Sikkim Photo Essay: Getting there and Away

Road from Gangtok to Lachung

So we're having a bit of a break with family in Europe, so I've hand the chance to finish up on our posts about Sikkim.

What description of our travels would be complete without some discussion of the driving situation?

The winding nature of the roads, the steepness and sharpness of the curves, and the general feeling of being on a roller coaster all seemed very similar when compared to my drive up to Mussoorie.

BRO, or the Border Roads Organization, provided us endless amusement on the road as we were always on the look-out for BRO's signs

Our favorite, and sadly the one I wasn't able to get a picture of, was "Work is Worship" (Kam puja hai). One did really have to question the effectiveness of some of these warning signs ("Better Late Than Never") when almost all of them were in English and were stationed at angles that would have been challenging for a driver to read while driving. It made me wonder who the intended audience is for these signs... More than likely they were just for the benefit of tourists .... which .... is funny for different reasons. (head scratch)

You could tell from the seemingly endless roadwork (particularly in Northern Sikkim) that BRO was engaged in constant battle against the forces of nature to maintain the roads in these mountains. Landslides were a constant threat.

Landslides

During the heavy rains in the summer, many of these northern routes are blocked off entirely because of poor driving conditions. Because the rainy season had started a bit early this year, at times during our ride we got a small taste of what those driving conditions must be like.

Driving through a rock slide

But who did we see primarily working on the roads?

Women. Women making gravel --- by hand! Don't believe me, watch the video below...

Or maybe they are doing straight construction work. Again, let's go to the video...

Yes, there were men that did work on the roads -- but it was really startling to see how many more women were there...

I may have mentioned previously about our car breaking down on the way to Darjeeling...

Well, this was the garage we went to ...

State of the art facilities

... where the guys literally pulled and pushed and leveraged the wheel back into alignment. Unbelievable. We made it at least... I guess...

The scariest part about the car breaking down though was when we pulled to a stop so that the driver could take a look at what was wrong.... We stopped on a on a blind curve .... here's a short clip depicting the scene.

... not even the school children stopped for the cars....

(sigh), which isn't really that hard to believe...

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Now that we've gotten steady internet again (thank you Holland!) I've updated two previous posts on the disastrous trek and the Darjeeling strikes with pictures and video.

Sikkim Photo Essay: Peak-a-boo Mountains

We're safe and sound in the UK currently. After a rather hectic last couple of weeks in India the UK, and all of our lovely friends who live here, have welcomed us with open arms.

That isn't to say that we didn't have some amazing experiences during our tour of Sikkim. I hope, with the next couple of posts, to give you a taste (or sight rather) of this region of India.

First up are its peek-a-boo mountains. April/May is the high season for tourism in Sikkim because (mostly) Indian tourists come up from the plains to escape the heat before the monsoons start up in earnest during June and July.... but the real time for mountain spotting is during October, after the rainy season, when the cold crisp air cuts right through to the mountains. We were a little unlucky this year because the rainy season had started early .... meaning essentially that we were living in (and above) the clouds.

Farm on the way to Lachung

I've attempted (with arguable success) to try and create a composite of what we were seeing over the course of our time in Sikkim. The clouds would come in and out and it was really anybody's guess whether the mountains would be willing to make an appearance.

The first two row of photos were taken in the Yumtang valley in front of our hotel on two separate days. The next two rows show the peek-a-boo game we were playing with Kanchenjanga at various points on our trip.

It was stunning when the mountains poked their tops out ... even if the glimpse was fleeting and through a mist ... but it was quite a bit different from what we would have seen had we come in the fall instead.

The view from Tiger Hill on a clear day

Murder in the Mountains

These were the headlines we woke up to on Saturday morning. Madan Tamang, a leader of the All India Gorkha League (a pro-Gorkhaland political party), was hacked to death by kukris, long knives, in broad daylight (8:30am) the previous morning by members of an opposing pro-Gorkhaland party (the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha)....two blocks away from our hotel.

We were totally unaware of the incident because we were fast asleep -- having woken up at 4am to see the sunrise from Tiger Hill, we were back in the hotel resting up for the rest of the day.

Map of Gorkhaland

I can't claim to fully understand the nuances of the Gorkhaland movement, but in essence it is a struggle by a cultural and linguistic minority in West Bengal for an independent state within India (one of many such struggles). Somewhat surprisingly, Wikipedia says little on the subject, the best link would be the GJM link above.

