Yumthang Valley

One of the things I wanted to do most in Sikkim was the 9-10 day Goeche-la trek, which would take me up to the base of Kachenjunga mountain and an altitude of 4940m, closer to its summit. However, as Northern Sikkim borders with Tibet, security in the area is very closely controlled and the only way to get into this area is as part of a group with a recognised guide and a permit. Usually I shy away from these organised trips but for a 10 day trek in this area you'd need a yak or two to carry kit and food, and a guide to get you in and out so I was prepared to sign up to a group and hand over the necessary cash for this part of my trip. The problem I found on arriving in Gangtok (Sikkim's capital) was that not many others where up for a 10 day hike now that the weather had turned really cold, and despite trawling around all the guest houses and trek organisers in town I didn't manage to find enough people up for the adventure in order to put together a minimum sized group of 4. There was rumour of a group heading out in 10 days time but I didn't have 10 days to hang around for a rumour so slunk back to my guesthouse to form another Sikkim plan.

Pouring over the old Lonely Planet I read about Yumthang Valley in North Eastern Sikkim which due to its location is off the beaten track of most tourists. Overnight my luck changed and I found a group of 3 Suisse and a Colombian (now living in America) who were also interested in going and had already started to organise a jeep. Yep, there was definitly room for me in the jeep and they were more than happy to have me join them so we set off early next morning for the long drive North.

Our days drive was broken by visits to a couple of stunning monasteries en route but we were all keen to get as far North as quickly as possible, knowing that the sooner we got there the more time we'd have to spend there. 'There' being Zero Point; the end of the road, quite literally where the tarmac stops and tips you out on to a snowy boulder field surrounded by steep mountains with the Tibetan Plateau stretching before you.

We pulled in at nightfall to an elaborate looking hotel that had been decorated at a temple and whilst waiting for dinner set off in search of 'Tongba' the local brew made from fermented millet. We eventually found some in the home of a local shop owner whose wife, dressed beautifully in Tibetan robes invited us through to their enormous kitchen/lounge/bedroom/bar. Filling up large bamboo handle less 'tankards' with millet she then poured on hot water and gave us bamboo straws with which to mash about the mixture. The taste is very bitter and acidic, like young wine, but it's warm and wet, which up here at 3,800m is very welcome on a cold dark night. We walked back to the hotel under some of the most beautiful night skies I've ever seen and with all that warm tongba inside me it wasn't long before I was fit for my bed.

Next morning we were up early and wrapped up against the bitter cold at 5am. Around 6am the sun rose over the mountains and the views around us became mesmerizing.


The jeep wound its way up literally hundreds of switchbacks and as we climbed the snow thickened and the rivers crossing our paths became more and more frozen. At just after 7am we could go no further, the end of the road! and there was a big sign to state the fact!


At this altitude (4,800m) and at this time of the morning it was bloody cold, but frankly that didn't register with me I was so overwhelmed by my surroundings. Along with the Swiss we took turns taking photos and playing in the snow and then I sat myself on a rock for a while to sit down and contemplate the view around me, letting my thoughts wander across that plateau to meet up with a future dream of a train trip to Lhasa.


On the way up that morning we'd picked up a Tibetan guy and girl who'd climbed up to the top of the jeep and bared the freezing temperatures on the drive up. I'd forgotten about them until one of them wandered over with a mug of boiling hot chai for me, making me realise also just how cold I was. The Swiss and the Columbian were huddled under a sheet of plastic masquerading as a tent and trying to keep warm when I found then and although I was pleased to be in the warm I really wanted to be outside with the mountains. I grabbed another mug then went back outside, where in the sunshine it really wasn't so bad. I'd just settled down with my tea in the sun when the guide came over to bundle me back in the jeep. "No!" I begged, " we cant go, we've just got here!" not wanting to leave the view. He pointed out we'd been there for nearly 2 hours, one of the Swiss girls was suffering with the altitude and the Columbian woman had turned into a popsicle so I relented and climbed back into the jeep for the long drive back to Gangtok.

