Sikkim is Kinda Cool

I have recently made the rash decision to miss out West Sikkim and go straight to Nepal instead. It's a hard life.

And so... my last few days have been nothing short of incredible. I left Darjeeling for Gangtok in East Sikkim a few days ago with the express intention of visiting the northern valley of Yumthang, a place I stumbled across during my 'researching' of this trip (that basically means googling 'things to see in India' while I was supposed to be working out my notice at CAF!)... I saw one photo of this place and knew that I had to see it and to be honest have been more excited about seeing this place than any other place so in India... the Himalayas dude!!!

So, I managed to find myself a spot on a tour with a cool bunch of Canadians, a Norwegian and a Australian guy (who literally was Dali). Permits at the ready, guide in the front seat, off we went in our jeep. The roads in Sikkim are pretty fricking awful. Carved, rather hacked, out of the mountain side we skidded and bounced our way along, inches from the crumbling edge, for nine exhilarating hours... through canyons and tree lined valleys... the occasional glimpse of the majestic snow-topped Himalayas through closer mountains giving us just the briefest rush of excitement as to what lay ahead. So what lay ahead then?

I would let the picture speak for itself but I need to get this off my chest:

I have literally never in my life seen anything as stunning as what I saw that day. Not Yumthang, that was waiting for us the next morning. The Thunga Valley, above the tree line at 16,000 feet, flanked my snow covered mountains to the West and jagged rocky peaks to the East it was like no place I have ever been but exactly the place I had been yearning to see. It was so wild, windswept, freezing, epic, isolated, beautiful... blah blah blah... I loved it, I coined a realisation about myself there and then as I thought about all the different places I'd seen in India, all of which seem to have been put into perspective against this cold Himalayan backdrop.


My head definitely lies in Cities, my heart on the Beach and my soul in the Mountains.












It was so wonderfully peaceful in an aggressive and utterly unfriendly way... so different from the rest of my experience of India; the cities, the beaches, the green countryside this was not. And so we trekked down the centre of the valley, over frozen mountain streams, across boulders and marshland for half the day before, exhausted and shell-shocked, retiring to our hostel for the best night's sleep I have had in longer that I can remember.

And so the next day to Yumthang, this time perhaps I will let the picture do the talking as what I have said above goes for this beautiful valley also. The only difference being that Yumthang was far gentler... the sort of place you could imagine walking through barefoot, striking up polite conversations with the local flora and fauna all of whom's sole intention in life was to make your life as comfortable as possible... it was so picturesque, rhododendrons in full bloom, moss covering the floor, prayer flags fluttering in the chill breeze... the Yang to Thangu's Ying.











And so now I write this, rushing to go to Nepal because I cannot for a second imagine that anything in Sikkim could beat the two places I have been so fortunate to visit. I hope the photos give you a sense. Now I only have to go and find a good view of Everest!