost very much. The porters are only paid 150 rupees a day (about $3) the guides maybe get $7 a day. The people making all the money are the agents in the cities. I am really not sure about how much actually goes to the National Park, but suspect it is very little.

On our first night in the lodge at Tshoka we were to experience the brunt of the unfair profiteering by the Gangtok agents. As we lay in our room in the lodge trying to get to sleep there was some shouting and a group of drunk staff (guides/cooks/porters) kicked open the door and burst in, shouting at Budha our guide. I was frightened and jumped up inside my sleeping bag to pogo around the room trying to find a candle. These shouting guys were pushing and shoving Budha demanding an apology from him for allegedly insulting somebody's mother. How childish I thought as I was shouting at them to get out and stop fighting and waking everyone up. Eventually after we got a light on they calmed down a bit and left. The next day we found out that Budha used to work for the same company as these guys and that he had left to work freelance. He now made more money even though he charged his clients less than the trekking agencies and this had caused a lot of people to get very jealous. They argued with Budha saying that he should not charge the clients cheaper rates as it was bad for their business. They were angry with Budha not with their own company. There was no logic to any of it and we pointed out that we would not have gone trekking at all unless we could carry all our own stuff, since we believed in being as self-sufficient as possible in the mountains. Also by taking less people there is less impact on the mountains; however this point is entirely lost on the trekking business here.

Apparently I might also have unwittingly made the situation worse. The evening before I was asked if I had found the walk hard by one of the other guides, by saying I did not find it hard I had apparently challenged this guy’s strength and capabilities on the mountain. The guides and porters are all young guys working in an extremely macho environment. They are not used to seeing fit clients. Most of the people they guide are comparatively unfit (compared to a Gorkha porter) and some have absolutely no mountain experience at all. It is a really weird situation; I think that the staff are happy to think of their clients as fat and privileged and themselves as hardworking, deserving and macho. There is no effort at all at teamwork on the trek. In fact a strict distance is kept between the clients and the staff. Many clients however really enjoy this; they are entirely spoilt and waited on. But for us and some other people we spoke to the wilderness experience that we had hoped to find in the mountains was missing.

The first morning at Tshoka Robin was really happy to see huge 6000m snowy mountains at first light, however 10 minutes later when he had the camera they had already disappeared in cloud. We were in cloud as we stomped up through the pines and rhodi’s trying hard to at least see the many tiny birds that quickly moved through the trees since we could not see the peaks and valleys around us. As we climbed higher the pine and cedar trees thinned out in the eerie mist, and we left the forest behind entering the next bio-zone of dwarf shrubs dominated by rhododendron and azaleas.

We got to the next hut at Dzongri (around 4000m) in time for lunch. We had been surprised when at 10.30 we passed most of the other groups whose cooking staff were busy preparing their lunch already, only 2 hours after they had finished breakfast. This only confirmed to us that this second day was really only a half day walk, and that the trekking companies design their itineraries either for extremely unfit people or else simply to drag out the duration of the trek for a couple of extra days to make more money. We were happy that we only had one guide and were more in control of our pace and itinerary. We certainly did not need an acclimatisation day here since we did not feel any bad effects from altitude and we rested all afternoon anyway, going for short walks on the open moorland above the shrub-line. The hills here looked quite like home, covered in small brown shrubs that from a distance looked like heather, but in fact they are all some kind of alpine azalea.

The next morning we got our first view of Kachenjunga from the small hill above the Dzongri hut. It was great to be up at 5am in the cold air, next to prayer flags rattling on the wind and looking across such beautiful peaks and we were glad that we had made the effort. We had overheard the guides from the other group in the hut telling their clients to go back to bed as it was cloudy. There was no way to know from the hut if there was a view or not and we felt sorry for the other group who had paid a lot of money for these guides, who obviously preferred to be in bed rather than try to have their clients see mountains that they themselves had seen hundreds of times before. In fact Budha had tried to tell us there was no point getting up too, but luckily we were not dissuaded. However by 6am the clouds came down again and it did not clear until quite late that night.

Our walk from Dzongri was through thick cloud, mist and drizzle along a muddy path churned up by the hooves of all the yaks and ponies carrying other groups’ equipment and food. At times we could easily have been walking back in Scotland, Wales or Cumbria, only the thinner air and different vegetation broke the illusion. From the ridge we descend steeply back into the Prek Chu valley, passing a porter trying to encourage a stubborn yak to move after it had eaten too much Rhododendron leaves and become ‘drunk’. It did indeed look fairly wasted and quite unwilling to move anywhere. Towards the river we re-entered patchy pine forest before crossing the river and following it up to an area of exposed river flats above the tree-line called Thangsing.

