Rishikesh, Himalayas and more..

W wanted to go to Rishikesh for a week long program..and so I jumped..accompanied her all the way and then jumped higher..
Went up the Himalayas around 1500 metres..Man what a world..
Each time one goes up the Himalayas, its even better (ok,forgetting the increasing litter of the lowly humans)..
And this time to visit a couple of very interesting persons who have achieved so much for the society was a big bonus..the weather was real cool which was an additional bonus..
I, normally one who loves cold, is not very well prepared for cold bcos I tell myself, I can handle cold well..
But this time I was stranded in a mountain top waiting for a connection bus where it was around Zero degrees and the wind factor added more chill and I was stranded with just one thin jerkin to support me..and for 3 hours!! Talk of time and connection at the mountains..people are so laid back in the mountains..their perspective of time is so funny, nay nice..when I ask for a bus connection they coolly would say it would come now in the next 2-3 hours..then once closer to that time if you ask, they would coolly say ‘oh may be the bus aint coming..wait for the evening one..’ this while am waiting on the road itching to reach another town desperately before evening!
That was fun!

Coming back, to the story that is, I was so happy to have been with Vijay Jardhari of Beej Bachao Andolan (big story coming soon) and Pawan Gupta of SIDH. These were in Uttarkhand..(jardari village enroute Uttra Kashi and Sidh in Mussourie. Rishikesh it self (I say itself bcos I went higher up!) was beautiful..Now I know why so many great people fell for Ganga maa..what a beauty she is! And all those of u who think you cant stand hill stations, winding roads etc, This is the easiest u can scale..cool access by train till Hardwar and then aasaan se phat phati or bus or taxi or walk;-)

Then after a couple of days at Delhi went to my favorite ground, Punjab..so more stories follow..
Hectic but fruitful and interesting travel that was..

beauty behold! all else can wait!

i know, i know..so many stories to be covered here..
but the travels have been so many and in quick succession that I hardly get time to pen..
the last few days was spent in south TN- Ambasamudram and Tirunelveli side..
oh man! what a beauty.. the people, water bodies, clean rivers, many falls and all those virgin forests near maanjolai..it was a feast..
for years i have been wanting to go and spend some time in those areas..but just couldnt make it..
but a visit to one of our Model farms (hey even Kaani.org is pending here..but have a qwik peek now and about our model farms which will show case ecological and economical sustainability of a farm in eco friendly ways)in Kadaayam/alwarkurichi led to this fantastic bonus.

heard of mudanthurai tiger sanctuary? the dams above papanasam falls? man! those were really beautiful forests..and then the icing was a virgin forest- almost private one called maanjolai! even the road leading to it is private..it prolly was enjoyed only by brits and later on passed on to the Bombay Burmah tradinghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif company who owns all those tea estates and the tea factory today..There is no commercial activity or hotel..one cant go and stay or spend time out there..then there is the Kodaiyar above this forest, which is a dam and has Electricity board active and nothing else..
all the way was pristine beauty..i dont even know if i should actually chronicle such virgin areas, lest more people go and spoil it!
some places reminded us of swiss..really! such calm, thinly populated and neat villages at an altitude..
W & me havent seen something as cute and beautiful like this after sikkim in India!
a sample here:



more fotos of maanjolai here!

yatra and then..

75 days, 15000kms, 20 states, phew..
it all flew..
I thought I would have time to report occasionally here..hmm, no way..
also bcos of the famous old disease of mine- to bite more than I can chew:-) I saw one person, especially, pitching in with tremendous energy on hosts of tasks! and yes..i took up many more tasks in the Yatra and so was extremely busy trying to make it look like i could chew all that instead of cutting a sorry figure..
so apart from all the challenging travel, interesting interactions, regular tasks, issues, documentation, etc I had my hands full..
Now thats reason enough for not having any updates here for long right?
But i do hope u all were following at http://www.kisanswaraj.in/ for updates, blogs and pictures. so actually u cudnt have missed on the KSY snippets for sure..

I did meet lotsa interesting characters, farmers, farmer leaders..was privy to lotsa interesting debates and engagements. so more to come here..

and BTW for long we have not had any chronicle on interesting and inspirational persons aint? Now we will have that too here soon..for there were quite some in this yatra:-)

Yatra!

