Khecheopairi : Sonam’s Village

Pelling’s hotel owner suggested to try and spend a couple of days at the village of the Dalai Lama’s ex-cook. Given that the idea was quite intriguing we decided to go for it… and man we did go for it. The way to reach this place was a steep, supposedly thirty-minute climb (it always takes us more as Janet needs to rest). Eventually Yakof had to get some help for her which came in the the shape of a very strong Nepali man who flew up with Janet’s back pack. The sight awaiting us up the hill was much more than we had expected… the place was beautiful to say the least. There was an entire village perched on this hill with houses scattered here and there and two main buildings which where the guest houses : one owned by the father, Palao, and the other by Sonam, the son. We decided to stay at Sonam’s….the rooms were much nicer and the place quieter. And guess who we found there….Scott the American guy…he had walked all the way from Pelling. In our same quarters there was also a Korean girl. After having a nice cup of tea we went round to have a look at the place. At the other guest house we met a Portuguese girl, Sophia. She had just arrived as well and was waiting for her friend to come as he too had opted to walk it all the way from Pelling. Scott asked Sonam whether we could visit the monastery as, apparently, it was the oldest in Sikkim. It had similair paintings as the monastery in Pelling but older as well as old Tibetan manuscripts. We were told that dinner would be served at seven and we were impatiently waiting for the food to come as we were starving. In the meantime Sophia’s friend arrived….his name is Gal and he is from Israel. He amazingly managed to walk all the way from Pelling in three hours….quite an athlete!!! Before dinner time we spent some time watching the kids playing… it was so nice and quite up here. Dinner time at last… food, food and more food. We had rice, potatoes, peas, vegetable and soup….all very good. After dinner Sophia joined us and she, Scott and Yakof played Monopoly. Needless to say Yakof won the game, as usual. After the game we made our way to our nice hard beds for a restful sleep. Our planned two days at the lake turned out to become five... the place was hard to leave. We had a great time there and everything was very ‘shanti shanti’ as they say in India (peaceful). We drank tea, read books, washed our clothes, played cards and had endless conversations. Here we also decided to change our traveling route. We were planning to make our way to Varanasi after Sikkim, but Sophia and Gal were both coming from there and advised us not to, given that in two weeks time the temperature would rise to fifty degrees celius… not something we could really live with especially given that we were thinking of staying in Varanasi for a whole month. So our decision was taken… we were going to Nepal. Eventually how things turned out Sophia and Gal were going during the same time so we decided to go together. Gal had decided to walk all the way to Darjeeling so we told Sophia that she could join us during the rest our Sikkim stay and straight to Darjeeling, where we would then meet Gal and leave from Nepal. As time went by we were feeling more at home at the village… Yakof playing cards with Sonam and his father, Janet playing with the kids, especially with Sonam’s adorable little girl, Dolma. Sonam also offered Yakof some of their local drink, which shows he respected him. On one of the nights we even had a nice bonfire and we sang songs in Nepali, Maltese, English, Italian, Portuguese and Hebrew. We also visited the lake, for which Khecheoprai is so famous for. This lake is considered to be one of the sacred lakes of Sikkim both by the Buddhists and the Hindus. The lake is hidden in the rich forest cover. It is believed that the birds do not permit even a single leaf to float on the lake surface. The place is very peaceful, unless you visit it when the Indian tourists are around. Our stay in the village went by too quickly… we would not have minded to stay a little bit more but we still needed to see so many other places before Sikkim's permit expired. Next stop Tashiding...