Hooo, travel days are exhausting! We got up at 5, took 2 jeeps, and are now killing time before we take an auto-rickshaw to our train! Sikkim was so tranquil and sweet, but now we’re going back into “real” India. We didn’t end up extending our time there, it was just to much hassle, so we had about a week. We took it easy in this sweet little village called Ravangla, and luckily our $4 per night hotel had BBC world news, so we got to watch all the election night (morning for us) excitement, as well as Obama’s acceptance speech! We are so excited, and so is the rest of the world! When people ask where we’re from, they always tell us how happy they are about Obama winning. In the papers there were articles about how McCain would actually be better for India, being more pro-business, aka outsourcing, but the entire country is behind Obama.
But back to Sikkim. The state is wedged up between Nepal and Bhutan, and has only been a part of India for some 30 years. So the culture there is really unlike that of the rest of India, the people are primarily Buddhist, the architecture and the food is different, closer to Chinese (not tooo close though). There’s a lot of politics around the state, China doesn’t recognize India’s claim to the area, so India absolutely pampers the state to keep it happy and pro-Delhi. The residents live in little farm houses, but they have satellite tv, pay no taxes, have more lax alcohol laws, and an environmentalist agenda that is the polar opposite of the rest of India. So the state is made up of scattered villages connected by footpaths and bumpy roads only jeeps can travel on. The topography is incredible, steeply rolling jungley hills that reminded me of the best parts of Norway and Hawaii, behind which rise the Himalayas. In the area where we were there are red pandas (we didn’t see any though) and over 300 species of orchids. Only a few were in blooming season, but there were tons of wild hibiscus, poinsettia, rhododendron! plus bananas, all kinds of ferns, banyans, it was an absolute paradise! We spent a few days in Ravangla, and a few in Yuksom, a yet smaller quainter village, and one in Tasheding, which isn’t so interesting except it has a really beautiful, super holy, Buddhist monastery.
So next is Calcutta, which should be… interesting. I let you know!