Darjeeling & Sikkim

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Many years ago I followed the 'tourist triangle' around India. I did not make it to Darjeeling and I have long intended to make a return visit to rectify this omission. Sikkim is the small state next door so I decided to go there for convenience, not realizing that it would turn out to be a wonderful destination.



The name Darjeeling is used to cover the whole of the mountainous area of Bengal, not just the eponymous town. The area is largely populated by ethic Nepalis and Tibetans and the term "Ghorkaland' is widely used to express the spirit of independence from the rest of India, and solidarity with the natural brotherhood of Nepalis whose border is just a stones throw away.



Entry to this area is pretty much universally through the lowland city of Siliguri.



We were crammed into the sideways facing seats in the back of the jeep to Mirik. The winding roads, top surface largely degraded and replete with multiple switchbacks are best tackled in rough terrain vehicles.



Mostly Indian made, these jeeps form the backbone of public transport in the area, supplemented by the occasional decrepit bus. We decided they were ok as long as you were facing forwards. The tightness of sitting four abreast across the seat provided some stability as you traverse the inevitable bumps and swings of the journey.



Climbing up to Mirik we peered out of the back as the plains receded into the distance and we climbed up and up into the hills. Then up and up some more. I was really surprised how high we were going. The jeep was climbing solidly for a couple of hours and the glimpsed views of forested hills were getting more and more spectacular (and this was just the beginning).



Perched on top of a 1800mhill, Mirik has an improbable lake, a monastery and a helipad overlooking the whole shebang.



During the day the lakeside is busy with Indian tourists walking the 3.5 km circumference, taking pedalos and ponies. Steep and narrow roads unwind up the hillside with the town and you can pass in and out of Nepali territory without even realizing it.



Come the evening all the day trippers return to base and the hotel and restaurants cater to us alone.



When you ask someone the distance to the next town, they always answer in hours, not miles or kilometres. The measured distance from Mirik to Darjeeling is only 30 odd kilometres, but the journey takes the best part of 3 hours due to the combination of winding mountain roads and their terrible condition.



Darjeeling could not have given a worse first impression. We were ejected onto Hill Cart Road into a diesel gushing melee of impatient jeeps. Behind us was the drop down the hill, in front of us was the rising hill fronted by crap buildings. The road was too narrow to share with the traffic. There was no obvious way to go.



I stood perplexed on a little knoll for a couple of minutes, wondering what to do next. Help arrived in the shape of a local lad who offered to show us the way. We followed him to the bottom of a very lengthy flight of concrete steps. More help required. We quickly negotiated the services of a porter who slung a rope around our bags, lifted them on this back and took the weight on his forehead. (This is the way they all carry things around here. They must have the world's strongest necks).



You have to get used to thinking in 3D to negotiate these hillside towns. Streets which appear next to each other on the maps are actually separated by metres in terms of height. There are lots of staircases.



Darjeeling is actually a big town of 160,000 souls, presumably including the innumerable folk scattered throughout the surrounding hills. The core of the town is dedicated to tourism. The town square is a stones throw away from a series of viewpoints looking across to the Khangchendzonga massif.



Khangchendzonga is the world's third highest mountain, set amidst an array of other Himalayan peaks. It can be viewed from different angles from all the towns in this piece. I shall just refer to 'mountains' from now on to save me the hassle of having to keep typing ' Khangchendzonga'.



For several days I ventured to these viewpoints around dawn, when the views are supposed to be clearest, but was thwarted by clouds amassed around the peaks. Luckily there were some days when the clouds cleared around mid-morning and we got some good views with no effort required.



Darjeeling was founded after a couple of British officers decided that it would be the perfect place for a sanatorium and the land was leased by the East India Company from the King of Sikkim in the early 1800's. The Brits turned it into a hill station but it was inherited by the mainly Nepali population who were imported to do all the work.



There is plenty to do for the modern visitor and we easily passed an interesting week wandering around the zoo, the botanical gardens, the Shrubbery (a hill top park). We had to adjust to the altitude at first (1800 m) and felt a bit lightheaded on the first afternoon but soon settled down.



The Ropeway, a cable car down to a tea plantation area on a lower slope, was good fun. We wandered unsupervised around a tea processing plant, trying to work out the sequence of processes. The staff wage rates were posted: a pound a day for the labour or 50p a day sickpay and maternity.



The Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre told the sad story of the Chinese annexation of Tibet and the concurrent death and exile of tens of thousands of native Tibetans. Those in the centre support themselves by selling loom woven carpets and other more mundane handicrafts for sale in the site shop.



We were staying in a very friendly homestay and one morning our host, Wangchuck, escorted us on a scenic walk to the next town of Ghum along one side of the ridge and back along the other.



Part of the reason we enjoyed Darjeeling so much was because of the warm hospitality of Wangchuck and his wife, Doika (Cozy Nest homestay – available online). We joined them for dinner a couple of times and they were always plying us with cups of tea and provided a welcome hot water bottle every night.



On the morning of our departure I asked Wangchuck to get a porter to carry our bags down all those steps to the jeep departure area. He went out and returned with a little old lady who gamely strapped our luggage on her back and sang her way down the hills. I followed behind cringing inwardly. This felt so wrong – but still, she has to make a living. I gave her a good tip.