Although somewhat pissed at not being able to do my planned trek and not having more time to spend at Zero Point this jaunt is so far without a doubt the highlight of my trip so far and for a short time has provided me with my mountain fix. I have the images of that Tibetan plateau fixed in my brain now and they'll stay there for a long time, at least until I get to see that view again.



xx

Photos...

A random selection of some recent shots have just gone up on Flickr. I'll get around to adding descriptions/tags etc when I get a chance. In the meantime... enjoy!

xxx

Poverty & Filth

For many people the first images that India conjures up are those of poverty & filth, and indeed these words are often come up in descriptions of the country and its people. Both exist here but it annoys me that the terms are used so readily in India's case and often put hand in hand with each other.

When I was growing up in the UK dropping litter was a heinous crime. The 'Keep Britain Tidy' logo was on every can and packet and bins plentiful in every park and street.

Filth is not a word that often comes to mind when thinking about London or many other British cities. However you don't have to go too far outside of many major UK cities in order to find poverty.

Paris is the same and if you glance out of the train window between Gard du Nord and the airport you'll see countless areas in which people are living in poverty, just miles away from some very affluent residential areas. These affluent areas are however often filthy, with dog shit strewn streets and cigarette buts and litter in the gutters. Its this needless litter that I define as filth.

In Indian cities many live in poverty and the litter is thrown into the street as there are very very few bins. However the rubbish is very often swept up and piled into a lorry in the morning, leaving the streets relatively clean. I therefore don't really think you can describe India's city streets as filthy. Unfortunately the countryside is.

With India's middle class growing ever more wealthy more and more families are traveling and vacationing in their country and during a recent 5 day trek we passed countless families ' trekking' with all their bags and trappings piled into a jeep. The jeep also contains mountains of sweets, chocolates and snacks wrapped in miles of plastic packaging, all of which gets tossed out of the windows and on to the paths, just as it would be in their hometown. Here though there is no rubbish lorry, or even a cow to munch up the mess and the paths are tracks are knee deep in plastic trash. In West Bengal's Singalia national park, in which I trekked with Rob and Tom, we paid Rs100 national park maintenance entrance fee each, and spent our entire time picking up litter. The India guide thought we were crazy and I have to admit after another jeep raced past leaving a confetti trail of sweet wrappers I was beginning to think he was right. When we reached a chai house on the trail we pushed all the collected litter into the bin, only to later watch the lady of the house chuck it over the edge of the hill into the collective rubbish pile. This is where poverty and filth meet. When there are no facilities to collect or deal with rubbish and the pollution and health hazards it creates multiples.

The tide of change is slowly turning though as India's poorer population realise that filth and pollution has to be brought under control. The state of Sikkim has come to the conclusion that by being more environmentally friendly (its banned plastic bags and many plastic containers) it can cash in on eco-tourism, which generates much needed revenue to help deal with waste. It's schemes are well organised and its policies based around education and health care so that it simultaneously attacks pollution and poverty issues. Of course not all of its schemes are positive and it has some quite controversial HEP projects but their communications and marketing campaigns are powerful and changing the collective mentality.

Lets hope that this change in mentality will spread to the ever growing mobile India middle class, so that as India continues to pull its way up the economic ladder away from poverty its countryside doesn't drown in the wave of filth most imagine littering its streets.

Night Skies

There are many many reasons why I travel to some unusual places, one of them being that often I find myself far aware from dust, light and air pollution and in some really impressive places.

Often perched on top of a mountain or in the ocean of a desert you get the most magnificent night skies with millions, billions, countless stars spread out before you.

I'm just back from Northern Sikkim, a small region to the North East of India squashed between Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and Bangladesh where each night I would sit outdoors watching the stars track across the sky. Despite the freezing cold temperatures I couldn't drag myself away and for hours I gazed at satellites, planets and the Milky Way and every so often caught a streak of light as a star shot across my hemisphere.

