A week in Sikkim

Hiren Kumar Bose
Teg Bahadur was always there for us—our family of four and our three friends—with his easy smile, self-effacing demeanor and his willingness to do our bidding. Months after we had left Sinolchu Lodge, situated at the topmost place in Gangtok, my school-going daughters would regale at family dinners their stories about him: his manner of speaking Hindi, his beliefs in myths associated with Mount Khang-Chen-Dzon Ga or Kanchendonga and his tales about his family, left in Nepal. It was in the first year of the new millennium that we spent a week in Sikkim but Tek, a Nepalese Gurung, continues to remain with us in our memories though we have lost touch with him. Yes, we do recommend friends wanting to visit Sikkim to stay at Sinolchu and say "namaste" to Teg on our behalf.
Travel, I feel having journeyed to scores of places, mostly in India than abroad, is not just about bringing back and nourishing memories of places one has visited but also about individuals one comes across during these peregrinations. These memories are very private and individual which cannot be swapped with friends and acquaintances, like the digital images on Flicr or Picasa accounts.
After a scalding hot train trip, cooled by frequent swig into not-so-cool water bottles to Howrah station in a non-AC coach we found ourselves at New Jalpaiguri Station. From here we engaged a Tata Sumo roomy enough for seven people. After a four-hour long ride encountering hair-pin turns, the gushing Teesta river and the steep valley below, we were ushered into Gangtok on an April weekend—on the eve of blooming rhododendrons and orchids.
"Can you see the TV tower?" asked the genial driver pointing his finger in the north. "That's where Sinolchu Lodge is and is the best place to watch the Khang-Chen-Dzon Ga from your windows."
The first day was spent familiarizing with the surroundings, visiting a monastery and a school close by, doing window shopping and having the fifth ice cream of the day. By now my 10-year-old daughter had earned the nickname of "Ice-cream Bose" having gorged enough ice cream to fill a five-litre bucket. As we were advised against keeping a taxi for seven days we hired a zeep, according to your need for travel. On the second day, I rose with a view of the Khang-Chen-Dzon Ga garlanded by the blue-white clouds; we armed with lunch packets and bottles of water left for Nathula Pass and Baba Ki Mandir. With gigantic mountain walls and steep wooded hillsides as company we reached the must-on-tourist list, the Changu Lake, 35 kms from Gangtok. It was around 1 pm and the visibility dropping with fog, as thick as butter, we tried to make the best of our time: throwing snow balls at each other and riding yaks on the frozen Changu Lake. It was getting cold, biting cold. Girija, our accompanying friend, thanks to the poor visibility had minor fall, slipping in the snow. Her teeth chattering, we revived her with liberal doses of Sikkim-made whisky. Before we could say cheese to my Yashica, the driver was insistent that we leave for our rendezvous with Nathu La, because it was just 20km from the Tibetan border. An extremely beautiful place we did sight Chinese guards dressed in their olive uniforms. From here one could visit, we were told, the Kyongnosla Alpine sanctuary where a profusion of wild flowers bloom between May and August and migratory birds stop over in winter on their annual pilgrimage from Siberia to India. We were likely to unlikely to sight them being in the first week of April! Next day we found ourselves at the laid-back, scenic hamlet of Pelling where swarms of Bengali lodges and hotels welcomed us. Pelling offers numerous attractive walks and hotel terraces--we stayed in one of them overnight—are the best place to gaze in awe the world's third largest peak. We also visited the small monastery of Sanga Choling, one of the oldest gompas in Sikkim and house some of the original clay statues.
If in Pelling you're likely to be recommended to visit Khecheopalri Lake, known as the "Wishing Lake". Surrounded by dense forests and hidden in a mountain bowl, legend has it that if a leaf drops onto the lake's surface a guardian bird swoops down and picks up. Well, we were neither fortunate enough to see a leaf drop nor a bird swooping. Our driver assured us, may be on our next visit!We slept early that night for there was nothing much to do: for the TV channels had nothing good to offer. Moreover, the reception was very poor.Our next destination was Yoksum, 40 km north of Pemayangtse.
Unlike other places in Sikkim, which survive in its mythical history, Yoksum lives in its recorded history. For it was here that three lamas converged to enthrone the first religious king of Sikkim, Chogyal Phuntsog Namgyal, in 1642. Named the "great Religious King" he established Tibetan Buddhism in Sikkim. Guru Rinpoche predicted this meeting of three lamas coming from different directions across in Himalayas nine centuries earlier. Lhatsung Chorten is supposed to have buried offerings in Yoksum's large white Norbuhgang Chorten built with stones and earth from different parts of Sikkim.Sikkim is home to the Nyingmapa (Red-hat) sect of Tibetan Buddhism, an unreformed group that fled south to the mountains of Western Sikkim following the great Tibetan reformation of the sixteenth Century, when the Gelugpa (Yellow-Hat) sect now headed by the Dalai Lama gained the upper hand. Also to be found in Sikkim is one of the few remaining monasteries of the Bon religion, the pre-Buddhist indigenous faith of the Tibetan people.We had kept our last day for Gangtok and its neighbourhood.
With its florists, souvenir shops, phone booths, hotels, travel agents, eateries and its stadium Gangtok tumbles down the sides of a steep hill-ringed bowl that converges in a natural amphitheatre.We began with Rumtek Monastery, an hour's drive from Gangtok, which follows the turbulent Rehpola River, gushing waterfalls rush over lichen-covered rocks that line the roadside. After crossing the River, the road begins a sheer ascent to the summit. When you reach the top, what you find is not just a monastery, but also an entire monastic village.The friendly smiles of the resident monks, of varied ages, welcome you. We happened to meet one, an early thirties monk who spoke both Hindi and English well and explained us about the different forms of Buddhism practiced in Sikkim. Before we could exchange addresses in hope of keeping in touch, his brother monks had dragged him for the classes.We left Gangtok, hoping to come back again. This time to log as many monasteries as I can: for there are around 200 of them belonging to the ancient Nyingmapa sect. And also do the northern parts requiring special permits—places that resemble a guitar twang: Yume Samdang, Thangu, Mangan, Chungthang and others.