I went to Kalimpong because of Department of Science and Technology. I have a grant from them and it was time to make a presentation to the expert committee explaining the work done in the past three years.
When we reached Kalimpong we realized that Gangtok was only 21/2 hours away. Fortunately the expert committee (they wanted to visit the Indo-China border) cooperated. The review meeting was done away with in one day and the next day the entire lot of us disappeared for sight-seeing.
There were four of us for the Sikkim trip: Neelima Alam (who is now with DST), Prabhavati (from Delhi University and with whom I shared the hotel room), Tara (who is a student in Gourinath's lab and who had come with Neelima to Kalimpong), and I.
Rongpo is the border town between West Bengal and Sikkim. The West Bengal half is poverty-stricken while the Sikkim half is sleek and prosperous. Tourist taxis from other states are not allowed inside Sikkim. So at Raniphool, about few kilometers away from Gangtok, we changed taxis. The driver and our idea of sight-seeing did not mesh, lending a sour tone to the trip.
Gangtok was shrouded in mist. I was looking for Sikkim cheese (Alok had given me money to buy cheese for him) but the taxi driver was most clueless about cheese or indeed any shopping stuff in Gangtok. As it was getting late, we headed for Rumtek Monastery. Fortunately, the mist lifted by the time we reached Rumtek, which was simply breathtaking.
The photos can be accessed here.
A word about the Royal Family photograph. This the group photo of the Royal family (Tashi Namgyal was the King) of Sikkim taken some time in early 1900s. The photograph was hung in the dining room/bar of Hotel Gompus, Kalimpong. We were amused by the photo because we simply could not figure out who the King was as they all looked extremely young.
The DST, by the way, still owes me the ticket fare to Kalimpong.
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