Its only when you get to see the skies like this you realise how small we really are and how much we've fucked up our atmosphere and environment. I wish more of you could experience what an unpolluted version of our nights could look like.

xxx

Bollywood

India wouldn't be India without the glitz, glamour, shimmying and shine of Bollywood, and for me no trip to India would be complete without a visit to the movies!

My vacation this time around couldn't have been better timed with 2 major new blockbusters being released simultaneously to coincide with Diwali (Hindu new years).

Indian cinema has come a long way since the days when males and females couldn't touch and the scene of a half eaten apple being passed between the lips of a male and female caused shock and outrage. These days theres no end of suggestive dancing and writhing around in wet clingy saris, all to a funked up Hindi soundtrack with hoards of backing dancers. And the competition between the movies is fierce.

This year, in the red corner we have 'Om Shanti Om', a parody of 70's Hindi cinema led by India's top male actor, Shah Rukh Khan, otherwise known as 'King Kahn'.


And in the blue corner, ' Saawariya' , directed by one of India's greatest, but with a debutant cast.







Not being able to understand the script does not take aware of the enjoyment of the 3 hour movies. The plots are always the same (forbidden love and/or good v. evil) and with more and more 'Hinglish' being worked into the dialogue the storylines are easy enough to follow. Anyway, you don't go to see a Bollywood film for the plot, but for the heckling and shouting at the screen, the singing and dancing, costume changes and chai intervals!

With its songs on permanent shuffle repeat in every taxi, cafe, station and downloaded to every mobile phone 'Om Shanti Om' definitely seems to be the strongest contender in this recent match and its without a doubt become the soundtrack for my trip. Despite its songs constantly buzzing around my brain nothing breaks the ice better in a jeep full of Indian's than knowing the songs playing on the radio and giving them enormous pleasure as I sing and sway along to the tracks!

xx

A long list


Once upon a time I had time. Time to think, time to research, time to plan so that when I arrived in a country to travel I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go see and do. I don't know what happened to change all that but even finding time to choose which country I would travel to for this trip was a struggle, and its only now that I'm here I'm able to sit down, open the guide book and start to look at my options. Maybe that's not such a bad thing though as I find the most useful travel reference is other travellers, so yesterday, sat in the sun with a coffee I pulled out all the notes I've scribbled and started to string them together into a plan.


The problem is I've just spent the last 5 days trekking with Rob, who now in his early 50's is riding a Royal Enfield around India, and as hes been traveling since the age of 24 has literally hundreds of great travel tales and recommendations. My notes therefore stretch someway beyond India's borders and the list ends up looking like this (in no praticular order):


Trekking in Sikkim (where I arrived today)
Mountain treks in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir
Jungle treks in Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh
Orrisa
Loas, and back into Northern Vietnam
Qinghai–Tibet railway
Trekking in The Mountains of the Moon - Uganda
Bolivia
Equador
Colombia
Chile - Torres del Paines and back into El Chalten (Argentina)
River running in French Guyana (like Cama & Fion)

Tanzania

Ethiopia
Istanbul to Cairo overland

Norway

Japan

Trekking in Borneo

Trekking across Tasmania (I'm saving this one for when Jo & Gerry are back in Sydney)

New Zealand

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan

Mongolia
Road trips, anywhere!

... and the list goes on.

As you can see the majority of the destinations revolve around trekking, mountains and my love of food (Ethiopia & Japan for example). When I'll get to do them though is in question, all I know is that I feel more comfortable now that I've drawn up a list so if I ever do get time I can start to research all these destinations, and potential travel buddies. If you fancy joining me on any of them drop me a line and we'll start some plans!