I'm finding it difficult to write this post... there is a lot I want to say about this man's assassination and how it was tied up with our own experience of Darjeeling. I don't want to be flippant... it sounds debasing of this man's life work to be focusing on how all the pro-Gorkhaland tensions in Darjeeling over the last week were annoying for tourists ... but the thing is no one was really explicitly talking about what was going on --- until the assassination, that is. In the week leading up to the murder, we, as outsiders, could feel that that attitude was off: people weren't very friendly or forthcoming, everyone looked nervous, and no one was really smiling. We left the same day as the news of what happened on Fridays morning broke, so we don't have any real idea of what the situation is like right now ...

... but a group of 100 armed men, from an opposing but similarly oriented party, killed this man in cold-blood in broad daylight. I mean, what better indication does one have for how high the stakes are for this community of pro-Gorkhaland supporters... that they could be willing to go to such extremes? I'm not condoning their action - just reflecting on how by passing through we just barely brushed touched the surface of the tensions that were boiling over in this city.

(sigh) It feels rather foolish that before this trip we were so focused on potential Naxalite unrest in Sikkim that we didn't bother --- we had no reason --- to check if there was unrest in West Bengal.

Here's what I'm able to piece together of what we saw leading up to the assassination:

Preparing for the strike

Friday May 14th - We got to Darjeeling in the afternoon the night before the two day bundh, which we were mistakenly told would just affect transport. There was a lot of activity in the main baazar area, but we didn't realize that much of the comings-and-goings was related to preparations for a full shut-down of the city.

Closed for Gorkhaland

Saturday May 15th and Sunday May 16th - The entire city shuts down in protest of an anti-Gorkhaland bundh that had happened in Siliguri the previous week. We're told that the central government gets a lot of money in tax revenue from this region because of tourism (May is the height of the tourist season).... and both strikes were intended to demonstrate that they have enough "force" to hurt the central government in the purse strings.......... I think*

Monday May 17th - Wednesday May 19th - We went on our ill-fated trek

Thursday May 20th - We go out briefly, so that I can tell the Trek Mate office manager what I really think of the services he provided (see above link). While out we see an all-female GJM protest march going through town.

(boh! I'm unable to upload any of the video I took!) UPDATED (06/17/10)

The march ended in the main baazar area and we could hear them (though not understand them because they were speaking in Gorkha or Nepali) all afternoon. They sounded very VERY angry.

Friday May 21st - Here I'm a little sketchy on the details. There were two protests scheduled for that day, one from the AIGL and one from the GJM. The GJM took the main baazar area again. Tamang was quoted in the papers as saying, shortly before his death, (to paraphrase) that he outsmarted the GJM by finding a centrally located space for his own rally despite the GJM having got the choice spot of location.

As I said above, we had gone out very early in the morning to see the sunrise, so when we got back to our hotel at 7am, we went down for the count.... but even at that early hour, people could already be seen going about their day. We had sightseeing planned for the rest of the day, so we had arranged for the driver to pick us up at 9am. He wasn't able to reach us until around 10:30am.... he said he had got stuck in a jam because of a rally (which was easy for us to understand since we had seen one the previous day) .......... at this point, from what I could tell, none of us really knew what had happened that morning.

We went about our sightseeing during the rest of the day .... each time we got back into the car there were fewer people out, fewer shops open.

We got news through our driver in bits and pieces as he was picking it up from other drivers all over town. By the time we returned to our hotel, the news had spread throughout town and everything was closed, just like it had been during the strike. But instead of the closures being in solidarity towards the Gorkha cause, shops were closed and people were hiding indoors because they were afraid of retaliatory violence.

I just feel an incredible amount of shock even writing this email. Shock at the horrific way this leader died. Shock at the intensity of the emotions we witnessed. Shock at the depth of our ignorance and how close we were to serious trouble. Shock that the pro-Gorkha cause has been brought to the national stage in such a violent manner - and shock at the knowledge that this incident can be the harbinger of no good.

I read this morning that 45 people have been detained in connection with Tamang's murder, which they are calling "premediated". Locals are dennouncing the act, saying it is the "death of democracy" .... Their outrage is understandable .... but... how could this happen in the first place?

