Hiking in India

I had a hard time deciding what to do this spring break. Did I want to stay in India or travel elsewhere? Was there anyone going someplace I was interested in? (The answer to that one ended up being no) In the end I found a group that was organizing a trek along the Singalila Ridge in West Bengal, India along the borders with Nepal and the state of Sikkim. That is about all I knew, but decided that since I liked spending time outside in clean air it would be interesting to do the five day hike. 

What did I get myself into? The first three days we were hiking mostly uphill on rough rock paved roads. Little did I know we would spend half of a day in Nepal.  Crossing a border where it seemed only India cared, forcing us to sign out on a paper register but not marking a thing on my passport. I know I left India, but I'm not sure when I actually entered Nepal as they didn't seem nearly as concerned about record keeping (of course India only cared about the two foreigners in our group).

Each afternoon we pulled up at a tea house where lunch was being fixed. Of course that wasn't our first stop of the day. Usually we stopped at least once for a break to drink a cup of tea, either black or with milk. At one of the tea houses our guide got us a glass of the local rhododendron wine (made from the red flowers not the white) which is a local medicine for just about everything. At another the guys had fun getting the chickens to snatch crackers out of their hands. One day the entertainment was getting the goats to look the honey off their finger. At still another I couldn't resist taking pictures of the kids sitting at the side of the house. 

After three days of climbing up we were at the highest point of our trek, Sandahkphu, where if the weather was in our favor we had been told we would be able to see the Himalayan Range, including Mt. Everest and Kanchenjunga. Well luck was with us and the next morning we got to see the world's highest and third highest mountain (but more on that later). 

The last two days we went mostly downhill, and I have to say that the fourth day was by far the most difficult. When you go down in the Himalayas, you really go down. Down through a forest of bamboo, fire burned remnants and rock paths. Down until you reach the flowering slopes of the small village of Ghum. A restful oasis where we spent the night. It was a good thing we only had a couple more hours to go the next day before climbing into a car to head back to Darjeeling as I was so sore I could hardly take a step down the next three days. As we rolled up to our hotel I have to admit I felt a mixture of relief, success along with the thrill of knowing a hot shower was just minutes away.

For not having much of an idea what I was getting myself into I ended with a pretty spectacular Spring Break that took me from 2200 meters up to 3636 meters, from mountain fields through forest to bare top views of snow capped mountains. The Singalila Ridge trek was definitely an adventure.