For now though I'm just planning 1 day at a time in the hope of finding some friends with which to do the 10 day Goecha-La trek here in Northern Sikkim, but given that it involves 9 nights in a tent and the night time temperatures are down below freezing I'm having trouble finding anyone crazy enough to join me ;-)

xxx

Darjeeling
(photos are up on Flickr, go to 'My Photos' over to the right)

Greetings from Darjeeling, West Bengal's best known hill station!

The night train from Kolkata brought me 10 hours North to Siliguri which sits at the base of the Darjeeling hills. Tumbling out of my 2nd class bunk I crowded on to the platform and as is usually the case here was swept along in the crowds, over the footbridge to the bus and jeep stand.

In some countries public transport is pretty well organised with the bus for destination X always leaving from platform Y, at time Z. Indian road transport however is organised a little differently... Pouring out into the crowds the best thing seems to be to start shouting the name of your destination. Pretty soon you'll find someone else shouting the same destination, at which point you haggle over the price a bit then climb into their jeep. They then go off looking for other passengers until the jeep is full (or overfull) at which point its time to leave. This may not sound incredibly organised, and at times it feels a little haphazard but it works incredibly well, and so just minutes after leaving the station I was bundled into a jeep at heading for the hills.

Darjeeling is a pretty popular destination so we joined a convoy of jeeps racing up the S-bend slopes, skipping over rocks and spinning out on loose gravel. The drivers obviously know the roads well and given that their revenues depend on how many times they can make it up and down the hills in a day there is constant jostling and overtaking on the tight turns. Our driver was, I'm pleased to say, a fast yet capable driver so only 4 hours after leaving Siliguri we'd climbed up the 2000m through the fog and mist, past tea plantations and Darjeeling spread out across the ridge in front of us.

I'd chosen to come to this part of the world specifically as November is the season of clear skies and cool temperatures, therefore providing great conditions for trekking. Darjeeling however was shrouded in damp, clammy mist and my first impressions of the town were nothing to write home about. I'd not come to mooch round town but rather to trek and so I set out to find other travellers who might be interested in joining me for a few days. I'd just stuck a note on a hostel noticeboard when I met Tom. Fancy going on a 5-day trek I asked... "Uh, OK" he replied. Bingo, I had a trekking buddy. Later than night Rob who was staying in Tom's hotel joined our group.

The Singalia trek is one of the most popular in the area and seemed like a good warm up hike to get me started. I have to admit I was pretty nervous about my fitness level given that I've done zero sports in the last months and Rob was just back from a 1-month trek in Bhutan and Tom runs 1,000 miles races, for fun. We got started at a good pace and made our way up from Manebhanjang (2130m) to Sandakphu (3636m) over the course of 3 days. The going was easy and the route was speckled with chai stops and trekkers huts so it was pretty luxurious really although the weather was far from great with cloud, mist, the odd spots of rain and low temperatures at night. The route zig-zags over the India-Nepalese border and so we were regularly pulling out our passports at border controls and Indian military checkpoints, the majority of whom would have to stop their cricket match or card game to log our details.

On the 4th day we awoke at 0530h to our first clear morning, and there in the distance stood the mighty Kanchenjunga mountain. At 8598m its India's highest peak and dominates both the Darjeeling and Sikkim skyline. As the sun rose the frost melted and the mountain turned slowly pink then grey. In the distance, on the border between Tibet and Nepal, Lhotse (8516m) poked up through the clouds and next to it the summit of Everest caught the morning light.
I can't explain why but being in the mountains and being at altitude feels incredibly liberating and after 10 days of travel I sat down, took some deep breaths and finally realised I was on holiday.

The route back took us through some beautiful forests and as we followed the river down the flowers bloomed in the sunshine and we were finally blessed with those clear November skies we'd been promised.

