A Big Country

I’m back in Sydney and it feels good, I’m happy to see all you guys again. Like I’ve said to a lot of you, I could’ve travelled more, but probably not in India. I think me and Northern India are done for a while. I did a rough outline of my trip so you can get the rough idea of where I went. It strangely felt quite good when I got to the Sikkim part of my journey and google new where about 3 places were and the roads seemingly weren’t on the map.

Doing this blog has been good fun and something I’m pleased I did. I hope it serves to stand as a record for myself and others, perhaps planning a trip to India and want to see it, or for those who never thought they’d go but might like what they see. If you’re planning a trip and have any questions about what things are really like I’m more than happy to answer questions.

Please continue to check the blog, as I hope to release a final batch of photos that are a bit more polished. I will also keep this blog for future adventures. Thanks to everyone I met on the track, or whom I travelled with for any period of time, especially G, Sonal, Mirtele, everyone from the trek, you looked after me well and I hoped I wasn’t too annoying. Til next time!

Home Time

Today we went to the Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre near Darjeeling. Pretty amazing place, got some snaps, also posting up some other pics I haven’t got round to posting yet. I thought it would be fitting at this time in my trip to post some portraits of some older people.

Tomorrow I’ll head to Bagdogra airport, then fly west to Delhi, 1 day there and home on the 13th May. Looking forward to seeing you all again.

Streets of Gangtok

Before the rain came

Ol’ mate

Weaver

Knitter

Painter

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They have these flowers here to, I forget their name (sorry mum)

Cooking Monks

Anyone who knows me will understand why I took this.

Peace out!

A Homestay & Rhododendrons

Hello all,

There has been a break in broadcasting due to my distance from the internet. Annoyingly I’ve left my other memory card back at the place I’m staying, so I’ll do a retrospective post at a later stage. Since I left Gangtok about a week or so ago (which I’ve now returned to) I did two main things, first was a homestay in the remote village of Lingtem and the other was a day trip to Yumthang, to see the flower valley which is filled with Rhododendrons at the moment.

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The Home Stay

We rocked up, about an hour car ride (an alto, a tiny hatch, with 6 of us jammed in) from Mangan, parts of which we needed to get out so that the car could get up the slopes. We arrived in the small village of Passingdong, and then as no one had told us, another 45 minute walk up some very steep terrain. Naturally, because we didn’t expect this we had all our gear, probably 16kg of it now.

I thought that was tough, but then, you see the 40kg bags of rice they lug up and down that hill by hand and yeah… they’re insane.

View of Khangchendzodnga, 5 minutes walk from the home.

Rice paddies clinging to the edge of a sheer cliff.

One of the little kids there

We were lucky enough to visit a monastery which we found amongst a renovation, including a complete re-paint. This is a tiny face, and the geometry and draftsmen ship were, for me, astounding. Imagine a whole interior covered.

A cheeky monkey at the monastery

After the monastery we went to the local school, we felt very lucky as not many westerners ever go up there, they asked for our autographs.

The cutest dog I’ve ever met. Bongnok, translated as black nose.

The kitchen at the homestay.

Inside the kitchen. Absolutely amazing food. Also has chee with fried egg in it, the local booze.

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Yumthang

We woke up at 0530 and it was raining hard, which can be dangerous as landslides are common and the roads are horrible. We decided to leave any way and our first obstacle was close by a huge waterfall, there has been a landslide but most of it had gone over the road. There was one huge boulder in our path. When more people arrived, 8 men pushing it and one guy with a crow bar, it was moved as we continued. This was after our driver attempted to drive around it, one side a rocky death and the other the boulder, we were on loose rocks with strong water going under the car. A tad scary.

The second obstacle was another rock fall. This time they had a dozer to clear the rubble, but then the dozer broke down and we had to wait until a mechanic rocked up.

Once we got to the valley it was amazing.

The views would be a lot better than this but the fog added a different feeling to the place.

After the rain parted today, at Gangtok

Hopefully gonna do some rafting tomorrow out of a place called Melli, then back to Darjeeling for some mountain biking, then alas it’s time for me to come home, looking forward to seeing everyone again and of course, the food.

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From Yuksom

From Yuksom we went to Pelling -> Tashiding -> Ravangla and now I’m currently in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim. I have about a week left on my permit here. I’ve been mostly doing small day trips to monasteries, and eating a lot of momos and thukpa trying to ensure I maintain my already lightweight body after such a big trek. From Gangtok I think we plan to go to Tsomgo Lake which is at 3800m. After that, back to Darjeeling and I think from there I’ll fly back to Delhi and then home.

Images below are poor quality because I had to use a crappy resizer, the connection here is too slow to upload full quality.

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We took a day trip from Ravangla to Ralang, to Cho Ling monastery and were lucky enough to see a few hundred monks praying. There was very thick fog and they were blowing massive horns and beating on drums. It was like a scene from a movie. I don’t think many tourists get to that location, we felt very lucky.

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On the way up

Pelling.

My view over breakfast.

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Love to all.