INDIA BLOG ARCHIVES (7) - 24 Apr 2007

This was posted by me on a/o as Msg# 19568 on 24 April 2007 as `A Himalayan Odyssey - 3`:

And so on Day 7 of our trip, we drive into Sikkim, the home of `Kanchanjunga`. From Darjeeling to Gangtok, its capital, is just 140 kilometres, but of course as all over India, it took us a whole morning to cover the distance, because of narrow, winding roads, with hairpin bends, through however some of the most spectacular mountainous countryside anywhere. We crossed into Sikkim from W Bengal at Rangpo, just 12 km from Darjeeling. Although Sikkim is a fully fledged state of the Indian Union (having become so by a popular vote of the people in 1975, until when it was a protectorate dating back to the British raj) travel into it is restricted for foreigners who need a special permit. Our tour company had already obtained it for us months in advance, but even so our passports had to be presented to the officials at the post; this was done by our guide while we had coffee and wandered around in the pleasant surroundings of the post. Later I saw that our passports had been stamped both with an entry and an exit stamp, alongside our main Indian visa endorsements. And the rationale for this special procedure? Sikkim lies in the sensitive frontier region of India and China and part of it was captured by the Chinese during the 1962 Sino-Indian war. It was only fairly recently that the Chinese recognized India`s sovereignty over Sikkim and now that the Nathula pass has re-opened, it is expected that the travel restrictions will be eased as the security situation improves. Even so Indian bureaucracy scrupulously observes the rules. When 4-5 days later we were leaving Sikkim, at another point, Rhenock, we saw a lone German backpacker being turned away for lack of proper documentation, for which he then had to find a bus or lift to Rangpo!

If the northern part of W Bengal, where Darjeeling and the tea growing districts are situated, is different from the plains of India, then Sikkim is truly Himalayan, in its splendour, its people, its geophysical features - fauna and flora - and its higher living standards and state of development. Because of the strategic importance of the region, the central government of India has been pretty generous in allocating federal funds and services to win over the hearts and minds of the people (a pity they didn`t do it in Kashmir!), and all the evidence suggests that this has been done successfully. Sikkim is being connected to the national highway network, though the difficult terrain makes road-building difficult. But Sikkim is almost underpopulated - relative to its size - while a plentiful rainfall and a fertile soil ensure that it is rich in agriculture, forestation etc. The people are definitely well off here. The landscape is strewn with Swiss-like chalets, bungalows, houses, meadows, streams, hamlets, farm yards and an unending and undulating series of hills and valleys. There is greenery everywhere, and no stray cows!

Driving through these parts, the most uplifiting experience is that of seeing scores of school children (girls in smart western skirts, blouses and cardigans and boys similarly attired in shorts or trousers, jackets and ties) going to or from school or waiting for transport along the main road - as we saw other generally well turned out local people do, much as they would in the English or European countryside. True, in Darjeeling and around, as in most Indian hill stations where there are boarding schools, the sight of smartly turned out boys and girls is common; what we were seeing here were ordinary (ie. state) school children. They were well behaved, curious and friend, and above all respectful. Older siblings held the hands of younger ones, but there were some very young ones, aged maybe around 4 or 5, who were going about in groups unescorted, but completely safe in a clearly protective environment for them. All these children reflected a complete range of ethnic groupings of the population: the Bhutia, the Lepcha and the Nepali - delicate, light-skinned with Mongolian features and their compatriots from `the plains`, ranging from fair to darker brown complexions - and seemed to be oblivious of these differences and completely at ease with each other - and in this respect they mirrored the adult society around them, for during the whole of our trip everywhere, what we saw was complete harmony, with not a hint of communal / ethnic tension of any sort.

Sikkim then is a land of beauty and plenty, of monasteries and meadows (of flowers, cacti and other vegetation in a rich variety of colours), of waterfalls and white water rafting and hot springs, and above all, of panoramic views all over. We stayed mostly in the southern parts, but further up in the north, there are trekking and wildlife opportunities. The people, though generally slim and small in stature, were clearly used to outdoor and physical styles of living, and so tended to be quite agile and sturdy. Sikkim however is very small in size and that perhaps explains its uniqueness in these respects - it is barely some 68 miles from the north to the south and 40 miles from east to the west.

Gangtok is really like a small provincial capital, with a population of only about 50,000. It is a hill town (same elevation as Nairobi, 5500 feet above sea level) where, believe it or not, there are proper pedestrian payements running all alongside divider railings, and so people are used to not walking all over the place, with point duty police who dutifully enforce the rules for motorized traffic. In fact, the main shopping street, the Mahatma Gandhi Marg, is cleared of vehicular traffic and pedestrianised from 5 to 9 pm. Our hotel, the Nor-Khill (`the house of jewels`), overlooks a sizeable stadium and was built as a royal guest house, with the usual amenities, where visiting heads of state, ambassadors and the Dalai Lama have stayed and on whose grounds there is, inevitably, a `Kanchan Garden` where the King of Bhutan used to sit to paint views of the eponymous mountain! One of the highlights of our stay in Gangtok were a visit to the famous Rumtek Monastery, the seat of the head of the Kagyupa order of Tibetan Buddhism. It is situated high up on a cliff and foreigners have to register to enter its grounds - for outdated security reasons - though again for us this was taken care of by our guide. It is of course a live-in institution and we saw young monks in red robes at prayer and out and about.

We also visited the Sikkim Flower Show a permanent exhibition of rare and exotic varieties of orchids, set under cover in tranquil surroundings. More even than in Darjeeling, here it was wet and somewhat cool, and we were caught up in a downpour of rain as we went about the town. As in Darjeeling, so here, the Himalayas, the Kanchanjunga range in particular, remained a distant presence throughout. Our next stop in Sikkim was Pelling, from where we were to have a closer and clearer view of the peaks.

RAMNIK SHAH

Surrey, England