Many of u know of this already..the Kisan Swaraj Yatra !
A group of loosely connected individuals and NGOs together have decided to go on an yatra aroud the country prophesying about sustainable agriculture, against Genetically Modified food, ills of such unwarranted technology and chemicals in farming, policies that tamper the farmers’ livelihoods, “development’ in the real sense, apathy of Govts and public etc.
This covers 20 states and 14000KMs across with loads of events, public meetings, awareness programs, etc organized.
We shall soon be having the concerned links.. we expect some blogging, twittering etc to happen along the travel. You can find more details and regular updates here at www.kisanswaraj.in from 2nd october 2010.
My personal blogging can only be sporadic, as expected..
But do peep in for some juicy stuff, interesting experiences and ofcourse curious insights. It will all flow even well after the yatra itself..so a very interesting quarter ahead.

Meanwhile, be informed this Yatra is funded only from individual contributions. So if you are up to it, kindly do donate. For details ping me.

Ok, got to go and prepare..
Yes raring and preparing to go..

PS: BTW preparations are a bit slow..my mom suddenly developed some medical emergency..so even this post had to wait to be uploaded.. with crossed fingers and bated breaths,I wait..

PS2: while this post is still lying in my drafts here comes another update: The operation resulting in the removal of uterus went on fine..just that there is some doubts about malignancy of some growth in that area..so i wait still..but atleast the operation and post op went on well! so there are no more doubts about my joining the yatra.

another 1000kms

so it was time for another travel..This time only 1000+ KMs..
one third of it was personal.
But the other part was very insightful and interesting too.
what with Rishi valley and its organic farm being a part of the trip do you expect.
Then there were some interesting farm(er)s enroute - Chittor, piler, vellore etc.
so much fun..Driving in rural India is fun.
but all that comes later..bcos i have hit base only today evening and so much to catch up..

oh! but i cant slip this..in the last week there were very few times I glanced TV or news paper..and of that what was nauseatingly repetitive was the hussain affair and the womens bill..
How our visual media and print gets excited about such non-matter, hmm..

The Sec media was so excited by this hussain guy getting Qatar citizenship. phew what the phuck? so what if he decides to do that? good riddance to bad rubbish! he has some cases here and he has been dodging it, thanks to our 'oh-so-secular' media and politicos. Now he cant do that for ever..so what he does? makes his temporary hide out a permanent hide-out.
So now let him enjoy this new 'freedom' and depict all those muslim rulers and other islamic leaders/preachers in his famous nude arts..good luck for his new freedom..soon he shall be free of his dick..and that i shall call secular, free and fair justice.
and The sec media shall not crib then bcos its secular too.

Then we had this women's bill noise. I briefly saw burkha licking er interviewing sinia the great! This great lady was saying "why do they need reservation within this reservation? are they not free to field muslim or backward women in this 33?" Oh! ya. how fair?
any other interviewer with some gall and bran wud have turned back and asked, so why this 33 at all? why cant all u political parties any way field so many women? why didnt kangress do that in the prev elections? who stopped them? why wait for this bill?
and who is gonna stop all rabris and MRs.politicos only dominating the 33??
But, you know its not for any logic or future or womenhood this is being enacted rit?

finally, a fantastic perspective from the inimitable Vandana Shiva.
see here! very well written and meaningful. Sadly very true.

1800 Kms on the road

In all this melee (anti GM campaigns, Piyush affairs,etc) I forgot to chronicle my long tour. 1800Kms on my scorpio to various places..different farms and meeting interesting farmers..It was fun..
It all started with a visit to Point return enroute to auroville..that nights stay at Sadhana Forest! An out of the world project in auroville where volunteers from all over the world come and volunteer in that extraordinary mission of Aviram & Jorit. That day (wednesday) was a talents night out there and to see so many talented youth from across the globe and showcase them casually in that off-grid campus was a great experience. Then we joined the volunteers of sadhana for one session the next morning and set off to trichy.
There was the agri exhibition out there organized by dinamalar (a tamil daily) and so an opportunity to see many farmer, farm equipments. It was fun bcos I happened to spend time with Ashok, rajasekar and Amit palekar (yes, the legendary, zero Budget fame subhash palekar’s son). So met some farmers in their network. Though my expectations weren’t met by this exhib, it had some purpose.

