Northeast India

After Jaisalmer, Jodpur and a 26hr journey to Varanasi, we headed on a 14 hr journey up to Siliguri. We then caught a cramped 2 1/2 hr jeep with 14 people squashed inside, to Sikkim's engineering University. This was not something that was planned in advance but we met a student, Amand, on the train who was on his way back there and we didn't have a busy schedule. Met some guys who studied there but were forced to move on quite quickly to Gangtok, because some of Amand's 'enemies' on campus were threatening to report him to the campus authorities for having unauthorised guests in the Boy's house. While we were there we discovered that an boy caught in the Girl's House would suffer a severe penalty in the form of a 35,000 rs. fine... which we thought was about right.

The University was nestled on the bank of a winding river that was surrounded by gaint woody mountains. We then spent 40 minutes getting to Gangtok (the capital of Sikkim) via a very windy road that zig-zagged up and down the steep contours of the landscape. We arrived there late and found a nice hostel in the centre.

The people in Gangtok are very diferent from there southern counterparts, according to Henry they are more similar to the Nepalese. When you smile at someone in passing they even smile back, and are friendly and interesting. They also look more like the Tibetans than Indians, and live in a much cleaner and wealthier state than any other I've seen. We attempted a trek from Pelling (a 5 1/2 hr jeep ride from Gangtok) but after one day were forced to return in order that we could get Henry to a hospital as his eyelids and tongue, to name but a few body parts were rapidly swelling up. He survived, and both he and I spent several days in bed as we were both suffering from a severe case of Delhi Belly.

We leave for Darjeeling tomorrow and then intend to head down to Kolkatta to get our visas for Bangladesh.