First things first: drive up a ridiculously long winding road guaranteed to make anyone feel carsick.
Lucky for me the roads were so creepy and steep that I completely forgot how horrible I was feeling!
Not to mention the Indian obsession with overtaking people.
Alright the anti-sick pills may have helped.
A lot.
We arrived in Gangtok about five hours later to this:
Sofie and I were super cool and went to bed at 9pm.
Next day we get a wonderful wake up call at 7am.
Because we only needed to wake up at 8am.
Because we were only leaving at 10am.
So makes sense.
7. AM.
We visited monasteries:
And dogs.
And football! Who knew Sikkim was so into football?
Now this is how you’re supposed to play.
I need this view.
So for lunch that day, Sofie and I ate momos (Indian dumplings).
And that was the last time Sofie and I ate momos.
Ever.
Yup. You guessed it.
We got……… food poisoning!
And it was absolutely horrible!
So. A day later. When we finally could. We ate a lot of bread. And bananas.
There are few things better than butter and bread.
At least the view was nice.
Note to self: I may be Indian, but my stomach is not.
The next day we drove to Namchi where we saw the tea plantations, a gigantic Buddha and a gigantic Shiva (who isn’t a woman?! Who knew? Actually everyone probably knew that. But it’s fine.)
Tea.
Gigantic Buddha.
Gigantic Shiva.
After Namchi we went to Pelling which is located at about 2500m above sea-level.
So. We arrive at the hotel and we can’t find anyone. Turns out the receptionist fell asleep on the sofa, nicely hidden from view.
We check in and go to our room.
No wi-fi, no English language TV.
What were we going to do with our lives.
Sleep. We slept. A lot. Kind of.
We woke up to the lovely sounds of a cow moo-ing at 6 in the morning.
6. AM.
But hey. We also woke up to this:
This is the Kanchenjunga mountain range, the mountain itself is the third highest in the world. Behind it is Nepal.
Oh I forgot to mention that we were landlocked between China, Nepal and Bhutan for the duration of our stay. Which means that if we could actually eat we’d have been able to eat really good Chinese food.
But. Again.
Stomach =/= Indian.
While in Pelling we saw this, this and this:
It’s safe to say we had amazing views all around.
We had a fairly interesting trip.
Whatever mountain range I visit next, it will have a lot to live up to. Even with its (fine my) dietary struggles, it was a trip not easily forgotten.