The hut here was badly damaged, with the roof caved in from heavy snows, but the end room was reasonably water tight and after an hour of DIY Robin had patched up the broken windows with damaged timbers from the roof and draft-proofed the place using bits of rubbish left by previous trekkers. It was a lot more basic than the other huts but reminded us of various bothies back home. The half dozen other groups were all camping here, their porters and ponies having run ahead of them to pitch their mess tent and cook their lunch before they arrived, then pitching their sleeping and toilet tents while they ate their lunch. We watched all this with amusement and some horror as the area was disgustingly dirty, toilet tents were pitched close to streams and clearly the pits under them were not being dug very deeply at all. The surrounding area was badly overgrazed by pack animals being turned loose to feed on the fragile alpine vegetation.

We spent the afternoon trying to keep warm and watching the thick cloud and rain for any break in the weather. Finally late in the day, with the light fading fast, it cleared with the crisp cold wind that came blasting down from the Goecha Glacier, giving us an eerie moonlit view of soaring snow, rock and ice high above us. This night-time view sufficiently excited us for the walk the next day. We found ourselves wanting to be outside looking at the mountains but the temperature soon had us running for shelter and to get an early night.

At 2.30am our alarm rang and I sleepily got candles lit and the stove out to make porridge and coffee. We forced down the porridge and tidied up our stuff in the hut before setting off in the dark with our headlamps on to rush up the valley under moonlight towards Goecha La Pass. We had heard from other climbers who had been staying in the valley for three weeks that most of the guided groups do not take their clients up to the actual pass and that a full round trip would be a 10 hour walk. Knowing that the mountains were usually clear only in the early morning we set off very early, while it was still dark. It was so exciting to be following our guide along the path up the wide, empty U-shaped valley seeing the wonderful dawn light on the towering ice giants beside us. It was a gradual and easy walk up the valley to reach the sacred waters of Samiti Lake, nestled amid the terminal moraine of the huge glaciers above. There was another hut here but nobody is allowed to stay at the lake anymore as too much rubbish was being left, desecrating this place that is sacred to the Buddhists of Sikkim. From the turquoise waters the path climbed steeply up towards the glacier and at around 4300m we began to feel the effects of the altitude for the first time. The rising sun, though still invisible to us, was starting to hit the summits of the snow peaks above and ahead of us, causing them to glow pink in the early, crisp, clear light. With every few steps more of the amazing vista was revealed and we tried to push upwards towards the viewpoint as fast as we could, but the thin air prevented us climbing as quickly as our hearts would have liked, and behind we could see clouds rising out of the valley below. We pushed on, breathless, hoping to get a view before the clouds reached us.

We were not disappointed and at about 4500m we reached the first viewpoint, atop a rise on the moraine covered with fluttering prayer flags, with the most amazing vista up the Goecha glacier to an amphitheatre of snow peaks dominated by Goecha Peak and the snow and ice-covered Kabru dome, shining so brightly it hurt our eyes to look at it. Behind Kabru the summit of Kachenjunga lay massive with a thick plume of snow rushing eastwards off its summit, a telltale sign of the powerful jet stream winds battering it. Then just as we had arrived at the viewpoint the clouds rolled in and obscured everything. With a falling heart I realised I did not have a good photo of Kachenjunga itself and I felt really guilty because I had been at the back with the camera instead of Robin having it. Other groups now all turned round to go back down. We definitely were not about to do that, since it was only 6am, we prayed to the mountain gods for clearing weather and walked on. Fantastically the clouds soon lifted again rewarding us with even more amazing views of mountains and glaciers. We even saw several Tibetan Snowcock, an enormous grouse-like bird that lives on the scree beside the glaciers. Crossing an area off frozen high-altitude desert in a valley between the lateral moraines of 2 glaciers Robin, so exhilarated by the views and the atmosphere, tried to run. Although we had been feeling no ill effects from the altitude, running was not successful and he only got about 50m before having to bend double wheezing for breath, and concluding he will need more training before the Everest marathon!

We took a steady pace up the valley because of the thin air. The ground was still frozen and snow lay in patches around us. All the time our eyes were drawn upwards to the beautiful peaks glittering above. Many mountains in Sikkim are considered holy and I could understand this feeling of awe and the belief that the peaks themselves are gods and goddesses. The dark rock, pure white snow and ice, the blue sky behind, the wonderful quietness and the only trace of humans being the small path we followed brought huge smiles to our faces and our hearts were soaring. Climbing the thin ridge of a moraine up towards the pass we were following fresh paw prints, and in places found fresh urine marks along our path, and realised that a dog had that morning been marking its territory. We fancied it to be a wolf, but couldn’t be sure. Others had told us that they had seen snow leopard prints and we kept a look out for the blue sheep which would make good leopard food, but did not spot any. We saw instead a funky fast little grey guinea pig type creature darting between the boulders at high speed, probably a Pika.

