sikkim

tuesday was my last morning in darjeeling. jojo and i woke up early and walked to a gompa that was down one of the steepest roads i've ever seen. we were greeted there by an old monk (wearing a yellow sweater and bright red cargo pants), who showed us around the main temple. the downstairs portion of the temple had beautiful murals painted with gold, and pechas from the year 1277 that were all printed on paper made from yak skin. the most amazing thing though, was that jojo and i got to see the original copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. the monk took it out off of the shelf, unwrapped it, and showed us some pages. he explained that the paper was made with yak skin, yak butter, and yak shit, and you could still smell it on the book. it was absolutely amazing.

after we left the monastery, we spent 2 hours walking all over darjeeling to get our permits to enter sikkim. then we hopped into another crowded jeep and headed north to jorethang. the trip was only 26km, but took us about 2.5 hours because we had to descend 2km down the side of a mountain. the road wound through tea plantations, and at times it was so narrow that i could have reached out and touched the tea bushes. (at times, we got so close that the tea bushes reached in and scratched my arm.)

from jorethang, we caught another jeep and headed up another 2 hours to pelling. this one was a lot less crowded and our driver was a young guy who played good hindi music. darjeeling was beautiful, but it's absolutely NOTHING compared to sikkim. the road up to pelling snaked along a river, then wound its way up the side of a mountain. the air here is so clean, and people are so friendly. it's amazing to walk down the street and not get stared at or shouted at.

this morning, jojo and i walked to sangachoeling and pemagyanste monasteries, which were absolutely gorgeous. (i'll post pictures as soon as i get back to sarnath.) to get to sanghachoeling, we practically had to scale the side of a mountain, but the views of kangchendzonga from the top were worth it.

this afternoon we took a cab into gangtok, the capital of sikkim. we haven't seen anything except for our hotel, but there are a ton of gompas and institutes around here that i'm really excited to check out. sikkim's state religion is mahayana buddhism, and it's incredibly environmentally and socially conscious. all along the road are signs reminding people that it's illegal to throw cigarettes out of car windows, solar panels for street lights, and hydro-electric plants. plastic bags are illegal here, too.

it's amazing to think that this place belongs to the same country as filthy, crowded varanasi. it's beautiful here.