Do you like dragons?

Sikkim. In the Himalaya, ancient kingdoms used to exist, hidden and unreachable in the high Mountains. But today only Bhutan remains preserved. Ladakh was conquered by the British, Nepal opened progressivly to the world in the end of 20th century, Tibet is occupied by China since 1951, and the little Kingdom of Sikkim decided to become part of India in 1975, when the last king died. Still Sikkim stays apart. To reach the place we needed to get a permit, a sort of "Sikkimese visa" and got a new stamp on our passports at the Indian-Sikkimese border. And Indeed Sikkim is quite different. Cleaner and more expensive, Sikkim is a bit the Switzerland of India, up in the mountains...
 

We arrived in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, on the first day of the winter festival (a week before Losoong, the Sikkimese new year), and were very surprised. The main road in the center is a pretty paved road, for walkers only, with nice banches where to sit, Christmas decorations, people walking around. Loudspeakers on the street plays Christmas songs or some kind of crooners singing in Nepali. Small stands along the street make a Christmas market. A normal town before Christmas, you may think, but somehow surrealistic here.
 

It got even more surrealistic during the night. Gangtok has a rather western nightlife. Except nightclubs are crowded around 9 pm and close at 11 pm. Oh and Gangtok is also very much into karaoke. For the worst and the less worst. And we somehow got involved into a karaoke party. A very weird guy, overfriendly, started to chat with us while we were having beer, and short after that I was singing in Nepali and dancing with his friends. In the same bar, a guy tried flirting with Tince "Sikkimese style" : "Do you like dragons?"

But we didn't stay in Gangtok for the whole festival, as we wanted to discover the west of the country. With Christmas songs stucked in our heads, we left Gangtok to Pelling. A long jeep drive through beautiful valleys. The road was terribly long. In Sikkim you need some 5-6 hours to make 60 kilometers. The road was almost as bad with asphalt than without. But the view was worth it. Crossing from east to west across the hillland, window on Kangchenjunga (3rd highest peak of the world) and the fluffy green hills : Sikkim is really one special place. Jeeps are also a way to meet locals. One man, travelling with fish in a jar, paid the driver with mandarines.

 

When I was child, I imagined adventure looks like a long walk, with heavy bags, crossing mountains with a pretty girl, and stopping to ask villagers for direction or hospitality. Usually it's not like that (more like diarrhea and dirty rooms). But between Kecheopalri lake (pronounced like the Georgian Khatchapuri) and Yuksom, it's exactly how it was. We left the holy lake in the early morning to go up and up until Yuksom. The weather was as great as our bags were heavy. Passing farms, we went down until one river which name I don't remember but it sounded like Rhum Cola. Then, up, up, up. The last kilometers were killing us. More we climbed up (and thought we were reaching the top) and more the hill got higher! But with the help of locals and the tea one offered to us, we made it until the top.
 

Sikkim is one amazing place for the landscape, but also for the pleasures of the mouth. First they know how to use meat and dairy products, which is a positive point. And they make really tasty soups, from nettle, cauliflower and radish leaves. The best soups of south-Asia! They also have less strict laws about alcohol than the rest of India. They make their own drinks. Local Hit beer seemed almost good after 3 months in Asia. We tried also great home fig wine in bamboo mēriņš!