Unfortunately as we reached the second group of prayer flags at around 4950m, about 50m in height below the actual pass, the clouds returned and we could see that there would be no view from the pass. Here Budha announced that we were on our own and he would wait for us. We tried to go on to the pass but the frozen snow conditions in the last steep snow gully were not ideal and without an ice axe to cut steps or arrest a fall we decided to turn back. We had really enjoyed our walk up there and got really close to the huge icefall on Goecha Peak and had views of Goecha Lake, a frozen patch of water on top of the glacier immediately below the ice-fall. We felt lucky to have had the great views we got, and slowly re-traced our steps back down the glacier to Samiti Lake. Now mid-morning the alpine meadows had come to life and we saw more pika, chough flew overhead and tame, bright red rosefinches fluttered beside the path.

Later down in the hut we talked to other clients about the tours and agreed that most never intended to take their clients to Goecha La Pass like they advertise. We all chatted about the improvements that could be made in the National Park. For example we saw no National Park staff inside the park at all and there is certainly no enforcement of the rules inside the park. The porters and trekking companies do not carry out all that they carry in, leaving rubbish in the Park. Other bad practices were tethered animals defecating very close to water courses. One lodge actually used the stream itself to flush out its toilets directly! Also every night the porters and other staff, who do not have proper clothing, use fires to keep warm. No firewood is supposed to be taken from the park, but every hut had staff fires and no wood is brought up on the animal caravans, so it must be being taken from the park. Also we saw shrubs being cut back to give fodder to the animals. Certainly not enough fodder is brought up for the pack animals. Although the Dzohs (yak/cow cross breeds) are fed fodder, the ponies are left to graze at will. Thus around the huts large areas of fragile vegetation and ground are churned up by animal grazing. Also each tour group felt it necessary to dig their own toilet tent, rather than sharing one in one area and so minimising the impact of the people on the environment. But we all agreed that it was still a fantastic place and that we were very lucky to be there.

Instead of following all the other tour groups back to Yuksom Budha had suggested an alternative loop that would bring us out at a village above Tashiding, where we would be able to get a jeep to Yuksom. After our long walk to the pass Budha was keen for us to walk for 2 hours to another hut to make the next day's walk shorter. This alternative loop walk would be tougher than the pony paths we had been following. After discussing the climbs and distances involved with Budha I vetoed the walk that day. I was tired and my feet hurt a bit from walking over the frozen ground that morning. Instead we rested and watched as snowstorms descended on the valley.

The next day as we climbed gently out of the Goecha valley through stunted shrubs we were so happy with the decision. The day before the afternoon cloud had been low and we would not have seen anything whereas this morning was clear and we saw loads of cool birds, including Blood Pheasant, the state bird of Sikkim, and Himalayan Monal, a very colourful purplish pheasant. We reached the hut which Budha had proposed to use the night before to find that the nearby stream was dry. We were again happy about our decision, but were now a bit unsure of Budha's guidance, since he obviously had not been on this path that year. Budha seemed rushed and constantly tried to get us to go faster. We were also upset that he now wanted to have back a water bottle we had been carrying. I had especially asked him about how many water bottles we would need to carry and he had assured me we only needed one litre each. It was against my better judgement that I had believed him and now I was annoyed that we were on a 10 hour walk with not enough water. We had noticed that the local guides do not seem to drink much at all. However there was not much we could do about this, so we tried to put aside our reservations about our guide and enjoy the wonderful path.

It really was a great route, climbing above the tree and scrub lines back into alpine meadows to emerge at Lam Pokhari, another sacred lake below huge ice peaks. We had to fill up with water here, and Budha told us it was holy water, suitable for use in the Monasteries as offerings to Lord Buddha. From here the path slowly ascended up to an exposed high ridge, climbing in steep gullies sometimes. We reached the high point for lunch but with thick cloud there were sadly no views. Had it been clear we would have been able to see the Narsingh massif, west into Nepal and east into Bhutan. We should have got out the stove and melted snow and cooked lunch of tsampa, but Budha's concern for the time meant we just snacked. The path down clung to the crest of a ridge. Cloud hung below us on both sides and we knew if it were not for this cloud the views would have been amazing. Still there were amazing seas of rhododendrons around us on all sides and we longed to sit and rest to take it all in. But we were constantly marched on by Budha who by now had practically nothing in his pack whereas we had full packs and Robin was carrying a tent. We eventually arrived at the hut at 4.30pm and were quite pissed off with Budha, since he obviously had not known how far it was and had caused us to slog it out when there was no need to rush so much.

