India

INDIA --SIKKIM TREK -- May 1998

We are now in Sikkim and the start of a short trek as part of the 'Himalayan Kingdoms Tour and Trek' of Bhutan, Sikkim, India and Nepal.

Sikkim is sandwiched between Nepal on the west and Bhutan on the East, and is a tiny area of 2800 square miles. Sikkim reaches from a low of 800 ft to the summit of Kangechenjunga at 28,100 ft which is the third highest mountain in the world. Sikkim has Tibet to the north and India to the south and it is now a State of India.

Our trek starts at Yuksom at 5800 ft. We are camped tonight in a big field with lots of barking dogs and crowing chickens. In the morning we pack up and our duffels are put on the Yaks.

We have five Yaks and eighteen Porters all from Sikkim. To-day was a long hard day, we hiked four hours until lunch and then two more hours after lunch, we seem to be going straight up the mountain with steep switchbacks. The trail has lots of big rocks and roots, as well as yak dung and lots of mud; it is not easy to hike on.

We are now at 7000 ft and are staying the night at a Trekkers Lodge. It was a big building and all the women slept in one room and the men in another room.

Trekker's Lodge on the trail.

I had never trekked with Yaks; we have always had Porters who carried the loads. A Yak driver makes 180 Rupees a day for each Yak, this is about $4.25 a day per Yak and he has five yaks which equals $21.25 per day. This is a good income in this part of the world. A porter in Nepal makes about $2.00 per day plus his tips.

Kitchen Boys making our lunch on the trail

I have been having dysentery this past day or so and after breakfast I felt really sick. I just cannot get started. We hiked for another five hours and I made the decision to stay at the trekkers lodge at 10,000 ft. I was getting dizzy sensations while hiking and my eyes were getting blurred. It would be another two hours straight up to the next lodge and I do not feel I have the energy to do it. Our trek leader Peter agreed with me. I got my duffel off the Yak and one of the porters, named Pathang, stayed with me. Later on they sent another Porter down with food, chicken soup, rice, biscuits and eggs. It is quiet here and I immediately went to sleep for a solid six hours.

It is dark now and I have a candle in my small room and Pathang has brought me my supper of chicken soup and rice. I again went back to bed and fell asleep immediately. The rest of the group keeps going to there night’s destination at Phedang 11,300 ft, and the next day to Dzongri at 13,100 ft.

I am staying in the village of Chohas it has about a dozen huts and two trekkers lodges, I will stay here for two nights along with the porter named Pathang who is an Indian from Kalimponmg.

At six a.m. the next morning, Pathang brought me hot tea as well hot water to wash. I had slept the entire night and am feeling a little better. After drinking the tea I went back to bed and slept sound until nine a.m. I had two boiled eggs for breakfast and they are not sitting just right in my stomach though the dysentery seems to have abated. I went for a short walk for about twenty minutes but ended up getting terribly hot. The village is full of noises, people and animals.

People from another Trekkers house have just gone by on their way up the mountain and about an hour later a Canadian girl returns and is suffering from stomach pains, she went into one of the other huts. The porter brought me lunch of orange juice and biscuits. The weather is really overcast now, clouds obscuring all the mountains. I went to bed at seven p.m. when it got dark and listened to the porters in another hut who were singing. They sang very nicely and when they finished, another rowdy group kept up the noise until ten p.m., then Pathang got up and put an end to it. I slept the night through.

It is very foggy when I woke up this morning and it rained hard in the night. I am starting to feel normal again and the group should be here for lunch. I am packing up in the event they decide to go further down the trail. Apparently they had foggy weather up higher and did not get to see all the fabulous mountains. Peter decided we should all stay here at 10,000 ft for the night.

Yak coming down the mountain

This morning we are up very early and are trekking downhill to Gangtok a seven hour hike. My feet are really sore and I will take these darned boots back when I get home. I have taped and re-taped my feet but my toes are still jammed going downhill. I will, for sure, loose my toenails again, I can hardly walk and they hurt. No more with these boots, sure wish I had brought my low hikers, I do not seem to have a problem with them. I had trouble with these boots in Peru and also in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho.

We have finally made it into camp which to-night is in an army barracks and a dormitory style arrangement for sleeping. The rooms are really rough, no electricity and the floors are broken in places. The grass around the trails to the various parts of the barracks are full of Leeches, they are even in the hole made for the outdoor toilet. Some of the ladies on the trek are paranoid about the Leeches but so far none have jumped on me. We were woken up the next morning at 3.30 a.m. The Kitchen Boys were right beside our room making the breakfast. After breakfast we got on a Bus for a long ride to Kalimopol, India. We have left Sikkim and our trek behind.

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