Then we set out to Kallakurichi, to visit an organic (oh no! zero budget) farm. Those farmers who follow palekar school treat ‘organic’ as a bad word. They will be driven by high conviction and wudnt deviate from their natural farming methods. They wudnt even tolerate a hybrid cow (to a nattu/desi cow)..so its always interesting bcos most of them see agriculture as a way of life..more like a spiritual practice than a livelihood.
So it was not new(s) when I met Chandrabose in the village called Neelamangalam 4km before kallakurichi. Nor was I surprised when I came to know there is no other farmer practicing organic farming in the surrounding. This man also hasn’t sold his produce in the market but only given to his relatives & friends alone and most of them have seen vast improvement in taste and health. Good example is his sister who always had acidity and other stomach problems which hasn’t surfaced from the time she has started taking his rice and grains.
It was a shock when I was talking to some farmer in that area when he said that one can’t extract jaggery on their own without ‘license’. Police can raid it seems! I see that as a sugar lobby’s ploy to stop small farmers from extracting their own jaggery but to sell the sugar factories- at the cost they determine! Hmm, ways of democracy!

Then we proceed to a village some 25kms from Attur (before Salem). We had to take a deviation towards koolamedu right at a foothill. The route was so scenic and this farm surrounded by hills on all side was a treat..so a walk around his farm towards the evening was so delightful.
This farmer was some 70+ agile man with loads of knowledge and energy. There were some very interesting products they had too..the steal was their castor oil..traditionally the castor seeds are milled with turmeric we were told and so the fragrance was fantastic..any amount of sniffing by my friends couldn’t lead to correct answer! It was so different. Among other things they had good amount of traditional paddy varities.

From there to Salem and Dharmapuri. As we were leaving the last of our farm visits (& the eco restoration project of Piyush) near pennagaram, we just saw a sign board saying Hogenekkal 18Kms.. we were scheduled to catch Dharmapuri road and head to Bangalore..
But the lure of fun..so we took left and went to hogenekkal had a good massage and a bath and were about to leave..
And here again suddenly we see a sign board saying denkanikota and Hosur..This is a single carriage way and thru the forests..so lured again we go..rest is history..
As my friend SL who was driving asks me to check the sound in the front bumper, I set out to check that and in the process of all those bending and mending, prolly dropped my mobile..bcos after a few Kms I realise my mobile isn’t there and we hit back searching and rest is history, as all of u know..I was without a hand for a few days- good days though, still the feeling of having lost in such crazy situation lets u thinking of butterfly effect and tracing back to so many unexpected turns that u took and how they affected in a totally diff area, unexpectedly..
Such is life- filled with surprises and losses ;-)

farm visits

yeah, am travelling..
after a long time and its pondy, Trichy, Kallakurichi, Atthur, Salem, Darmapuri, Hosur Bangalore. Visiting many farms enroute..
so bear with sparse blogging here, but wait for more stories..
off i go*brrrr*

Muthodi forest

The photo you saw there was budhi padaga – interior forests of Chamrajnagar, Veerappan’s forte. Its supposedly interior forest with amazing scenery and interesting stay – no electricity being the high point! But since there is a bye-election in C’nagar we couldn’t go here. You need special permission from reserved forest authorities and can only stay in their guest house.
So we chose another interesting place but in Chikmagalur district. Again another dense forest with no electricity and unlimited fun. Here again you have some cottages and dormitory provided by the forest authorities only. Trekking etc are organized by the authorities only. This is the Muthodi forest/ nature camp, Bhadra Tiger reserve! Before you start imagining, please erase any idea of spotting a tiger. I have gone to many places including Sundarbans where we spent 3 nights and saw nothing wilder than Deers & Bengalis. With all your jeep and noisy tourists, if you expect to see a tiger, its height of hopes and nothing else. So all we got to see was a few deers and a bison far away. Ok, lots of elephant trails.
So here again the highlight was the no-tv-no-electricity dark nights, sounds of birds & insects all thru evening & mornings, wood fired food, nice walks & lotsa greenery. Add to that a great company {telecom dealers & distributors of Bangalore- all my close friends and business rivals of last decade (my previous avatar?) } and your day is made.
We couldn’t venture long walks or bath in the spring close by bcos of leeches. Summer shud be a better time though. But a get away like this is rejuvenating any day.
note: phew..my mobile refuses to show the fotos to my laptop..so no fotos for now..wait till i wait and extract from my mobile;-)

Namma Bengalooru!

hey! its so nice out here..cool and windy..
hmm and W tells me the last 2 days have been hotter than last few days.
I had to tell W that, out here I had to cross the road to the sunny side like u do @ CH!

so much for Blore weather inspite of all these concrete jungles imposing all over you and the pollution. Its really nice & cool.

