Gangtok Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

5/20/07We woke up early and eager to finish the hike down to Yuksom. Even though it rained hard last night, the trail was muddy and slippery but wasn’t as bad as we thought. Thupten was on high speed mode, unusual for him, but he was probably anxious to get back too. All in all, it was about five hours of walking, mostly downhill, crossing bridges and winding through the jungle/forest. This was the same path that we initially walked up the first day and we were impressed with ourselves afte...

I normally prefer the DIY version of travel, but Sikkim, India seemed like one big difficult mystery, with special permit requirements, long drives between towns, and a general dearth of information. So I booked a 10-day package trip that includes hotel, transportation, and some sightseeing excursions, too. Seven days into said trip, it occurs to me that the itinerary (which I admittedly didn’t study too closely in advance) was developed for far different travelers… perhaps an elderly Ind...

The Himalayas strech 2500km.The range boasts of fourteen peaks in excess of 26,200ft/8000m,including Mt.Everest which at 29,028ft/8848m is the highest mountain in the world. The highest peak in our country is the third highest in the world -the Kanchendzonga ,located in the second smallest state , Sikkim. Sikkim is between Nepal on the West ,Bhutan on the East ,it has the towering Tibetan plateau to the North and the sourthern region bordering West Bengal is the only way of accessing the area.

A year long road trip driving from Sydney to Southampton in a BMW X5 checking out progress on the Asian Highway Project and visiting 100 world heritage sites along the way

i love adventure, and here's all of my adventure trips and people i met randomly and have travelled with

A link to my weblog where I am recording my trip to India.

Mountains, more mountains and again more mountains what was I thinking of when I decided to go to the Indian Himalayas. Do more trekking? Suffer a bit more? Have I not been damaged enough? Do more crazy stuff? Test my vertigo once again? Well I think not... and besides that Mt. Kazonchanga is totally covered in a thick shroud of clouds which renders it completely invisible from the naked eye. So next adventure: destination Bangladesh, touted by the Lonely Planet as one of travel's last front...

    After an hour, the jeep left crammed with 12 of us.  The exceptionally beautiful drive to the hills consisted of constant hairpin turns on frequently potholed roads and always along a very steep cliff inches away from our vehicle.  Our driver didn't seem to notice how close we were to near-certain death and instead chatted away on his cell phone, admired the scenery,  turned up the radio, and seemed to be practicing for the Indy 500.  I just listened to ...

Off the deep end.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that it doesn't get cold in India. When we were planning this trip we had visions of Darjeeling as being this wonderful hilly country, covered with tea plantations and happy natives picking away in their loin cloths and sari's.  Well it is sort of like that but when you head out to Darjeeling in January --- you'd better bring your thermal loin cloth and your down-filled sari.  It is amazing what altitude does to the ambient temperat...

Armed with my permit, I set off for tsomgo lake, climbing 7,000ft in the process (by jeep of course). If I tell you that the journey of 28km took two hours, you'll get the idea. A sign along the way exhorted us to "think of the people who risked death to bring you this road". At the third police checkpoint (we were very close to the Chinese border) there were half a dozen stalls, each selling hats and gloves. Hmmm. I arrived at the lake to find it a bit chilly. The lake was frozen over,...