Sikkim!

This week mom and I have been in the tiny state of Sikkim, and the scenery is like heaven! Sikkim became a part of India in 1975, but it was it's own kingdom until then. It's between Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet, so the culture is more a mix of those countries than Indian. Not gonna lie, this is my favorite state I've visited in India because it's clean, peaceful, beautiful (did I mention clean?!) and the people are very sweet and friendly. The terrain is almost completely mountainous, and it takes many hours on narrow, windy, bumpy roads to get from one city to another - even when they're just a hill or two away! I love that there are tons of waterfalls everywhere, and that the roads often go right through them. One guide we talked to said he's never, in his whole life, driven faster than 25 MPH because the roads are that windy and steep! One thing I learned about myself during my drives through Sikkim is that I, the girl who loves fast speeds, and lots of spinning, twisting, turning in just about any context, does indeed get carsick. I didn't think that was possible, but I have been humbled by these roads.

I just happened to visit Rumtek Monastery (near Gangtok) during a huge yearly festival, where the monks perform Chaam dances with elaborate costumes and masks!! Each dance lasted about 30 minutes, and they were symbolic of Buddhist culture and traditions. The monasteries here are painted with vibrant colors and intricate artwork - sometimes with pictures telling stories of various Buddhas, and other times with frightening faces to scare away demons. I have seen many prayer wheels (filled with scrolls of Om Ma Ne Padme Hum) at monasteries, but the most impressive take up a whole room and are twice as tall as me! I especially love the groves of trees with hundreds of weather-worn Tibetan prayer flags fluttering in the wind.

Sikkim requires tourists to get special entrance permits, beyond the Indian visa, and some regions of Sikkim require *additional* permits as well. Mom and I went to one such region in the northern part of the state... but the extra work to go there was worth it! We went to a small village called Lachung, at the base of a massive snow-covered mountain, and slept at a cozy homestay. That night, sitting on small yakskin stools and chatting with the locals, we learned how to make handmade Sikkimese noodles. The next day we went hiking through a rhododendron sanctuary in Yumthang Valley - a pristine place with waterfalls, flowers, colorful birds, prayer flags, and yaks everywhere! The snow came down to the road in some areas, the clouds swirled low through the trees, and the yaks took breaks from eating flowers to come up to my camera and pose for me :)

In a city called Namchi I visited a HUGE Buddha Padmasambhava statue on the top of Samdruptse hill that's 147 feet tall. To put that into perspective, I'm about as big as his toe! The statue is painted with copper, so you can see it glittering in the sunlight from miles away - on a sunny day, it looks like it's made of pure gold. Across the valley, on Solophok hill, there's a 108 feet tall statue of Lord Shiva facing the Buddha. There's a hindu temple complex at Shiva's feet (with replicas of important temples from all over India), and even though the whole project is still under construction, the architecture is incredibly impressive! Shiva, with a cobra wrapped around his neck, is my favorite of all the Hindu gods, and I wish I could see the project when it's finished.

Mt. Kanchendzonga (third highest mountain in the world) is a main attraction in Sikkim, and we were lucky enough to have the clouds part several times for us so that we could see it (that's rare in this humid, cloudy season). Besides the views of the mountains, my favorite part of being here has been talking to Bhutanese people about their nearby country (I want to go there!). Because it's a tiny, landlocked kingdom, the culture is still unspoilt - people still wear their native clothes and live in brightly-painted Bhutanese houses. And the king even takes the time walk through his country and visit each village, just to connect with the people and make sure they are happy!

That type of caring personality is also abundant in Sikkim, and the people I've connected with have been fun, laid-back, and kind. We've taken nature walks, been fed dried-yak milk chunks, and eaten fern-roots (nicknamed "thirsty fruits") with locals. We've been asked by dozens of friendly people to take photos with them, and we were even interviewed and filmed for a Sikkimese documentary (an onlooking man said that my mom is a natural actress and looked more beautiful than me in front of the camera - totally true!). And, I have been bone-crushingly squeezed into jeeps with 14 other people, and one one of those rides I was stuck together for 5 hours with bubblegum... to the owner of the hotel I was heading to! Awkward. My favorite is that everyone addresses me as "sister" and my mom as "aunty," and I think I'm going to miss that.

This is just some of my randomness... I'm definitely enjoying it!