BTW that nice place inside the deep forests of kollegal (veerappan territory) where I was to go is a No-No bcos of some re-election:-(
so heading somewhere else for the weekend..
but the farm visits are on..
so here I go..

to the brim..

The whole day tuesday there is a program with Dr.Nammazhvar at Sevalaya. I work closely with both and so will spend some good time there. As I had mentioned long back, the sevalaya school children (11th & 12th) have organic farming in the curriculum. So there is a session for the students with Nammalvar. The morning session is interaction with farmers that side.

A full day goes.

then I head to Bangalore, Hosur,Mysore for the next 10 days.

So expect less updates here..but more once I have time bcos i will be visiting quite a few farms.

Meanwhile be informed that I shall spend 2 days here:

Howzzatt?

off to ND

remember the 'akasmaath' rubbing of shoulder with my namesake (but a famous one!)? if not go here. So am now on to that long pending trip to Navadarshanam! I have heard so much about ND, Ananthu and the other people involved there, am excited to be there from 2moro.
so am off for a few days and be prepared to lack of activity out here. But do come back by weekend for regular blogging shud start then. ciao.

Makkithitta, sakkaleshpura!

I mentioned a few weeks back about the trip to Sakleshpura. It was to a home stay called Makkithitta some 15 KMs after s’pura and what a stay it was..
This house was perched on top of a hill and the setting was fantastic like this:
Hills on all sides and a small valley overlooking the house on the south! What a site it was and so much of agri activity happening and regular drizzles added to the incredible stay.
The family that runs it intelligently pushed us to go and play football in the slurry of a field..they really egged us and said the previous day the prev party did that and they all enjoyed..yada yada yada..then we all reluctantly entered in to that field of 1 feet marshy clay and water and played..slowly with time we got engrossed and freaked out, got back tired and dirty and the rest of the evening was regular scene, ofcourse after clean up..
But I mentioned intelligent owners right? That we discovered the next day! The field that we played had been (trans)planted with paddy and the new party were playing in the adjacent one..so actually all the fun apart, we all were asked to play to plough the fields in a way:-)
It’s a great place. Their food was out of the world and their hospitality is something unbelievable! A great place for a break.

Its another matter the telecom dealers' fraternity of Blore (one time competitors and very special friends of mine) went and so needless to state the fun and laugh involved..lotsa old funny episodes in our business heydays, dealers' pranks, how we used to pull the MNC's apart esp during product launches,each other's foolish deeds in initial days, etc wud all flow thru the day.

Namma Bengalooru!

just came to Blore on a v short trip..phew..cool clime here!
am jealous really..
its so pleasant and fantastic, I was dripping of J! till I went out, that is, and reality caught up!
am sure i cant last 3 more days of this traffic jhunjut..
I feel really sorry for Blorites..
I say this fully aware that Madras traffic is following Blore way fast, still..

btw am off to sakleshpura for 2 days with my old telecom folks here..just to check out the place, clime etc for a trek later after monsoon:-0
so off I go..gimme a few more days b4 I complete the auroville experiences..

on a sabbatical!

yeah, on hols within hols;-)
am off to auroville for a 10 days workshop on natural farming! Be good till I come back!
Solitude is a 6 acre sustainable farming community in the international township
of Auroville inspired by Fukuoka’s philosophy on Natural Farming and the wholistic vision of Life. we shall be there to be a part of sowing and other related activities on the farm (remember aadi pattam thedi vidhai?).
Basket weaving with cane and palm leaves, Blacksmithing, community cooking, eco-building,
playing music, and exploring a healthy dynamic life together, all beckons us!
There is also no electricity or the internet there but you can see the stars in
the night, hear the birds as you wake up and even encounter the odd Cobra in the bushes!
mmm, am excited and counting down.

Travel round up..

