Travel in Sikkim

Hello. I apologize for not updating this in the past two weeks, but it has been unexpectedly difficult for me to find both internet access and the time to write.



The first week of our trip, my brother and I did a bit of travellng. We went into the state of Sikkim, which is situated in the Himalayas, bordered by Bhutan, China, Tibet, and Nepal. The trip was both relaxing and hectic. I needed the time to decompress after finishing school, but the non-stop travel (we left by overnight train the night we arrived to India and continued moving throughout the state every 2-3 days) left us a bit worn out.

The serene and quaint nature of Sikkim, however, gently lifted the stress off my shoulders. At first it was a bit foreign, as I forgot how it felt to DO NOTHING, but soon after, I was content spending my days looking at the Himalayas from deck of my hotel room.

The first leg of the trip, we went to Gangtok. There we did a bit of touring, but by the end of three days, we were quite tired. The first day, we saw Ganesh Tok and Hanuman Tok. View was particularly spectacular from Ganesh tok. I will post some images when the opportunity arises. We were able to the Kanchangega, the third highest mountain in the Himalayas from there. Gangtok was a busy town and Rishi found its mildly metropolic nature agreeable.

As such, when we went to remote Rabongla (where the nearest store was 20 km away), Rishi was not satisified. We spent two nights there. During the day, we did a bit of hiking about. The view from the hotel would have been spectacular, however, it was cloudy both days. Nonetheless, the seclusion from all was needed (there was not even cell phone signal!).

The final portion of our trip was in Pelling, where we spent 3 days. Despite its small size, Pelling is stratified vertically along a mountain slope, into three sections. This unique segmentation makes for a reasonable hike - especially because our hotel was in lower Pelling and all the sites were in upper Pelling. The hotel in Pellling was particularly nice and we spent a good amount of time simply lounging about. There was not a whole lot to do over three days, so I did what I haven't done in quite some time . . . watch TV!

The end of the trip, however, was a bit exciting. We nearly missed the train back to Kolkata! Since I cannot read Hindi, I kept asking persons regarding where the correct train was. Turns out there were two trains to Kolkata and everyone directed me to the wrong one. At the last minute, I overheard the correct train number and raced to the appropriate location. Because our seats were not confirmed, there was a bit of confusion in finding the correct one. At the end, I had to hop on a moving train, only to encounter that someone else was sitting in my seat . . .