10th Anniversary Sikkim Trek: April 2012

Apr 13 - Day 9 - All good things must come to an end

Day 9 -

Pelling to BAgdogra - Drop to BAgdogra airport. Clients need to book flights leaving after 1.30 pm

Final morning in Pelling. The trip is almost over… well it is over. Now for the loooong journey back home. We are ready to leave by 6:30AM. Bills paid and all. We bid goodbyes to Minoti and Mukund and the five of us (Anuj, Ron, Viji, Mona and I) leave in the car with Piran.

Final Goodbyes from Pelling. We leave Minoti, Mukund and the kids behind today.

Long drive back to Siliguri (in West Bengal) which is where the Bagdogra airport is. Viji and I work through the bills in the car. We have spent so much money in the last couple of days on Mineral water, Pakoras, Tea and Chakna (Masala Papad and Masala Peanuts) J But its all tallied up and sorted out. We stop at a 24hr ATM to withdraw cash. “Its closed sir” a local boy tells us. OK, off to another town. Slowly, but steadily we drive down the mountains and cross bridges following cars with signs like “Don’t follow me, I am lost too” and “Get back in Peace, not in Pieces”. The driver’s phone rings to the tune of ‘Resham Firiri' and we all start singing the song to the complete amazement of the driver "You know this song ?? Very famous song of Nepali". When I get back I have to find this on youtube and learn the song.

Views on the way down from the mountains

More views of the drive down

Back at the Bagdogra airport, we cannot help but remember that first day when we had landed here all excited and full of enthusiasm for a 7 day hike in the Himalayas. Man proposes, nature disposes, and then man finds a way to have fun anyways J Because that’s what we do. A group of 10 of us, with the help of a guide from Bombay and few highly hospitable local folks had figured out how to make a fantastic vacation out of a failed hiking trip. Not that we did not have our disagreements on how to spend our time together (or on how to fix the national government), but we still managed to keep it together because we valued each others company and wanted to enjoy our time together.

Melli Checkpost - This is where we were we should have gotten our ILPs on the way up :-)

Hillside Town - A last view before we get to the Plains

Soon we were toasting to this in the Bagdogra airport restaurant which serves awesome paneer, alu mutter and beer. We parted ways first with Piran (who was at the airport to meet his family coming over from Bombay) and then with Viji who took the flight to Bangalore, and boarded the flight to Delhi.

Fairly uneventful flight to Delhi, except for a couple of seat shufflings, and then Ron and Anuja went off at Delhi, while Mona and I continued to eat outside Delhi airport J Finally boarded the last leg of the journey to Ahmedabad, as I am catching up on my ‘journalling’ on the plane. Get home at 11:30PM to see the kids sleeping in our room. Rohan wakes up a wink to show off his new Batman toys and new clothes to Mommy and goes back to sleep. The two of them have been absolute gems throughout this time, not giving any trouble to their grandparents. The two of us shower and crash in bed, ready for my birthday tomorrow.

Yup, only 30 minutes more of charge left on the ultrabook, so I will stop the journal of the trip now. Glad I didn’t carry the charger around with me as I clearly didn’t need it (not that we had electricity in most places anyways J) But now that its all typed up, I can upload to blogger.com :-) My first online journal...

Apr 12 - Day 8 - The demure Kanchenjunga

Day 8 - Uttarey to Pelling – Sightseeing Visit the Pemagyatse monastery, Rabdtense ruins, Khecheopalri lake and if time permits to Yuksom.
O/n at Elgin Mt. Pandim

I wake up around 5:30, but it looks cloudy outside my room… I guess no views happening today and I crawl back into bed, but soon enough Ron is knocking on the door, saying “C’mon out guys”. I rush out to see that the snow-capped ranges are starting to show up from behind the clouds. “If at all you get these views, you get them only between about 5:30AM and 6:30AM” Piran had once told us at the campsite “after that the clouds come back in and cover the views”. So I guess we were lucky to be getting the view today. The hotel staff confirmed this feeling as for the last 15 days, Kanchenjunga had not peeked out from behind the clouds. There is a painting of the mastiff in the lobby, with all the peaks marked out, so we are going in and out to try and figure out which peaks we are seeing “Which one of this is Kanchenjunga?”… Finally Ron loses his patience, and brings the painting outside. We prop it on a bench in front of the ranges and finally we are able to find a shape around which we can anchor our understanding and the one in the middle is ‘Kanchenjunga’. Whoa !! We have seen it now. From the campsite we could see the rest of the range, a little farther, but not the biggest peak in India. Now the biggest peak was right there in front of us. Best birthday gift for Minoti. Cameras. Photographs J For the next hour. Sip tea under the mountains… read a book under it… whatever… get it in.