So the travel (travail?) continued..went to nagpur for a week as a part of domestic obligation and so clubbed some more visits..Topping that list of must-see was Sewagram near wardha (some 70kms from Nagpur) where Gandhi spent a few years and that place is still maintained the same..Dont get me wrong, am not a big Gandhi fan but wudnt hate a lot of his ideas but do feel he did let us down with some of his personal preferences thrusted on the nation. Ok, that's for some other day, this place has a 100 acres of land where they carry out Organic farming in some 30 acres..It was very interesting to interact with Ms. Malathy and go around their farm..They are one of the rare places to have organic cotton and so shirts and other clothings made from that! That was interesting and so was their Goshala, compost yard etc..soon I shall be helping them promote their clothings in south here..

As for Nagpur, it's an impressive small town with fewer cars than bikes and so less traffic nuisances. There were lots of theme parks and the one that impressed me the most was an adventure camp that had so many students indulging in various challenging activities. The trek we went on that hill near by and the rappling(rock climbing, infact climbing down with all those gears) and the other activities that I did for the first time was all a great experience. Add to that the gamut of chat items and sweets one gets to indulge in and u know how happy I shud have been at Nagpur!

Then went to Bombay met up with some school mates and spent a couple of days at Lonavala. This is a over hyped place and a boring one at that, wasn't even as cold as pune! The only good places were the parts near Ambi valley (remember that sahara guy's atrociously expensive colony?) and that sunset place, otherwise it was a big let down.

The express way from Bombay to Pune was great, very westernish and so was the scenery all along. No bikes allowed and so was easy for the car guys. The old highway was impressive too.

Pune was cooler but pollution and traffic was bangalore-like and so was a bit tuff..but outskirts and friends made it better..esp the farm house that my friend Dedhe took me to was out of the world and the treks there in those surrounding hills, food we had, walks along the river was amazing..a very refreshing place filled with O2.. added to that was lotsa greenery and hill views on all sides..one of the best stays in recent times..

So another 2 weeks went by in traveling, socializing and visiting some interesting folks..

Life goes on gmen..now off to coorg;-)

V for Bengal

Calcutta was a pleasant surprise for us..the day we reached was puja weekend and so it was a cool slide of a drive to the hotel belying all our fears of the horror stories we have heard about Cal traffic..that night we wandered around Cal till late in the night and were very impressed..lotsa colors, great pandals- each one monumentally designed like a regular structure- architecture and decoration out of the world..people, people every where with all smiles and what a festive look the whole city had..even the next day and on laxmi puja day too was marked with sparse traffic..Thats the best time to visit Cal folks! – weather is fine, great atmosphere and traffic is a dream..
We had one of the best walks all thru the Park street till late night and had a great ride on the metro (that was earlier- sad that metro doesn’t run late)..Metro was cool- very functional and clean, a blessing to cal..
The next 3 days were spent in the sundarbans area- less said the better. Most of the time we were on the boat and sometimes off to some view point or other expecting to sight some animal (2 crow,12 deers,250 mosquitoes,and some Bongs is what we ever saw).. How can one ever sight a tiger (expecting one out of the 250 in that vast expanse of 2500 sqkms!) and with those noisy boats loaded with even noisier people..how did it not strike us I dunno! so bottom line: don’t even attempt sundarbans, if u do for the beauty and for the expanse of mangroves and water or for the great serene look of the rivers joining the sea- just do it for 1 day.. don’t ever try more..its so boring and useless!
Confession: when I compared some prices for sundarbans area and hastily with greed booked a 3 day jaunt for the same price as a 2 day pack and also saw that a single day was even costlier..but that logic dawned only after going there..u pay higher bcos u escape soon;-0 But I shud say that a village we stayed inside sundarbans that did not have any electricity (generator works from 6to 8pm in the evenings alone) was an unique experience..moon light walk was romantic and that village surrounded by water and mangroves on all sides with paddy cultivated anywhere possible..
But the boat drive with so many locals was interesting in its own way..only it took so much time for us to get used to their language- English with those Bs and Os – packed with their typical intonation! Once we were ready with that O filter, that is filtering the thrust of O on the 2nd syllable and filling all Bs with Vs (or almost..) it was fun..But man! I realized I shud have born there..the boat trip was filled with food, food timing, tea/coffee, snacks, food and food..how many times..after a heavy snack, deep fried one at that, at 7 or 8pm folks freak out on a 5 course meal for dinner at 9.30pm! 10 years back I wud never have wanted to come back from Bengal..
One thing very obvious and irritating was everybody spits everywhere in Cal/Bengal..not that it doesn’t happen else where but its too much here..W said there are 3 types of people in cal..1- spitting (60%), 2- making that ugly iigaaaaaaaarhhhhhhhhh noise (35%) and 3- generating saliva(5%)..But Metro is an exception..so if they know one shud not spit there they can be courteous and maintain that decency everywhere else too rit?
Inspite of all this Bengal esp cal is captivating..I wud go there again..
Finally a test: Bob take a bob!
Didn’t get it right? U have to spend a week in Bengal to get that!
Its vow take a bow:-)

