That Sikkim trip, first bit.

“Oops I meant to post this bit first.

SIKKIM 2000
GETTING TO YUKSOM

The hotel sits perched on the side of a hill in Gantok, about a mile up the road out of town. Our room, overlooks Gantok to our left and a cloud shrouded Kanchenjunga to our right. It’s been a tough old jeep ride to get here today, so tea is desperately called for. Darjeeling makes the best tea, but Sikkim would have to come close.

The afternoon is spent watching the clouds move up the valley, helicopters zoom along behind the clouds, level with our window. We try to write up our diaries, but we’re too excited about being here and cant concentrate. Tiny taps at the door and a boy walks in to clean up the remains of afternoon tea. I make a mental note to lock the door next time.

As with most hotel owners in India, his nephew/brother/cousin runs the closest/cheapest/best trekking service in town. So out of curiosity/necessity/laziness we work out a trek to Kanchenjunga. We work him down to $45 U.S. a day for two. It includes,
“Transport to Yuksom, sighteseeings and tours of all local Gompas (Monasteries), all porters,
yaks and equipments required on trek”
Our expedition (?) organiser, Bhusan, has assured us that the 4 person minimum trekking rule the Sikkimese Government requires is not strictly adhered to and most officials don’t really care.

NOW KIDS, IMPORTANT LESSON, CHECK “EQUIPMENTS” BEFORE YOU LEAVE TOWN!
We should have checked the tent, more on this later.

Arrangements made, we sit back and have dinner and watch the power go off and on in Gangtok.



The next day is spent battling the Indian Banking System to change travellers cheques and meeting our crew. Sivar our guide, Ram the cook and Milo the chicken boy (it’s a term that means kitchen assistant).

The alarm from the watch gets us up early and we go and have breakfast. The guys have been up for hours loading and sorting gear. A jeep stands in the gateway of the Hotel, the driver leans against it chatting to Bhusan. Milo is on the roof hands on hips yelling at the drivers assistant (he looks all of 12) to throw up the bags. Sivar is chatting to Ram and laughing at the antics of Milo.
We throw our packs into the mix and they soon have them secured to the roof wedged between a box of cabbages and an LPG stove.

The hotel owner comes out to see us off, his young grandson is in his arms asleep. Bhusan shakes his hand kisses his son and we all pile into the jeep. We are all nervous and smile at each other a lot. Milo cracks jokes in Hindi which makes the other s giggle.

The jeep, an Indian copy of a Wrangler chugs it’s way up through town and then within 5 minutes we are in the country again. All the hills are covered in tea, not like the flat fields we saw lower down, but on steep hillsides. We ask Siva how the women manage to pick the tea and carry it on such steep hills. “ No problem” he says. “No Problem” is now the new catch phrase of the trek.

As with most of the Himalaya, to get from one town to another involves going down one hill and up another. ALL DAY! A 120km trip is a day-long experience.








We stop to pick up some more provisions at Singta. It is incredibly hot in the sun and we get the driver to park in the shade of a Banyan tree. As the guys are looking for the right chickens at the right price, my wife and I head off for a quick look about and a cold drink.


The driver beeps his horn to let us know it’s time to go so we drink up and go to the jeep. Ram is not here? The driver starts off, moving slowly out of town, behind I can see Ram running , a bag of carrots in hand yelling for us to stop, the driver and Sivar are giggling and poor Ram has to run and jump into the back. He sees the funny side and through a huge grin says something rude in Nepali.

It’s 4 hours before we get to our lunch stop at the town of Rablonga. The road has been steadily going up hill for most of the way. The weather has changed with the afternoon, as it does in the post-monsoon. So that when we get out it is quite cool and very cloudy. Stretching and groaning we all make our way into the Dhaba for lunch. Little kids are playing under the tables, we make faces and they run laughing and screaming into the kitchen. The owner takes us into a quiet part where we sit and have Buff (buffalo) curry and Rice.
Soon there is a sound like ripping canvas and a boom that shakes the windows. The storm that had been following us crashes into the village. Cascades of water bucket down as we all rush to see the spectacle. I realise our bags are exposed to the weather and run out to cover them with part of the tarp and I’m drenched immediately. Milo and the driver’s assistant go out and between the three of us we get everything covered. Lunch goes down well, washed down with buckets of the local tea. Just as quickly as the rain comes does it disappear, the sun comes out and the town turns into a steamy sauna.

Already rough by western standards the road becomes gravel and deteriorates into a goat track. The monsoon rains have washed large chunks of it away. Road crews filthy with mud stand to one side watching our progress . Women and small boys sit beside the road breaking big rock into gravel. Engineers in clean white shirts and handle-bar mustaches point and yell at the workers.
Our jeep crawls up another steep hill when we get close to the top Siva points to a thin snaking road on another mountain across the valley. “We are to drive up there before we get to Yuksom Where will spend the night.”

We stop at a village so that the driver can rest and have a cuppa, we are happy to do the same.
Siva reaches down to a small wooden box and pulls out some small blocks that look like caramels. He sticks one into his mouth and tells us to do the same. I’m curious and give the block a sniff, it only has a dusty smell, so I pop it into my mouth it has no taste either (what’s the point I’m wondering) I try to bite it and just about break a tooth.
“No, no, no. Stick it into the corner of your cheek and let it slowly dissolve” he says.
Gradually I work out that it is cheese. Not as flavoursome as a Parmeson, but cheese all the same.

It’s getting late now, the driver has his lights on. They go off every time he hits a big pot hole (frequently). In the distance, patches of light glow where small villages are. At a particularly bad section of road, he slows and crawls along. The road is only the width of the jeep and it lurches from side to side trying to negotiate the deep potholes. I smile and yell “EEYYAAA” which makes all the boys laugh.

After a couple of wrong turns we finally reach Yuksom. It has taken 8 hours instead of the usual 6 hours. We drive past the typical small town Bazaar, all lit up with people sitting and chatting out the front and finally into the driveway of our hotel. This is in fact a resort, owned by the brother in law of the owner of our hotel in Gantok. It’s not what we were expecting at all. It’s 3 storeys and decorated in typical Sikkimese style, a cross between Tibetan and Bhutanese.
We have tea in the foyer as we wait to go to our rooms. Across from us on another lounge sit 3 Indian men well dressed watching the Olympics. I resist the urge to go and have a look.

Our rooms are great, the nicest we’ve had since arriving in India. We later found out that a room here would normally cost us about 1300 Rupees so they should have been great.
We have dinner and discuss the following days trek. It is hard to talk as Bhusan and Sivar are constantly being called away to fix a problem or answer the phone. We just sit back enjoy our huge dinner and have some wonderful Indian beer.
Bhusan dashes back in one more time and says he has to go and will talk to us tomorrow. We take this as our cue to leave also and go upstairs and have the first HOT showers since leaving Singapore a week earlier and wash all the dust away.”

“Now go to the other Sikkim thread.
Apologies for getting it out of order.”