Is that Mt. Ratong creeping through the clouds?

Mt. Kanchenjunga makes its first appearance

Happy Birthday Minoti :-)

The Kanchenjunga Mastiff with the Valley below

Mt. Kanchenjunga spotting confirmed, to the 'slight left' of Ron's head... see reference map below ranges :-)

We wash up and come down for Yoga under Kanchenjunga. Today Mukund also joins Viji, Ron and I, while Mona decides to trek down the road. The European tourists are looking at us quizzically while we are deep into Warrior 2 in the shadows of the Kanchenjunga… Anu’s Yoga retreat is slowly forming J We end with deep Oms and head for shower and breakfast. Lunch plans for the day are unclear, so we are stuffing extra omelettes down (like we needed an excuse). As we head out, we submit our ILPs to the reception and ask the most important question “What if we did not have the ILPs ?” “Well, sir, you would have had to go down to the checkpost to get” I am shaking hands with this guy… at least someone cares for this ILP that we worked so hard to get. We can now frame the ILP back home.

Yoga under Mt. Kanchenjunga

4-Star Breakfast as our guide Dava watches on

Today we go visit the sacred Kechiperi wishing lake. Minoti stays back with the kids, while the rest of us head out. The lake is in the shape of a human footprint (roughly)… we can tell that from photographs at the curio store outside the lake. Legend has it that it is the footprint of Goddess Tara. Sacred lake. Lots of flags tied all over the path to and at the lake. Yellow-Soil, Red – fire, Blue- water, White –Air and Green – Nature, repeat over and over again on the path. We light candles at the place where you wish. Walk up to the lake. There is a guard there to prevent people from throwing stuff into the lake. We look into the dark lake to see that the lake is teeming with catfish !! Ron is thinking… I wish this were Fishing Lake instead of Wishing Lake J

Lake Kechiperi Tourist Area and Monastery

Lake Kechiperi - Wishing Lake

Fishing Lake? - Teeming with Fish

Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Flags everywhere - One set for Los Gatos?

The Elements (Periodic Table) - Blue - Water, White - Air, Red - Fire, Green - Nature, Yellow - Soild

Lighting Lamps

At the curio store we buy a bunch of things and figure out that we are going to eat traditional soup lunch at this place near our hotel. Anu and Mukund are clearly excited by the idea. Piran tells us it is a full meal and the restaurant is run by one of the drivers. Ok. We order some veg and chicken soup over the phone and get to the restaurant. Good thing we ordered ahead as at the restaurant all the staff were busy watching TV (torture techniques on Discovery channel !!). Minoti and the kids arrive from the hotel. The soups arrive. No local soup, this is small bowls of clear soup. Anu goes “This is lunch ?” Soon we are ordering large portions of Chowmein and Thenduk (which was the soup we originally wanted). We want to do some shopping after, but its starting to drizzle, so Viji, Mona and I get back to the hotel, while the others join us later. When everyone shows up, we have a feedback session as requested by Piran. Everyone was super-happy with the trip, but gave some additional constructive tips to Piran. Anuja wants to do a Yoga retreat with Piran, while Ron wants to do ‘Kaala Pathar’ with him.

Drinks in Ron’s room J More Pakoras, More Masala Peanuts and Masala Papads. But now we also have cake, for Minoti’s birthday.

Stuffed, we head down for dinner. Finally, Viji and I give up and skip the meal. But not the others J We will not be defeated. Its our last dinner together, and we have to get up early and leave tomorrow, so we get back to our rooms and crash for the night.

Happy Birthday Minoti

Apr 11 - Day 7 - Finally a Luxury Hotel

Day 7 Trek: Chittrey to Uttarey (3 hours, 2200m)
Our final descend through the dense forests gets us to the blissfully tranquil Uttarey village. In the evening we celebrate our achievement of having completed the trek. O/n at NAgbeli resort

After many days, we finally wake up to sunshine and clear skies in Uttarey. Uttarey is a valley, so you cannot see Kanchenjunga from here even on a clear day, just the local hills and mountains. But we can see clearly that there is snow at the heights that we would have been. Whoa !! if we had continued on the trek, we could have been stuck in snow. I can imagine journal entries that read like “today we lost one of us to the cold, but we have to move on so we take out our trowels and start digging ...and RIP….” J

Sunshine and clear skies over Uttarey.. but snow on the mountains

Morning Tea, Courtesy Mona

Venky is ready to leave and NB also takes off with him to get dropped off in his village. Bummer that Venky had to leave back early. No trip is the same without Venky… but work is work and a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. But before they left, I got NB to write down the lyrics of ‘Resham Firiri’ for us, so we can learn it properly. Nagesh is woken up just in time for him to hand over his trekking shoes to NB, so he an hand them over to the other NB as promised by Nagesh (when he noticed his torn shoes on the way down from Barsey). Good ol’ Nagesh… true to his word.

