Advertisement
Published: August 7th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Yak
Some nice lady knitted those horn warmers. Sikkim is the native habitat of the yak, the welcome sign and the bureaucrat. Shaped like a little toe, it pokes it way northwards into the Eastern Himalayas bounded in the west by Nepal, Tibet in the North and Bhutan in the East. China has never been particularly happy about Sikkim being part of India- they consider it a part of Tibet and therefore it should be theirs. So India has kept the Sikkimese content with no taxes, reasonable roads, lots of cheap alcohol and nice schools with remarkably preppy uniforms.
Getting to a Sikkim is not only an act of dedication travelling the precipitous roads, that's nothing compared to getting a permit. Walking to one end of Darjeeling to fill in a piece of paper, walking to the other end to have the paper stamped, and going back to the first place to get the stamp in the passport. The official buildings were all built during "the British Raj" so they are like stepping back in time. Once in Sikkim, if you want to go anywhere interesting within the privince, you have to get another permit. And another bureaucrat gets to die happy.
When we saw our first
Yaks in Darjeeling Zoo, it became imperative we saw some in their natural habitat. Sikkim was all about Yaks for us. So we took a delightful day trip to Tsomgo Lake, 2 hours from Gantok to get some y'action.
Gantok is 1600m above sea level (a lot) and Tsomgo Lake is 3780m (a lot more - higher than Mt. Cook) so the entire trip was upwards, being driven by Nebin - like many here of Tibetan origin - in a toyota lite-ace lookalike with views downwards into gigantic valleys.
As we passed through our first checkpost and had our permits checked by AK47 wielding soldiers, we picked up a nice lady hitch-hiker who we dropped off 3 mountains later, who turned out to be the village primary school teacher. We saw some happy young faces looking out of the class window, obviously school doesn't start until she arrives. Just as well we didn't turn her down for a lift! This village was high enough that on the shady side of buildings there were giant hunks of ice.
We soon came to realise our permits were more than just decoration, as every few miles we would pass through
a military camp, with names like 3 Mile camp, 9 Mile camp and so forth - soldiers with yet more AK47s, large artillery, everything painted in trendy camoflage. The only annoying aspect was that we were travelling through truely awe-inspiring landscapes and driving through military camps photography was strictly prohibited!
Tsomgo Lake itself is, as you will see from the photos, a very special place. As it is spring here the snow is thawing on the hills surrounding the lake, so the sunny side had wild flowers and tussock and the shady side was still covered in snow.
As we arrived it seemed like we were being stampeded by some yaks. It turned out that the first Yak and driver to touch a van or jeep had first dibs on the customers inside. After some quick negotiations with a couple of yak drivers we quickly decided the price for a yak ride was not right, so we settled for sitting on a yak and having our photo taken. Who needs to ride a fluffy cow anyway! Right?... Right??
We saw an appropriately sized hill on the sunny side to climb with Nebin. Altitude sickness is a phenomenon
above 2500m above sea-level, more common above 3000m. So at about 3800m above, the air -although beautifully clean- was fairly scarce. Walking up this hill I was starting to feel light-headed. Everything was turning funny shades of pink and blue. I quite liked it actually, I was waiting for the hallucinations to kick in. Must be what what they mean by "getting high". Ha Ha.
At the top of our hill I experienced something of what mountaineers must feel like. When I saw what was on the other side - a grand sweep of the Himalayas with most peaks much higher than we were and a plunging valley below, I felt very insignificant and very happy.
After a brief play in the snow and requisite photos taken, we noticed some ominous black clouds had rolled in near the lake. Time to make a move. Once safely down at lake level we had a delicious lunch of egg chowmein and chicken momo (Tibetan dumplings). We noticed a sudden dip in temperature, our breath was starting to steam up. My hands and Sarah's blue lips suggested it was time to leave.
They say weather in the mountains is changable,
and I can now say from first-hand experience they weren't exaggerating. Fairly quickly what had been clear on the way up became thick cloud on the way down. We could see NOTHING and Nebin's habit of turning off the engine whenever we were going downhill - which was always - was starting to make us feel a little nervous.
Once back in Gantok (both alive!) we realised how lucky we were that we left when we did, as the black cloud graduated into firstly hail and then an epic electrical storm. Time to get cozy in front of the TV with a cup of chai- but for the fact that they turn off the town's power supply during electrical storms. Oh well. The weather was not a complete waste of time however, as in the morning looking outside, the rain had completely cleared away, leaving the first genuine haze-free perfect blue sky day I had seen in too long.
Since then we have been visiting buddhist monastries (Gompas) , enjoying Sikkim's local beer and generally having a laid-back time. Tomorrow we start our epic journey back to Delhi on the slowest train available (again). So it'll be more
Ropeway over Gangtok
On the gandola I was regailed by a West Bengali tourist who wanted to show off his English by interrogating me on my plans for the rest of the day, week and life. So I missed the view. At least Sarah took this photo. intonations of "Chai, chai, chai...", more saris, cows and wheat fields and more people doing their business by the railway track. Strangely enough, we'll miss it all when we're gone.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.172s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 13; qc: 65; dbt: 0.0675s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mark/Dad
non-member comment
Anticlimax
I'm enjoying the photos, I'm enjoying your suttle humour and I am enjoying sitting back here in comfort vaicariously experiencing your adventures. Lotsaluv YELF