Assam & ML

Already folks have started asking me when will regular blogging begin..so much for the travel bits..any way shall finish off with small notes on Assam and Bengal..more for my memoirs than being very informative here..
After that interesting stay at Delo tourist home, we proceeded to siliguri to spend sometime with Bimal (the famous guy who gave us rosy picture about the try_n_avoid_them_if_u_can place called siliguri;-)) then we reached Guwati by train. From frying pan to fire u may say or from siliguri to Guwati u can say..
Man! Guwati is a drainage deluge and so we were actually glad to even forego one day’s paid up hotel stay and run off during the end of our assam trip.
Assam was so green and wealthy on water everywhere and we were glad to be on the road again. Add to that good roads all along assam, it was a great relief. Bonus was the colorful pandals all along the road side due to puja. We drove all the way to Kaziranga and stayed at a very interesting place- Bon Habi just a km away from the national park. But it was a wrong time (agent's goof up not expanded here)..most parts of the national park thrown out of gear by severe rains and a better time is normally Nov rather than Oct!
Still the amount of green, diversity of the flora and birds at Kaziranga amazed us.
From there we drove to Meghalaya- supposedly translates to ‘abode of clouds’, but we realized it was abode of dust and exhaust. Unimaginable amounts of dust turning the color of the leaves of trees on road side to brown! As u near Shillong u find more traffic and more spewing of exhaust. Its an unique place, unlike most hill top cities this is not a small one, but a vast expanse of a city on the top! Hardly any veg restaurants to help us but more cantonments and so well planned layouts and roads. We were surprised at the puja fever here too.
Next day came the revelation..drive to chirapunjee (ya, the rain record famous place) was beautiful..as exotic as one can imagine, this part of ML was fitting the bill of “Scotland of the east’ perfectly (as coined by some brits in early 20th century ). Winding roads, scenic beauty, bountiful falls, deep gorges, water bodies all made it a great drive. Remember that Dhoni and karthikeyan’s ad and their drive to cherrapunji? Now I know why they say that!This drive lives up to the ‘abode of clouds’ name of Meghalaya. There’s even a stalagmite cave here and many other nice view points, parks and falls..but not one good restaurant to lunch, sigh sigh..
If only they can do something to the huge truck traffic and their venom spewing exhausts these 2 states can be a good drivable tourist spot.
Lots of surprises in these 2 states anyway.

Hope

Remember Darjeeling?
On our way back from sikkim to guwati we stayed in a place called Deolo Tourist home and if ever u have to spend sometime in that part of Himalayas its ought to be this Deolo hills. Several times better than Darjeeling or Kalimpong! This is at a higher altitude than those 2 places, far less crowded, more oxygen and weatherwise too way better..
add to that one name- sanjay das!
This gentleman who was working in the hospitality industry in places like Goa suddenly felt the urge to get back to his native- Kalimpong in this case and took up the challenging job of reviving this Govt property on top of the deolo hills, yes govt prop! He has done a great job as one can easily see here- reviving it from a dilapidated condition in a few years is no joke.
One has to just spend some time with him to know what all he has done and how humourously he puts across his views and also have him narrate about what he watches (people’s actions and reactions, eg: stealthily sliding some garbage from back of the hand rather than walk couple of paces to the bin) from his cabin..Having turned this prop in to a very modern and private-like-running hotel he now aims to upgrade it in to an enviro friendly place.