NB, writing down the lyrics of 'Resham Firiri...' before he leaves

Now Mona is restless and wants to go for a hike. So Mona, Viji, Ron and I head out for a hike up the hill. Monozh had told me of a Temple/Monastery up there in the hills and I wanted to check that out. So we walk on our own and find it nestled up in the hills. We step in to find monks doing their morning chanting and we just sit down there in the peace and quiet and close our eyes. This is no sight-seeing visit to a Monastery… this is seeing it at work. Nice. After a little while, we walk down, our minds at peace. I even have a little chat with Ron about Religion, given that he has had an exposure to 4 different religions in his life.

The hike up to the local Monastery

Back at the cottage, Nagesh is reading Anuja’s palms and starts to make some interesting predictions/recommendations. Anuja is clearly hooked and Nagesh promises to continue at night. Piran’s local guide Dava is now here. He is going to guide one of the cars today (the one that will leave early with Nagesh, Kavita and Mrinal) . He grew up in the area and attended one of the schools for local orphans and destitute children. He promises to take us to see the school. Sikkim is a highly literate and very well governed state, of course not enough employment here for all the people L

Nagesh's Palmistry 'Magic' begins... Mantriji becomes Panditji

Now we are ready for a Yoga session under the views of the hillside. Ron, Viji, Anuja and I setup ourselves on a small concrete platform, turn inward and focus on Yoga for next 30 minutes. Some of them joints are still not loose enough and it hurts, but I push on… then we settle down for breakfast.

Morning Yoga ends with Om chanting

Working on my Journal before heading out

Packed up and heading out to Pelling. We do stop for pictures along the way. There is this waterfall on the way that we are able to climb up to. Siddharth is all excited, and we are a little worried about that, but we get great pictures.

The Waterfall

And halfway up the waterfall, Siddharth is all excited

We stop at this bakery for lunch (all profits go to the same school for destitute children), eat local cabbage pizza and chocolate croissants and hit Hotel Mt. Elgin (4 start hotel, part of the Oberoi chain). Finally, someone (at the reception) asks us for a copy of our ILP. Whoops, but Piran has left that at Pellin town with his luggage. We will show it tomorrow.

Lunch @ Lotus Bakery

The lawns @ Hotel Elgin Mt. Pandim, Pelling

Pelling, as seen from our hotel

The lobby of Hotel Elgin Mt. Pandim

This is at a great location on top of the hills; we have views of Pelling town on the slopes. Its cloudy right now, but if the sky clears up in the morning we should be able to get a view of some of the Kanchenjunga mastiff. Fingers crossed. That would pretty much be our last chance. The second car with Nagesh, Kavita and Mrinal also joins us here after their visit to Kechiperi lake (we will do that tomorrow).

We drop our bags into the rooms and head out to visit the famous Pemagatsye monastery in Pelling. Interestingly, beside our guide Dava, we have two Buddhists in our group (Kavita and Anuja) who have been part of SGI at some time in the past. Dava gives us a full tour of the Monastery telling us as much as he can about the idols, the paintings and the art. The various incarnations of Buddha. The scrolls, the masks and other items that are now a small museum in the Monastery. How Mt. Kanchenjunga was asked to protect this place and one of Buddha’s disciples who tried to cross over was prevented by Kanchenjunga through snow and storms (yup, I know exactly how that must have felt), though he prayed to Kanchenjunga and was allowed to cross over, while I can’t say the same for us. In the upper room we saw the ‘Stairway to Heaven’… an intricate artwork that apparently was based on someone’s vision (dream) and was built by 2 people over 5 years. We see the monastic school in the same place, and the little monks playing soccer using a shoe as a ball J (Soccer is huge in this part of the country).