We shared that night with the Australian climbers we had met at Thangsing. They had been up recce-ing for another ice-climbing route and had enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the amazing path, unlike us. Still at least there was some water at this hut even though it was a tiny stagnant rainwater pool, which needed to be boiled or treated before we could drink it. That evening though we realised that Budha had cooked on a fire against Park regulations, even though we had a stove and had asked if he needed to use it. The distinction between staff and client had meant that even though there were only 5 people there that night he had separated himself and burnt the natural resources illegally, rather than use our stove. This annoyed us especially since at the start he had said he would carry a stove, he had instead been relying on the staff from other groups for his meals. Trekkers are always advised to make sure their guides and porters do not leave litter, light fires etc. but in reality it seems impossible for foreign clients to influence the guides, as in their minds they are the ones who know the mountains and we are ignorant, inexperienced foreigners.

The next day the Australian couple set off early but we relaxed, wanting to enjoy our last morning in the forest. Budha had told us it was only 9 km down and would take about 4 hours, so we were in no hurry. This path however was the hardest thing we had attempted. It took over 6 hours and was down really steep and extremely slippery near vertical slopes. So many times we had to climb over huge rainforest trees that had fallen over the path, or push our way through dense clumps of bamboo collapsed across our route. It was obvious that nobody had walked it yet this year, and a machete would have been invaluable. As we got lower down the ground was a sea of leeches and we were soon covered by their wiggling bodies. We could not stop to flick them off because that just gave more time for the others to find us. It started to rain really heavily making this jungle bash even harder work and to top it all Budha just disappeared far ahead of us.

We finally arrived at the village after finding our own way out of the jungle to be told there were no jeeps! We were mad. We had explained to Budha that our Sikkim permit was running out and we needed to get to Yuksom that night. We had even suggested taking another route down to ensure this, but he had assured us we had enough time. So we stomped off alone on the long jeep track to Tahsiding. We caught up with the Australian couple on this walk so had conversation to distract us from the pain in our feet. We had not rested at all that day and had not even had any lunch, as we had been relying on Budha’s timings. The 6 days of hiking with full packs had caught up on us. We were extremely weary when we recognised the distinctive promontory hill of Tashiding Monastary below us and were able to take the short cut route to the village arriving just as it got dark.

That night we gingerly pulled off our socks and pulled off the leeches. Robin had already had to remove one from near his armpit. I had tried to get the leech to come off by putting a lighter near it but this had just singed Robin’s armpit hair and the leech hardly flinched! So Robin dug out some salt from his bag and that soon got the bloodsucker to drop off. The leeches were quite unpleasant, but we both had a curious respect for these hardcore creatures. They are actually very difficult to squish; they just change shape. They are at least very clean; they do not carry diseases like mosquitoes and ticks. And the way they move is very cool; flipping end over end. However every time I first see them I am squeamish and that night my dreams were full of wiggling leeches!

The next day we learned that there were no early morning jeeps to Yuksom so realised that we would overstay our Sikkim permit and that our mammoth stomp down to Tashiding the previous day had been pointless. We could have stayed in the upper village. We resolved to try not to be annoyed since we had enjoyed a really good 6 days and it was only the last 2 without proper lunches that had really exhausted us. We ate a massive breakfast and hitched in a truck to Yuksom to be reunited with our bikes and other gear and to start the massive pile of filthy washing.

It was the last day of our Sikkim Permit and we cycled to Pelling hoping to get to the office in time to make the extension. We were tired from the trek and took the cycle very slowly. We had stiff muscles but I think that the cycling was probably good for them and we only had to go about 35 km, however there was no tarmac on the road and Robin got a puncture going over the bumpy rocky surface. At least the tarmac returned for the uphill to Pelling. We still arrived too late to make the permit extension though. Pelling is another hill station resort full of Bengali run hotels. We checked into Ladakh Guest House which was a simple, local Sikkimese family run hotel. I had looked at a number of other hotels in this very touristy village but preferred the vibe at Ladakh. It had outdoor bathrooms and loos, but we were properly looked after by the family. Also that night in the moonlight we finally saw a complete panorama of the Kachenjunga range and figured out where we had been only days before. The next morning too I woke at dawn to open the curtains and gaze at the giant mountains across the valley.