We headed to Namchi, our first stop in Sikkim. We were now into the week of Desain/Dashara, a national festival and major vacation time for Indians. The first three hotels I tried were full so I was relieved to find a room at the fourth. Namchi town is unremarkable but the locals have built a couple of shrines on nearby hilltops which are quite interesting.



The newest and biggest, Solophuck, has a 33 metre statue of Lord Shiva overlooking representations of famous Hindu temples from around the country.



Samdruptsee is a 45 metre high Buddhist statue overlooking the town. Although only finished in 2004 it is in need of a good paint job and requires scaffolding to keep it in place. More interesting is the walk back into town through a derelict hillside flower garden and an abandoned cable car project.



Arriving in Rabangla I went around quite a few hotels, all of which were full, only for the first one I tried to decide that they did have a room after all, if we would wait for the current occupants to leave (we would).



Rabangla was higher again, at 2100m, and the cold was beginning to bite.



There is a large golden Buddha statue in the monastery grounds, which was backdropped perfectly by the mountains on my early morning forays. The monastery itself was closed as all the monks had gone home for the holidays.



The town of Pelling is famous for having the best views of the mountains. That is the sole reason for its existence as it consists entirely of hotels down the slope facing the mountain range.



Again, the first hotels I tried were full. I tried a new looking one and negotiated a huge discount on their available suite. A few days of luxurious accommodation at a slightly above budget price is acceptable once in a while, so we settled in. Our room was on the top floor of the hotel on the top of the ridge so we had one of the best views. Other hotel guests gathered outside of our door at dawn to watch the changing effects of the rising sun on the mountain faces.



There were a couple of monasteries in the adjacent hills that were worth the walk and the ruins of one of Sikkims 'ancient' capitals (1740's) overlooks the expanse of lush forests spread throughout the surrounding valleys.



Yuksom was our favourite place in West Sikkim. It is more of a settlement than a town. A few hotels and touristic facilities are dotted along the single road. Local homes cluster amongst the greenery. There are several easy to follow trails rising up through the forests to monasteries and nearby villages. Sometimes you have to stand aside to let a train of yaks or ponies pass on the trail, laden with provisions or trekkers gear.



This was the first capital of Sikkim, as three Tibetan Lamas met here and crowned the first king in 1641. A stone throne and a few temples were erected on the spot, but it remains very low key today. One rock has a distinct impression of a human foot, said to have been left by the step of the most holy Lama.



All the foreigners tended to gather in the best of the cheap restaurants, so it was quite sociable. The small-time laid back atmosphere encouraged us to hang around for a few days.



Gangtok is the capital of Sikkim, a decent sized town with a pedestrianised main street. We took a porter to the New Modern Guesthouse, mainly to help us get our bearings. The guest house was probably once new and modern but now it is a backpacker dive.



'This place is for dossers' said the manageress and suggested that we stay at the hotel next door, which we did.



However, the dossers have certain demands and this was the first place we had come across with wifi, so I spent a fair bit of time in their café.



Gangtok was pleasant enough, again sat on a ridge with views towards the mountains and surrounding countryside, but cannot compare to the scenery of the smaller places we have passed through.



Foreigners are not allowed to travel into North Sikkim independently as it is close to the sensitive borders with China and Tibet. We took advantage of the cheap tour offered by the New Modern Guesthouse and ventured towards the Yumthang Valley.



This tour raised the bar again in terms of majestic scenery as we got closer and closer to the mountains.



Landslides deface the surrounding hills, often taking out the roads in the process. Keeping the roads open is a tough job undertaken by a specialist military agency, due to the proximity of the Chinese.



There were lots of examples where people's houses had been swept away. A couple of earthquakes in the last few years have led to significant loss of life. Towns can be cut off for months at a time.



Bouncing across a partly cleared rockfall with a sheer drop to one side can certainly get the pulse racing.



The road through the valley peters out at the high point, somewhere north of 4000 metres, where we were treated to a close up view of the mountain vista against an unsullied blue sky .



We spent a couple of nights in Lachung above 2600m and frigidly cold. After a jolly first night powered by millet beer, Linda developed an altitude related thumping headache. My foresight in packing some longjohns paid off handsomely as we were all wearing all our clothes at once.



The only dodgy moment of the tour arose when the guide wanted all 6 tourists to share a dorm room on the last night. After a mini rebellion he was forced to come up with some above budget quality accommodation to everyone's relief.



We crossed back from Sikkim into Darjeeling and went to the small hilltop town of Lava. This was the most important days of the Divali festival. Apart from the local youths throwing their bangers it was disappointingly dull and, worse, the coldest place so far by some degree (possibly related). I wore a beanie hat to bed as well as the longjohns.



The last stop of Kalimpong remained closed as Divali petered out. After much wandering we came across a coffee shop operated by a Korean couple and, finally, a Chinese restaurant doing a great honey chicken.



As this was our last stop before heading down to the warmer plains, I was mildly concerned that I was not going to find someone poor enough to give my big coat to. In the event, the man who helped me put the luggage on the 6am bus was barefoot with a bleeding eye. He looked perplexed but accepted my donation to his wardrobe.





As the dawn bus trundled out of town the full mountain range was crystal clear in the distance. A fitting end to our highland adventure.

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Photos

Darjeeling
Tea Plantation

Namchi
Solophuc

Namchi
Solophuc

Namchi
Solophuc

Pelling
Balcony View

Yoksam
Balcony View

Yoksam
Nice place for Breakfast