Back in Darjeeling after 5 days of trekking a shower (hot!) and some clean clothes were high on the priority list, closely followed by tea and cake to make up for our meager chai and dal trekking diet. Our arrival back in town coincided with Hindi new years, Diwali's festival of light, and the city was alive with candles, fireworks and firecrackers. Since then the sun has shone and the forecast for the next couple of days looks good so I'm packing up my backpack tonight and heading further North to Sikkim tomorrow in the hope of getting closer (both vertically and geographically) to those beautiful peaks.

xxx

ps. For some better photos of Sandakphu and the mountains take a look here: http://www.sandakphu.com/

Kolkata - show & tell

I've been lucky enough to get out and explore the city over the last couple of days so i'll share with you a little of what i've seen and learn't about the place...

Capital of West Bengal and considered by many the cultural capital of India, Kolkata played a key role in the British empire, acting primarily as its administrative centre.

If you read the English history books they will tell you the city was formed in 1698 when 3 villages were signed over to the British East India Company and merged to create a miniature London with wide boulevards, grand buildings, churches and museums. An Indian court has since ruled that the city in fact existed before the Brits arrived and so the Indian history books tell a somewhat more accurate story.

In 1756 an uprising of the poorer Indian classes recaptured the city and threw scores of the local aristocracy into a cramped, dark underground room below Fort William. Come morning 40 of them were dead, but the numbers in the news reports sent back to England seriously exaggerated the death toll and in usual UK tabloid manner the 'Black Hole of Calcutta' was born. Since then western media has continued to propagate the image with the 'Black hole' and Mother Theresa's struggle against filth and poverty being what most of us know of Kolkata today.

Serbian born, Mother Theresa dedicated her life to 'giving wholeheartedly to the poorest of the poor' and created a new order, Missionaries of Charity, in 1937 when she first arrived in India. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 she has been critised widely for accepting donations from corrupt businessmen and dictators, as well as for not addressing the root causes of poverty. For the most part, and certainly in Kolkata she is highly praised and loved.

The British left India and Kolkata many years ago but their influence remains in the architecture of the buildings and the city itself. Spread out along the great grey-green greasy banks of the Hoogley river the 2 halves of the city are connected by the impressive Howrah Bridge, which spans the river in a giant 450m single span and carrying more that 100,000 vehicles a day is probably one of the busiest bridges in the world.

Kolkata is also home to India's oldest and largest museum. Founded in 1841 and aptly named the Indian Museum the huge colonial building contains an impressively well organised collection of Indian art, sculpture, geological finds, anthropological exhibits and some rather gruesome aged stuffed beasts in the zoological department. Unfortunately photography within the museum is forbidden so you'll have to use your imagination.

I hadn't come to Kolkata with any preconceived ideas of the place but its vivacity, culture and energy is beyond what I could have imagined. Sure it has its downsides; filth, poverty, pollution (just like many other Asia and Western cities) but i'm pleased to have seen it with my own eyes and have something other than the image the media projects to attribute to the place.

After crossing many mountains, many rivers...



my pack has finally joined me in Kolkata!

Given that its hovering around 30c with frequent heavy rainstorms the contents (90% of which is thermal underwear and a down sleeping bag) are of little use to me, but after more than 7 years of travels on 5 different continents i've become quite attached to it.



Actually being reunited with my pack was an adventure in itself... Indian Airlines called to say it would be arriving on a cargo flight from Delhi at 7pm, however due to a taxi strike (thought i'd left all that behind me in Paris...) I had to wait until the next morning before getting back out to the airport. To cut a very long story short I spent more than 5 hours bouncing between various offices and bureaucracies filling in countless forms before my pack was finally handed over to me (looking like it'd made the journey strapped to a donkey's arse).



It does however contain a few of the bare essentials that without which life has been tough the last couple of days; tongs (flip-flops) which are essential in shared bathrooms; tiger balm, the only stuff that really works on bug bites; a headtorch to deal with the frequent blackouts; and a sarong that doubles, or even triples, as a wrap, bedsheet and a towel.



Finally with my pack back I've changed hostels, changed clothes and can recommence my travels, starting with the overnight train to Darjeeling tonight.