Pemagatsye Monastery

Tibetan Buddhist Prayer flags on the path to the Monastery

Finally, we head back to the hotel and order Chai and Pakoras J Mouth watering cheese pakoras and mixed veggie ones that are quickly vanquished. Nagesh continues on his palm-reading… Minoti, Ron, Mukund, Viji all watch in awe and wonder as Nagesh unravels there lives in front of them J (OK maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but it was was quite extraordinary nevertheless). As it threatens to get dark, Ron, Anu, Kavita, Nagesh and Mrinal all head out to do some shopping, while the rest of us sit and chat in the lobby and the kids play on their parents’ iPADs.

Apr 10 - Day 6 - From Village to Village we go...

Day 6 - Trek: Kalijhar to Chittrey (7 Hours, 2850 m) Early morning trek to Phoktay Dara, a viewpoint with superb views of Kanchenjunga and Mount Everest. Watch the sunrise and enjoy the panoramic views. After breakfast we continue moving to Chittrey. Today our route runs along the Nepal border providing good views of the Nepalese villages on the other side.

After several days, we had finally slept in, waking up slowly at 7:30AM. I think some of the women are hung-over, and once again it pouring outside. I wonder if we will get to do some fun activity in Uttarey today or if we will be stuck indoors.

Slowly we pack up, shower, have breakfast and start to head out. Tonight we stay at Uttarey village, which is where we would have ended the trek. We have some final goodbyes with the great staff at the Chaya Taal Guest house (they even have a tri-fold brochure of their guest house with marketing messages and contact info). Group photos are taken, they garland us with traditional scarves, Nagesh hands out the balls and coloring material he had gotten for the children of the support staff. Finally we load up and head out.

Turns out that our driver Inder is the gentlemen who has adopted David/Daisy. We are relieved to hear that the dog is in good hands now. Suddenly the car stops. “What happened?” Piran asks. “Aren’t we going to see the Water Falls Park?” Monozh asks? “What park? Oh sure, lets do it”… Good call. This is a nice scenic place in the middle of nowhere. Waterfalls, a Buddhist temple with a prayer wheel and a little hindu temple after a climb up a neat hill. This was completely unexpected. We hang around in no hurry to move on, take pictures and enjoy ourselves. Finally we head out to the Cheese Factory that Piran had told us was on the way to Uttarey.

Driving up there, I ask NB and Monozh to sing for us. NB is shy, but then I ask him to teach us a song and now he is all excited to teach us “Resham Firiri…”

The Cheese factory is setup as a cooperative by the dairy farmers in Sikkim, in association with some Swiss company to make Gouda Cheese. Amul also markets their Gouda cheese. We check out their processing factory, do some cheese tasting and soon everyone is buying Gouda cheese to take back home. Then we are off for another drive through the mountains to Uttarey, stopping along the way at the 2^nd highest suspension bridge in Asia (and 3^rd highest in the world).

The cottages at Uttarey take us completely by surprise. Cute little cottages nestled away in the hills. We have room to each couple with hot running water and toilets. If we had done the trek, this would have been a luxury to end with J A cute dining area to boot, where we all get together for lunch. “The bandh in Siliguri is not going to be a big deal, its just a little Adivasi Bandh” Piran announces to our big relief “Mukund and the kids will be able to make it tonight to join us in Uttarey”

After lunch we take a walk down to the village and the market area. We are walking along the hillside, but on these slopes they have cardamom and potato farms as well as animal farms. Cows, goats, chicken and pigs. The market is pretty small. This village is even smaller than Hee village. Idyllic little place. We hang around the market area for a bit and then head back to the guest houses, to settle down for Tea.

“I need some milk for the tea” Mona asks the kitchen staff… “No problem” says one of the guys… and promptly runs down to the village and gets 3 cups of fresh milk from the local cow J I am thinking I want a glass of this in the morning, until someone reminds me that I might not be able to handle the bacteria…”maybe I can put in a couple of Iodine tablets” I think aloud J… not happening. By the way, its our first night where we have been able to catch a view of the stars, I can actually see the Great Bear up there…

Soon tea turns to stronger drinks, but Nagesh has disappeared, nowhere to be found “He is contemplating” Ron insists, while others are worried. When Nagesh does reappear, he reappears as Mantriji and a phenomenal act of sunglasses wearing, Russian cap donning, Karunanidhi looking Mantriji follows in which he turns the warming in ‘Global Warming’ on its head. In the midst of this Mukund arrives with the kids and joins the party. Clearly we are becoming the noisiest group in town as we are asked to shush our loud voices and we go grab ourselves some dinner. After dinner, most of us crash for the night, while Mona, Minoti, Venky and Mrinal stay up chatting.