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* I don't really get it because I feel like they are hurting themselves economically instead --- especially if all the unrest keeps the tourists away.

A Perfect Sh*t Storm

So, I think the technical term for what our vacation has been so far is "clusterf*ck"

Our travel agency jerked us around on the permits; we wasted time in one town (Kalimpong); missed sights in others (Tsomgo Lake); shortened our stays in Pelling because of the
"transport" strike; only to get to Darjeeling and have two days with absolutely nothing to do because it was actually a general strike; to add insult to injury, even the weather isn't cooperating - the rainy season, which usually starts in June/July has come early, so besides being wet most of the time and having the mountains cruely hide behind clouds, we're contending with mosquitos the size of my index finger and leeches crawling up shower drains. UGH!

Some of you may have noticed that I'm ALSO writing to you before our trek was suppose to end on Friday evening ... How to put into words the utter frustration of the past three days.

By Monday morning we still hadn't received any word from Trek Mate, the company we were using for the trek that was suppose to leave that morning.... so Allen went up to their offices and sat there until they opened at 10am. When they opened the office they apologized for not getting in contact with us (because apparently no one is allowed to answer a cell phone during a general strike... eh, right?), but that we could grab the gear they said the would provide us with (parkas and sleeping bags) and we could be on our way. Allen said that we had no way to carry them - so they gave him an oversized (made for someone 20kilos larger, we later found out) camping bag. Allen asked is there was anything else we would need since we hadn't brought any serious gear b/c our primary goal on this trip wasn't treking. He said that we would only need t-shirts during the day b/c it got hot, the parkas were for the night when it got cold, but besides that we should be fine.

HA!!!! The guide then picked us up at the hotel and (because he was a subcontractor and wasn't there when Allen had spoken with the office manager) seemed a little surprised by us only having sneakers and light rain jackets beside the Trek Mate gear.

What a joke. Looking back - these were all moments for someone to speak up, say "hmmm... doesn't look like you guys have all the necessary equipment - maybe we should get you rented shoes?"

But we were starting out later than scheduled because we only spoke with the office after they opened at 10am (originally they were supposed to pick us up after breakfast, around 8am).... we didn't leave town until closer to 12:30pm. Everyone assured us we would be fine and rushed us out the hotel, with what - in hindsight - seemed like a light load even for a camping trip. We thought we would be OK because there were huts we would be staying at along the way ... and because we NAIVELY put our trust in this company. Let me explain.

This wasn't a trail we were climbing up - this was little more than a road of rocks ... uneven rocks ... rocks that are slippery when went (like during the rainy season) ... rocks that are challenging to climb at the best of times ... but are miserable to climb when you've got on a heavy pack of useless crap and improper footwear. The sleeping bags were useless because every hut (better to think of as hostel) we stayed at had beds and plenty of blankets ... and the parkas were useless because who wears a down jacket in the rain!

UGH! Add to that the guide - who despite being friendly - was keeping up a faster pace than even he had anticipated - we always seemed to miraculously make it to our stopping points ahead of schedule. It was like we were racing the other people on the hill to get to the stops faster.

It is easy to see now, in the comfort of this internet cafe, off the mountain (and away from the debilitating effects of altitude sickness), to see where things all went wrong ... but at the time, we felt so rushed, so much pressure to just go, and frankly, excitement at where we were ... that we couldn't forsee what would inevitably happened*.

By the third day of our trek... after 22km walk and close to 3000m above sea level ... my left knee just gave out. There was no accident (thankfully), but I knew shortly after 9am yesterday morning that I couldn't keep going up the hill without risking more serious damage to my knee. It was a really hard decision to make. I felt like I was letting Allen and the guide down; like I had gone so far (we were only 4 steep km from the top, Sandakpur) only to give up near the end. But really I didn't have a choice.

So we made that decision to turn back at around 9am ... it took until 4pm to find transport to get down the hill... and another 4 hours to get back to town. Thank goodness I hadn't broken something ... or, heaven forbid, needed emergency medical services! We were totally floored at how there seemed to be absolutely no procedures in place to deal with an injured trekker. I can't imagine I'm the first person to get hurt and need to go home - but damn, at times it certainly felt like it. You would think after years and years of these various trekking companies working on this trail ... or hell, even these little villages that dot the path ... that at some point or another they would have developed a system of mutual support to get people off the mountain. But no.

