JORETHANG, SIKKIM, INDIA
Sikkim is one of those places you come across while looking at a map and wonder “what in the world is there?” It’s a misshapen polyp of the Himalayas that juts up between Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, with snow-capped peaks and not a sliver of flat land. Barring Kashmir and Ladakh, it’s probably one of the most out-of-the-way places in India.

Sikkim wasn’t really a part of India until fairly recently – India controlled its defense and external affairs from 1947, but it retained de facto and de jure internal autonomy until it voted to join the Indian Union in 1975. Before that, Sikkim was an independent kingdom ruled by a Buddhist monarchy and Himalayan traditions that stretch back five hundred years.

I wanted to go check it out before leaving Darjeeling, so I hopped in a land rover and made my way to the border town of Jorethang. Entering Sikkim, as a foreigner anyway, feels like leaving India for an entirely new country – you need to arrange permits beforehand and guards stamp your passport on arrival. Jorethang itself doesn’t feel much different from any of the whistle-stop towns in the hills around Darjeeling, but after waiting around in the jeep lot for three hours I caught another one north to Yuksom. Then things started to get weird.

More later.