At the foot of Kangchengzonga - Yuksom

Nov 6, 2011 – Yuksom, Sikkim, India

Monastery roof

I'm sitting here yak-clad: yak gloves, yak hat [with ears], yak scarf and yak socks. I'm finding out for myself the truth of the Dalai Lama's statement that “yak is God's gift to mankind.” They keep us warm at these altitudes – ok, it's them and Gore-Tex. The cozy, adorable village of Yuksom is shrouded in clouds and is at the center of a web of small trails through the plushly forested hills cradling it. There is just one road that bears a jeep or two a couple times a day – so no honks disturb the serene soundtrack of crickets, the wind and some Nepali music in the distance. The delicious food grows in the gardens tended to by little Nepali and Tibetan grandmas and many a little goat is here to be petted.

Amidst the forests surrounding this village, little smoke “huts” are spread drying wild cardamom, picked in the same forests, even during the rain, which seems to mist a few times a day. Cardamom seems to be a big thing here – near the Ketchaperry lake, I sat with a family cleaning the freshly-picked spice from the roots and soil stuck on them....and here the goods are dried and the seeds are picked out for a journey out of the country.

Peeling wild cardamom

Drying hut for cardamom in the forest

Few pale faces make it here. And the ones who do are a special kind – they are for the most part here to ascend to the white caps – Yuksom is the trailhead for the main Kangchengzonga treks – Goecha-La and Dzongri – so, it's mostly the silent, peaceful mountaneering folk. It's hard to believe that this lovable Shangri-La-like village was once the capital of Sikkim – with a Choagyal coronation throne to boot. I guess, that shows a fair piece of Sikkim – it's all in tiny villages sprinkled sparsely amidst the big and small mountains and connected by jaw-droppingly beautiful spagghetti of roads. It is easily the most tranquil place I've had the fortune to experience in India.

A few monasteries watch over Yuksom. It's only partly a figure of speech – a few Sikkimese told me that this is how the bigger “towns” were built in Sikkim – at least one monastery was always built above the city, so that it could alert the city's chief of an approaching attack. There is a mossy, slippery but beautiful trail to the oldest one in Sikkim – Dubdi Monastery. If one takes that trail a bit further – like 6 hours further or so – one makes it to the most sacred spot in the whole state – the Tashiding Monastery. It is where one of the main holy caves of Guru Rinpoche [aka Padmasambhava] is, and it is believed that if one crawls along the u-shaped “birth-canal” in the rock in the depths of the cave, all one's issues shall be resolved.