We begged any passing cars (because a lot of Indian tourists forgoe walking up the mountain and just drive to the top instead) if they could take us ... many were too full of luggage ... one was plenty empty and the passangers had even said OK, but the driver decided it wasn't worth his time to wait so he left without us.

(sigh)

So we got back to our hotel after 4 motion-sickness-inducing hours in a jeep and car ... thankfully there was room in the inn for us (ha) ... but it had been a very very long day.

We're angry at ourselves for not being more prepared - but we're more angry with the "guides" we hired for not properly warning us of what we were getting into. Yeah, foreigners have to hire guides (because you cross into and out of the Nepali border), but ... shouldn't these guys know by now how to get people up the mountain safely?

Ugh. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.... this whole trip is starting to feel like "if we had known then we would have...."
Which begs the question of what is the point of hiring travel agencies and guides if not to make sure you know what you're gettin into!?

Glad I got that off my chest - sorry for the extended pity party. Hopefully when we get to Delhi and London, I'll give you a better perspective (ie, pictures) of what we've seen and done up here. I promise to keep those future posts thematic, so you don't have to suffer through the chronology of our clusterf*ck of a vacation again.
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* Sounds a lot like "Into Thin Air," no?

UPDATE: (06/17/10)

Here was our itinerary. We were suppose to make it to Sandakpu, but only got as far as Kali puri

This was what we were walking on.

(sigh) ... Look at how excited Allen looked on our first day... little did he know what he had in store over the next couple of days

Darjeeling BUNDH Hai!

A quick update because I am literally writing this post from the office computer of the hotel we're staying at here. So... that "transport strike" we were told about was actually a GENERAL strike. Bundh means closed. It is the word they used for strikes, but a better translation would be general shutdown.

We rushed here - cutting short out time in Pelling (where we saw Kanchenjanga peaking in the skyline!) - so that our driver could drop us off in Darjeeling and get on to the road back to Gangtok before the strike went into effect.

Turns out we came to a ghost town. Everything is closed: shops, restaurants, local sights ... and the trekking company we scheduled our trek with.....

....

So we THINK we're starting a 5 day trek on Monday... but there have been threats to extend the strike into next week.

....

So maybe not.

We're trying to look on the bright side --- we're seeing things we would never have had a chance to see otherwise. For example, our tire almost fell off on our way from Pelling; we'd never seen the inside of a roadside garage before or watching people reallign a car wheel by hand... I've never seen a Chowk bazaar completely deserted ... but it has given local kids every excuse to start cricket games all over town....

:)

I'm hoping you'll hear from us with good news that we're on our trek and that we're gonna have a great time ... but who knows, maybe not hearing from us is the best sign that we've been swept up to the foot hills of the Himalayas and are having fun trekking....

(shrug)

LOL ... all we can really do is laugh at this.

But I promise to post more fun stories soon.

Wish us luck!

Lovely Lachung

OK - enough of the pity party. The netbook is still on the fritz, but that doesn't mean I can't fill you in on some of the adventures we've had since my last post.

Thankfully, two days ago we pawned off to a different local travel agency, Macropolo World Travels, for an excursion up to Lachung and Yumthang valley near the border with Tibet.
We were really impressed with the organization of this excursion. Not only where everyone we interacted with professional but they also seemed genuinely proud of what they were showing us, whether it was breathtaking mountain views or how to drink local millet beer (more on that later).

We had a government-required guide (someone to ask questions!) and driver, who took us up 6 hours in the rain to Lachung. During the drive the surrounding mountains were just bathed in fog and there were times when visibility on the road was just a couple of feet. This was prime landslide territory* so there were many occasions where we were just driving through mud, rock, and sometimes small waterfalls.

Unfortunately, the rain held up all through the night and into the next day. Visiting the Yumthang valley was eerie because the clouds were right on top of us at times. It was cool, but mildly disappointing because we knew we were missing this (click for link)

The day was not a wash out by any means though... our guide, Ajay, was extremely personable and when he found out we were interested to learn more about local culture/customs he was happy to show us. We had butter tea - tea brewed with butter instead of milk, so it needs to be churned to keep the butter and water from separating. Best to think of it as a sort of creamy broth rather than tea though... We had local millet beer - literally, fermented millet in a large mug that you pour hot water on but you drink with a straw. Little like drinking mate with the opposite effect. Taste would probably be closest to a sort of pungent sake with a slight hit of bubbles. Pretty freaking cool.