We enjoyed two more days at Pelling. The permit was sorted out easily even though we were a day late and we had time to visit the two important monasteries there and relished the views from the ruins of the old royal palace. I particularly liked the coronation Chortens with their back drop of Kachenjunga and could imagine that this wonderful scene helped confer the splendour and magnificence on the new king. Robin collected some dry sprigs of juniper and burnt them under the Chorten as an offering of thanks to the mountain gods above.

One night in a blackout, whilst we ate our dinner by candlelight during a huge thunder and rain storm we looked around at our fellow diners and couldn't help but giggle. The dining room was full of large groups of Bengali's all huddled round candles wearing almost every bit of clothing they owned. Their heads were wrapped in scarves and they really looked miserable, but the happy hotel owner assured us that the Bengali's were loving the climate as anything was better than Kolkota's natural hot steam bath!

The time had finally come for us to descend from the mountains again. Our Indian visa was about to run out and with reluctance we started the massive, seriously steep descent to the hot Rangit river valley far below, which we would then follow back to the Teesta. A long day’s cycle later saw us arrive back in the sweaty mosquito infested plains at Siliguri, ready to cycle the next day to the India Nepal Border. Our time in India was finally over, but we were really happy to leave it on a high. We had met friendly people and seen wonderful environments. Finally we were fit, healthy and happy again and ready to change country and cycle on into a new nation with exciting roads ahead.

---

Photos

Kachenjunga / Kangchendzonga
The world's third highest mountain.

Tsampa
Erika dubiosly tastes our first meal of tsampa on the trek. Its not actually that bad, though all the locals laugh at the stuff we make.

Tshoka, 3000m.
With early morning cloud. This vilage of 10 houses is home to Tibetan reugees. It is a 4-5 hour walk to the nearest jeep track.

Dzoh
Crossbreed of a yak and a cow.

Porters taking a break
Note how well kitted out they are, this nearly 4,000m and its not that warm.

High Altitude Cricket
Porters and staff from another group play cricket at over 4000m, Dzongri.

Mountain Gods
Our first view at dawn of the high peaks - Kachenjunga is on the right at the back, the highest looking one is Kabru.

Singalila Range, Nepal
From Dzongri at dawn.

The Frozen Valley
Between the glacial moraines at maybe 4,700m, no place for sprinting.

Door to the Mountains
Goecha La (pass), framing the east face of Kachenjunga.

Icefall
Each 'step' is actually the size of a 3-4 storey building. The whole time we were close to it we could here it creaking and cracking loudly as the day warmed up.

Our Expedition
In its entirety. No porters, no cooks, no yaks, no ponies.

Rabdantse Ruins, Pelling
The Royal Palace complex and second capital of Sikkim.

Young Monks
Taking a break from practicing kung-fu on each other....

Comments

[Elisa]

Incredibile!
Hello from Turin !!! I still follow you... and wouldn't mind to join you for a while! lots of love from Elisa, Lorenzo and Giuliano.

[ben]

Dzongri
Great pictures. Just a note on the guides: I used a local agency for the trek, a local sherpa (born in nepal, grew up in sikkim) that owns a small hostel in Yuksom. He keeps everything local and while it is still the same price as the big cities I know my money stays in Yuksom. Although the guides are not paid much, remember that the average wage in India is around 40 rupees a day and a tea picker on a TATA plantation earns about 80 ruppees for picking 14 kilos of tea. With that in mind its not such a terrible job, although many young kids drop out of school to become porters.

[Mimi]

Many thanks!
Robin and Erika, Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to write more of your eloquent journals! I am always so pleased when I receive the email that tells me there are more of your adventures to read. I must agree with you on the subject of how annoying India is especially in the touristy areas. I am very happy to hear of your most recent experiences in Sikkim. You certainly "earned" your good times there. I await your next entries about Nepal. Cheers.

[Arnab]

sorry about the incidents at Bengal
I applogise the way Bengal has treated you but yes the roads and journey to North East is very picturesque!! I only journey on Bike till Southern Tip of India...U are on bike from such a long distance! hats off two you guys!!

[Sand Das]

Thanks for Sharing the Beauty
Hello Erika and Robin, Thanks for sharing these pics. of the heaven, as I call this place. I am a Sikkim lover and helping international tourists to explore this region since 1998. I hope you will come again and enjoy the abode of nature by staying here with the tribes in tribal villages, which I arrange, always. you can visit related website, if you like: http://www.uev.webnode.com Feel free to contact me, whenever you want. Regards, Sand Das. www.GoSandPro.com Skype Me: Ritzdigiworld.In [phone]

[anonymous]

How much the fool that hath been allowed to roam Doth exceed the fool that hath been kept at home