SO, last time I decided to put something on this blog, I forgot the cardinal rule of using the internet in Asia which is, of course, Always Save Everything Every Two Minutes! Needless to say I lost everything that I typed, and then there was a power cut and that was that! Still, there's a connection here in Yaksom so I thought I would try again.
I managed to stay for five days in Pelling which is quite an achievement as there is not that much to do there apart from gaze at the Himalayas and go 'wow' a lot. There's a couple of monasteries, both at the top of ludicrously steep hills, some ruins of an ancient Sikkimese capital, and a bakery which I visited five times. To give myself something to do, I decided to see if I could find some coffee that wasn't instant. Off I went to the Elgin Hotel, the most expensive place in town where a room costs $160 per night. It's set on the top of a hill and has a lovely garden overlooking the mountains and lots of white wicker furniture so you can lounge around feeling privileged. The staff wear uniforms and special red hats and there are newspapers to read if the mountain views start to wear thin. Surely here there would be coffee!
No. Not even at the Elgin! Just a pot of instant which cost almost as much as my room down the hill, though it did come with a plate of cake and biscuits so it pretty much covered lunch.
Now I'm in a little place called Yoksam which was (another) ancient capital of Sikkim. The capital city seems to have moved several times during Sikkimese history. Unfortunately there are no remains of it, but there's a monastery at the top of a steep hill, for a change, and lots of extremely lovely countryside with sparkling waterfalls, lots of forests, vivid terraced rice paddies, and tiny villages perched on the mountain sides.
Tomorrow I'm going to a place called Uttarey. It draws blank expressions from other travellers and has no listing in the Lonely Planet, but both of those make me want to visit it. There are, apparently, some homestay places there and it's very close to a mountain range called the Singalila Ridge so there should be some pretty good views there. After that it'll be time to hit civilisation and make my way to Gangtok which is the capital of Sikkim and which is supposed to be clean, have a pedestrianised shopping street(!), a lively bar culture, and not just one but two branches of Cafe Coffee Day, the Indian Starbucks. Can life get any better?!