And we were invited to sit in the kitchen while the cook cooked for the whole hotel, just because they heard I was interested in learning how different cooking is in India. The kitchen was a whole new world of fun - there were like 10 guys hanging out in this fairly large kitchen: one head cook, about 4-5 helpers, and another 4-5 hangers on. I was pretty pleased to see that style-wise the cooking was really similar to what I had already seen with Prem --- just all the pots and pans were way bigger.

And then it was time to head on back to Gangtok -- but lo! The sky had completely opened up for us ... and holy crap! The mountains were right in front of our hotel! Like, right there! And we had had no idea!! All the drive back was like a whaling expedition - with our guide pointing out "hot spots" where our prey was likely to poke out its head. It was awesome! Just whet our appetite for Pelling, where we hope to see Kanchenjanga and Darjeeling for our trek.

What a change a couple of days make. We were sad to leave Lachung and our guides. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. We're being told that there is a strike by drivers being threatened in Darjeeling and so we're pushing our itinerary up, skipping Tsonmgo Lake entirely, and rushing to Darjeeling as soon as possible... that way if the strike does happen, at least we'll already be there.

(shrug)

We'll see. But we're excited nonetheless.
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* During the rainy seasons (June and July) they have to shut down the roads entirely because of the danger of flooding and rock slides.

Karma is a ...

real pain in my ass. Who knows whether we're storing up good karma for the future or paying back something we did in the past (or in a past life!), but our relaxing mountain adventure has seemingly been anything but. I don't mean to be hyperbolic -- believe me, the beautiful mountain views and the COOL BREEZE alone make this trip feel worth it -- but, we're incredibly disappointed with how it feels like this trip is slowly spinning into a tailspin despite us having booked this trip through an agency intentionally to avoid these types of pitfalls.

View Larger Map

To be fair, we were warned before hand that Sikkim, while a developing tourist destination, doesn't have the same infrastructure for tourists that say Rajasthan has ... but we assumed that meant amenities at the hotels like fancy furnishings ... not say, the hotel not knowing that we were scheduled to stay there ... or not say, drivers being only contractually obligated to drop us off at the 4 or 5 sights they were scheduled to go to rather than actually being able to tell us what they are... or not say, feeling like we're just cash cows for the tour operator's cousin-brothers who own and operate all the hotels we're staying at ... or (most importantly) not say, no one seemingly having any freaking clue how to get our permits for the outreaches of Sikkim!!!

Sikkim is wedged between the Nepali and Tibetan borders; and especially considering how contested the Tibetan border is with China, India has a vested interest in making sure that not every Joe-shmo is allowed up there without having a good reason to do so*. This is where our permits come in. The agency assured us before we left that even though they couldn't get our permits in advance anymore (more fallout from the David Headly affair), that it should not be a problem once we got here.

HA!

The reality is that it doesn't seem clear that anyone has any idea what is require for these permits. Our driver (as we were coming in from West Bengal) just dropped us off at the border in order to get our Inner Line permit; he didn't know where the office was, he figured it was near the building where the border police were hanging out. Luckily, deserted tourist must wander around there often because someone kindly pointed us up the hill to the Tourist Office and then to the local police station to register at the Foreign Resident Registration Office. We then wasted two days in Kalimpong in West Bengal (seriously, it is pretty town, but we didn't need to spend two nights there), only to get to Gangtok -- the capital of Sikkim, where you get your permits for the rest of Sikkim -- ON THE WEEKEND! None of the permit offices were open! How did the tour agency, that ostensibly planned our itinerary fail to recognize this flaw in their plan? So we're in Gangtok now, for an extra day because of their poor planning, but to add insult to injury they keep asking us for more documents ... first they need passport photos, then they need copies of our passports, then they need a copy of our Inner Line permit, no wait, on second thought they need the actual permit, oh, and actually, we need your actual passports to show them... Just one thing after another. Do these guys have any idea what is required to submit these permit applications? Or are they literally doing it for the first time?

