Gangtok, Sikkim

Today Daniel and I finished everything on our "Gangtok To Do List." Since Friday afternoon we have been staying at a travel lodge on Tibet Rd in Gangtok, Sikkim. Sikkim is an Indian aberration of sorts. It is far more ethnically Nepali, and has the highest percentage of Buddhists living in the state. Also, Ganktok seems to be pretty affluent in comparison to any other city I've been in. It looks like most people enjoy a relatively middle class existence. So, Sikkim only became a part of India in 1976, and before that it was an independent state. In hopes of fostering pro-Indian feelings, the Indian government has given Sikkim some pretty major tax breaks. Oh, and it's much cleaner than any other city. There are litter free and no spitting zones, something I don't think you could successfully enforce anywhere else in India. I've also noticed there are liquor stores and bars everywhere; in most of India it's pretty hard to get a drink.

Mahatma Ghandi Marg is the main downtown road, and cars don't have access to the brick streets. A line of flowers and fountains stretch down the center of the street with shops and restaurants lining either side; something altogether more European than Indian. We've spent a lot of time there in the evenings drinking tea on the benches. Last night we made the acquaintance of a Sikkimese rapper named Jimmy there (again, this is a place of aberrations).

Gangtok rests on a mountain, at the top of which is a park called the Ridge. It's a long green space that offers some pretty good views of the city below. At the north end of it is a large flower exhibition center. It's orchid blooming season so on Friday afternoon we were able to see maybe a hundred different varieties on display there, along with some other really lovely fauna.

Saturday involved an expedition to the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology on the other side of the city. We reached it by means of the Damovar Ropeway, a relatively new zip line car sort of thing that takes you down and over a wide valley. The Tibetology Institute was amazing and one of our first really up close and personal encounters with Buddhism here. It's a museum sort of thing, displaying indescribably beautiful and tremendously old things like statues, thankas, and various sacred implements. The second floor of the building is a massive scroll library. There were scrolls there from the 7th and 8th century, exhortations on or discussions of the life of the Buddha or the nature of emptiness.

Just up the hill from the Institute is a large stupa flanked by Buddhist schools for boys. We were able to look in on one of their sessions at this sea of little boys in red robes looking at their little tablets, while the grown up monks at the front of the room were playing drums and horns, spreading incense and making offerings. We've started calling some of these little boys Buddha babies. Some of them are so young, and can't be older than 5 or 6 and they are kind of all over the place.

W were greeted by a host of young monk boys today on our excursion to the Enchey Gompa, apparently Gangtok's most impressive monastery and temple. Our trip their involved a pretty hearty walk up hill, but it definitely proved itself worthwhile when we got there. We were able to hang out in the courtyard for a while making conversation with some of the Indian tourists visiting, with drums and chanting in the background. From the monastery we scrambled a little further up hill to Ganesh Tok, a view point/Hindu temple high above the city for some good views and a cup of tea. I think we probably walked 7 or 8 km in all today, half of it uphill, so we'll be taking it easy for the rest of the time in Gangtok.

Tomorrow we return to Darjeeling.