Such people give us hope that things can prolly get better in our lifetime itself, or may be…

Update: forgot to give the fotos link http://picasaweb.google.com/ananthoo/DeoloKalimpong

Sikkim

Very impressive state, in many ways..a very cantonmental state with so much of military presence, border state all shud give us a different idea.. but it’s a state filled with nice smiling courteous affable people..very decent esp on the road..even if there is a traffic jam of 1km or more, people will still stay decent one behind other, no shoving their cars in all possible directions..hey, are they not Indians?? Then why such decency on road;-)
Blessed with scenery everywhere, what with Himalayas imposing on all directions..
What best describes sikkim is this: every day we would think we have seen the best part, and feel so great at the end of the day telling ourselves that we have prolly seen the best of Himalayas, only to be beaten the next day.
Other attractive plus points being a hoarding by the agri ministry of sikkim saying they were aiming to make sikkim an Organic state! Plastic ban- this good move has cut off the indiscriminate usage of plastic and so one doesn’t see them strewn all over!
Though most of us tend not to consider sikkim in our NE tour, be informed now to have sikkim an integral part..
as for NE itself, most states like Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura are hostile..I met a Manipuri who told we cant even visit there (but did mention there so much beauty and unique flora/fauna there, still)..infact no hindi channels/movies allowed there it seems:-(
For those of u who just came in- see Gurudongmar and Lachen Lachung and the brag

Lachen / Lachung

Two quaint places in two parallel valleys in North Sikkim with rivers of respective name traversing the valleys. These two rivers meet at Chumthang to become the lovely Teesta river. Lachen chu (chu is sikkimese for river) begins at the Gurudogmar lake and seems wider and more cheerful than the Lachung chu.

Of the valleys, the area around Lachung is so varied and beautiful.Lachung valley is a straight cut paste from swiss. We found lots of similarities – scattered houses, neat small roads, imposing moutains on all sides, 24x7 noise of the river, courteous n friendly locals.. The whole valley was very impressive. We were told the whole valley is soaked in snow in winter (so next visit shud be in march/april). No mobile phones work there, so ideal for holidays:-0..One can forget all else and stay for how ever long here! W said if she were a nomad and roaming to find a place to settle, she wud for sure choose this place to settle! I seconded that! (rare concurrence that)

We were lucky to see the fall colours, unlucky to see vast stretches of Rhododendron shrubs with not a single sample flower in sight. April is bloom time for the Rhododendron, and there are 24 varieties in 7 different colours apparently. Climbing through the winding roads of the Rhododendron sanctuary, we reach the beautiful Yumthang valley. The river bed of the Lachung chu has thousands of red coloured rocks which in the mid morning light looked glorious and almost ethereal. The red colour is from algae our well informed driver told us. He drove us further north, up beyond the tree line, past cleverly camouflaged army bunkers, to a place aptly called Zero point. This zero point comes next only to the 'once in a lifetime experience' like the walk I had on Glacier 3000 in CH! The "Hindustan road" to quote our driver ended right there. Further north was Tibet and some Himalayan peaks in their snow covered glory. The gurgling of a snowmelt stream that went on to become the Lachung chu and the whistling of the wind were the only sounds. This was kind of similar to the cold desert leading to Gurudogmar lake and kind of different. We traced back our path barely an hour later, but the Yumthang valley was now shrouded in fog and looked completely different and more ethereal. Dakbang another secluded place with dense pine trees by the Lachung chu was out of the world. An army truck headed straight into the woods unmindful of the fact that our flimsy vehicle was bouncing along on a semi paved road!!
As we were proceeding towards our hotel we gave lift to an army man, who apparently was the only survivor from a trekking team in that avalanche of 2005! he had more stories to tell and typical of all fields sighed about how mountaineering too has changed with time and how there is no 'season' these days, etc..u never know how interesting each turn in north sikkim can be!
The manager (santosh) of the hotel we stayed (Fortuna at lachung)was a very interesting person and who wud take us in to the woods for an interesting walk or to the secluded river side to experience the silence amidst just the river noise or for a sooper drive to off beat peaks..
No end to fun at lachung!

Lachen is just a small village but at 10000 feet is brought to life only by the tourists who stop the nights before hitting Gurudongmar next day.Its quite chilly with rustic comforts and simple food but tons of hospitality helps one overcome any other shortcoming.

for photos go here
Rating – Great
Will I go again- yes! Again and again…dont besurprised even if i settle there:-)
Best time to visit – Oct / Nov. and i u want snow- april/may and for the flowers - may-july..

Note: though brevity is not my cuppa, I refrain from writing more on the mess created by our travel agent like screw up in schedule, hotel etc at a couple of places..inspite of him and his mess we enjoyed, that’s the point