So we've basically wasted the better part of four days waiting around in hotels -- with our time broken up by drivers dropping us off (literally) at local monasteries** ... but it isn't like I could make use of that time by writing you all blog posts about how beautiful the scenery is or how amazing momos are because ... (wait for it) our netbook is broken again!!!

I know!

It is the same "disease" that it had in Mussoorie, where it will make a clicking noise, freeze, and then blue screen of death. So no picture uploading, not after my last experience in an internet cafe up here, at least until we get back to Delhi. (sigh). For anyone that cares about these types of things, I'm pretty convinced now that this is a hardware issue for a number of reasons:
(a) the clicking popping sound, (b) that it seems as if the computer forgets where the operating system is on the C: drive, (c) that it only seems to happen at altitudes higher than 1200 m. That's why I think it worked just fine when I got to Bangalore (920m) and not Mussoorie (2000m) ... and why it seemed to be working fine in Kalimpong (1250m) and not Gangtok (1400m - 1700m). Has anyone heard before of hardware getting elevation sickness?

(sigh)

So needless to say ... although we are really digging on the mountain views, the fabulous momos, and hanging around Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries watching young monks play ... we're feeling a little stressed about our adventure. LOL ... we were really looking forward to our last weeks in India being on auto-pilot ... just to have an India-lite experience*** ... so much for that.

Best laid plans, right?

But who knows? Why not be optimistic about all the good karma we must be building up? Bodes well for the end of the trip, when we'll be doing a trek in Darjeeling ... or maybe for all the crazy adventures we'll have this summer visiting friends and family all over Europe and the US****
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* Although, you gotta question how effective this system of permits is when everything is done by hand in ledgers that are just kept at their various offices, not say, shared with the police ... for example.
** Which to be fair, are pretty awesome
*** To be fair, Sikkim totally is India-lite in the sense that, the streets are clean, there are no open sewers, private businesses personally choose to limit smoking in their establishments, there are NO BEGGARS, no one hassles us for tips or for "just looking" in their stores, and generally it is just more pleasant.
**** Which we are TOTALLY pumped about!!!

MOUNTAINS!

Just a quick note (sadly, with no pictures) to say that we've made it to northern West Bengal and starting tomorrow we're heading on towards Sikkim. It has been a bit of a whirlwind, what with me coming back from Bangalore, us packing all of our worldly possessions into a closet at Allen's school, spending a couple days with friends in Delhi, then back on a plane to the mountains... it feels like we've just been on "GO" mode for weeks now.

This is the perfect place for us to just sloooooooooooooow dooooooown... because there isn't really a whole hell of a lot to do up here: sit on shady benches and just take in the view and the relief-giving breeze!

Fingers crossed that I'll be able to give you a more detailed (read: pictured) update soon*

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* I would have had something sooner - but the internet cafe computer gave my flash drive a virus, so I wasn't willing the risk of transferring pictures on it - especially after all the trouble I had with our netbook already. There is a lesson here about how lackadaisical we are about our technology's security, especially when we're abroad and desperate to "plug-in" ... I'm sure I could also spin this into a public health lesson on the importance of protecting yourself against "strange" partners ... but that might just be taking the metaphor too far. Needless to say, we're being more careful now.

Bye Bye Bangalore

What a whirlwind of a week. Immediately after finishing up in Mussoorie I headed down to Benguluru (Bangalore) for a week to help out with a policy think tank I've been corresponding with.

Most of my time was spent in the office - which was wonderful in its own way* - so I didn't get to see much of the city, but what I saw I liked.

It was about 20 degrees cooler in Benguluru than Lucknow (which makes a huge difference). It was a much bigger city - more variety, more developed infrastructure. They had (true**) PUBLIC PARKS ... just look at the picture above, there is green space EVERYWHERE! The auto-rickshaws (there are no cycle-wallas) are technically suppose to use their meter - amazing!

Interesting, English is sort of the default language because Benguluru is an intersection point of several native languages (Hindi, Kannada, and Tamil). It was infinitely more easy for me to get around this city than it is in North India, where Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu mixed) is most common.

Fingers crossed, I'll have more reasons to be spending time in Benguluru in the future!

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*It is nice to feel needed

** As opposed the the pay kind we have in Lucknow. You have to pay 5 rupees to get into the public parks here, I assume to keep out squatters.