Entering Once 'Kingdom Of Sikkim'

21 May 2008 (Day 6) - Half Day Around The Mountain
Today we woke up a bit late and after breakfast, we start our 4WD journey entering Sikkim. Our destination is Pelling which situated in the west of Sikkim.
Some History : Sikkim was an independent country/kingdom until 1975 when they joined India as one of their state. They had a Maharaja but was brought down by the people. The Maharaja Of Sikkim lineage still around but they're no longer remembered. People of Sikkim are from three major races i.e Nepali descendant, Bhutia which came from Tibet (but some of them are originally from Sikkim) and the authentic Sikkimese i.e Lepcha. Most Lepchas live in the north of Sikkim. All the three races called themselves Sikkimese (not Indian) and proud of that. Anyway, they don't look like Indian at all. Interestingly in Sikkim ONLY Sikkimese can own (buy/sell) the land there. In some part of northern Sikkim, ONLY Lepchas can own (buy/sell) the land. It's kind of like an autonomy state in India but still under Indian government administration. The funny part is all Sikkimese surname will be reflected by their races. If they're Lepcha, (like our driver) his name will be Palden Lepcha. Bhutia will have Bhutia as their surname and Nepali will have Rai as their surname. Enough of the history....

Along the way to Sikkim, we first stopped at one of the finest Darjeeling tea production factory. The Darjeeling tea can fetch up to Rs10,000 (RM780) per kilogram depending on the quality. Normally the first flush i.e before monsoon (Apr-May) is the best quality. Coincidentally, we had the opportunity to buy the first flush (it cost me Rs500 for 100 grams) and the taste is really really good. No wonder people all around the world sought after the Darjeeling Tea. Then, we stop at the tea plantation and took some pictures the women plucking the tea. It's a hard job to do. The road that we passed along the way was very scenic and the pictures that we took can't really justify the magnificence view. You really have to be there to experience the God nature creation at His best. Here I attached a few pictures of faces of Darjeeling/Sikkim. Enjoy it!!!
We stopped for lunch at the border town of Jorethang. There we tasted our first Sikkimese food i.e Momo. It's like a dimsum with their chilly paste. The food was quite nice but the place was a bit dirty. Then we entered Sikkim from Ramam Check Post (West Sikkim). We have to stamped our passport to enter Sikkim and showed them our Sikkim Travel Permit (we arranged the permit in Darjeeling). It's like entering into another country and we can only stay in Sikkim for 15 days (permission for extension of stay can easily be done in Sikkim). After the check post, we proceed to Pelling and we slept along the way coz we had a full belly until our driver ask us if we wanna visit the Ancient Capital Of Sikkim. Since we're kinda tired being in the car, so we went to explore it. The place called Rabdentse which was once the 2nd Capital Of Sikkim. It was all the way back to 17th century. Since it's located like a stone throw way from Nepal (where they're at war at that time), they moved the Capital City to Gangtok (East Sikkim) and it remain as the capital state until now. There nothing much left there and we won't miss anything if didn't go there either.
After some pictures, we proceed to Pelling. Along the way, again we stop at one of the oldest monastery in Sikkim. What can I say, monasteries are all the same but we did chit chat with a few student monks there and they're human after all. Before this I thought monks are really holy and have a very strict discipline but when we chatted with them, they're just like us. They socialize just like us (they even have girlfriend and going out with them openly). Most of them have hand phone and I observed some of them busy 'smsing'. The different is that they have to wear their monk's costume everywhere they go and they study Buddhist at the monastery. I found out also that they learn other things as well at the monastery like Mathematics, English, Science and all the basic secular subjects. Here I attached faces of the monks.
After that we proceed to Pelling (2,100 m) and arrived around 4pm. It was an 8 hours journey down and up the mountain again (with few stops). We checked in at De Regency Hotel which was a new hotel and the design was quite nice. According to the website, we can view Mt Kanchenjunga from the hotel. We'll see if that will happen. The weather in Pelling was as cold as in Darjeeling. It'll go down to 8 C at nights. After check in we roamed around Pelling town which is a very small town. There's nothing in the town but at least it's as clean as in Darjeeling unlike the stereotypically dirty Indian towns. Even though, it's a quite small town but we love the place coz it's really 'nature-lovingly' relaxing and the service in the hotel was excellent (highly recommended). We called the night early coz we hope to wake up early tomorrow to view sunrise over Mt Kanchenjunga from the hotel balcony. I'll tell you what happen in my next post...