The drive to Gangtok took us five hours in all, and was a very pleasant drive with beautiful scenery. One thing which was immediatly evident was that Sikkim is much cleaner than West Bengal(which mind you isn't saying much).
We were stopped at Rangpo checkpoint to apply for our Inland Permit… the maximum a foreigner can stay in Sikkim is 45 days (permits being given for periods of 15 days which can be extended twice to a total of 45 days) and once these are over you cannot access Sikkim again for the following three months. As soon as we went down from the jeep the driver took off, backpacks and all. We were somehow concerned about what was going on but eventually we found him waiting for us a couple of metres ahead. Once we got to Gangtok we tried to make out the way to our pre-selected guesthouse but could not manage so we caught a taxi. The road to the guesthouse turned out to a very steep hill, which made us really glad to have opted for the Taxi. We checked into our guesthouse and made our way out to start exploring Gangtok, the capital city of Sikkim.
This place seemed more like Europe than India, especially the main shopping street, MG Marg. But undoubtedly this was India… We tried having lunch in a "posh restaurant" and were excited to see that there was pasta on the menu. We ordered spaghetti lasagna, which we presumed were in actual fact lasagna…but we were wrong…they were spaghetti disguised in the form of a lasagna. Don’t try picturing them…it takes a fervent imagination to succeed. Janet thought that in Sikkim she would not longer have a problem with people staring at her hair…but she was so wrong… it was actually worse here. This led her to a much suffered decision…removing her braids. It was only a month since she had had them re-done, but the people around us were making her life miserable and so it was. It took us six hours to remove it, but we managed. Yakof also managed to colour her hair the following morning! And the result… amazing… she felt invisible. The stares, giggles, strange looks, all stopped as if by magic and this made the sacrifice worth while and brought a smile back to her face.
In Gangtok we met a very nice ozzy girl, Elana. We had seen her before in Kalimpong but actually talked to her for the first time here. We were at a coffee shop, she asked us whether she could sit on our table as the coffee shop was full and we welcomed her to do so. We spent more than an hour talking to her… she is very interesting and so much fun. We both like her way of life… she has been traveling for the past fourteen years and this was her eight time in India. She works every other year and travels in between, seems to be just perfect. We hoped to meet her again during our travelling, especially given that were planning to follow similar routes.
In all we had to spend five nights in Gangtok due to Janet's hair and our health (nothing too serious probably just effects of the sudden change in altitude). As soon as it was all over we made our way to Pelling.
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