From Darjeeling, we took a shared taxi ride (about 3 1/2 hours) to Gangtok in the state of Sikkim. Sikkim officially became part of India in 1975. A mountaneous state of about 5.5 million people, Sikkim borders Bhutan, Nepal and China. Click on the graphic to the left to see the location of the state. The state has a number of people of Tibetan, Nepalese and Bhutanese descent. India defended the borders of Sikkim against China in the war of 1962. Interestingly, there seems to be an intermixing of Bengali and Sikkimese people going on as the two states border each other in India. We had already obtained a permit for Smruti to travel to Sikkim (all non-Indian citizens needs permits for Sikkim).
Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, is a couple of thousand feet lower in altitude than Darjeeling and so, thankfully, a bit warmer! The city is nestled on the side of a mountain (photo on the left) and so has many steep roads and staircases. We stayed in a hotel on MG Marg and could therefore go to the local restaurants and (importantly) Internet cafe pretty easily. The other photo shows a couple of Sikkimese kids playing near a monastery.
The Rumtek monastery, traditionally home of the Karmapa Lama, was a very nice place. We went into the prayer hall as well as walked around in the square. The wall outside has some nice paintings of the Buddhist boddhisattvas, including one called Smrtishri! There seemed to be a light atmosphere at this monastery, as opposed to the *heavy* atmosphere in Christian monasteries we've seen in Europe.
We also visited the Enchey monastery and a couple of gompas. The sight of Buddhist cemeteries was *interesting **with prayer flags fluttering all over the place.
There is a dispute going on right now about who the real Karmapa Lama is. The Karmapa Lama stands right next to the Dalai Lama in terms of importance in the Tibetan Buddhist world. One of the contendors for the Karmapa Lama is staying with the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala (in the state of Himachal Pradesh in northwest India) - he had been installed by the Chinese government as a puppet but escaped to India - for some reason, the Indian government is not letting the Karmapa reside in his traditional headquarters at the Rumtek monastery near Gangtok. You can find out more about this at karmapa.org and in this BBC article.
We visited the Namgyal Institue of Tibetology which has a great collection of Buddhist tankhas or painted tapestries showing the life of the Buddha. The paintings on the wall outside were quite nice as well as the structure on the pond with little gargoyles. The inside of the museum was nice also although it suffered from repeated black-outs and so we couldn't see much!
The next day, after having obtained all necessary permits from the Sikkim Tourism office, we took a shared taxi ride to Changu lake and Baba mandir. Changu lake itself was somewhat of a disappointment but we livened things up with a yak ride around the lake and a view of the Indo-Tibetan border and the Chinese occupation army in Tibet. The drive was nice with lots of snow, ice and frozen streams along the way. The fact that Smruti's woolen cap matched exactly with the yak's horncaps added to the fun! :-) Apparently, the yak also thought this was quite funny, as evidenced by its baleful pose in this photo. There's a lot more to see in North Sikkim but foreigners aren't allowed to go there!
While in Gangtok, we decided to ditch our plan to go to Camboda and Thailand because of the effects of the tsunami in Thailand. Instead, we decided to spend a week in south India (Tamil Nadu) volunteering for a non-profit (or NGO, as they are called in India) focusing on tsunami relief efforts. After much searching on the Net and contacting people, we whittled it down to AID India and decided to fly Air Deccan (very cheap!, like Southwest Airlines in the US) to Madras (Chennai) right after Sikkim. We will do that and then fly straight to New Zealand.
From Gangtok, we tooked a shared taxi ride down to Bagdogra. Unfortunately, the shared taxi dropped us off 13 kilometers away from the airport. Our only option seemed to be a cycle rickshaw (powered by a person) who estimated it would take us two and a half hours to drive the 13 kilometers. We quickly disembarked and caught a bus to the airport!
-Dev
LOVE the Yak ride photo guys. Talk about creative transportation options. I heard they smell god awful--is that true? The road sinage list was pretty hilarious too.
When you head to NZ, try to stay in Wanaka on the South Island and check out the hikes there as well as the movie theater (very cool!).
Camille
Posted by: Camille | Monday, January 17, 2005 at 11:12 AM