Namste from Sikkim,
Thanks to all that are following the blog and posting comments. We will continue to leave the storytelling to our fearless crew of Alice, Ellen, Sarah, Tully, Kaila, and Sterling. However, we did want to chime in with a couple of quick updates.
First, word of landslides and road closures in Sikkim may or may not have made the news in the States. In any case, we wanted to send word from Sikkim. We are at the tail end of the monsoon season in the Himalayas. Sikkim had a particularly long and wet monsoon this year, leading to many roads washing out in North Sikkim. The regions we will be in (near Gangtok and Yuksom) have been far less effected and in most cases not effected at all. The characteristically poor roads that define all regions of the Himalayan foothills have led to the slow travel that we expected any time of year, but nothing out of the ordinary. In Gangtok we have only had one day of rain since our arrival. And it sounds like North Sikkim is on the upswing as well as the government announced yesterday that the roads have there have been reopened for travel. Sikkim is back to business as usual.
Secondly, we wanted to send a heads up about our trek. We will be leaving the day after tomorrow (Monday morning in India) to travel to Yuksom where we will begin our Himalayan trek. As we put one foot in front of the other in the shadow of the world’s third highest peak, Kanchenjunga, we will be out of contact until the 9th when we arrive in Darjeeling.
Although we will be away from computers and phones, we promise to send our namastes and well wishes your way from the edge of the world’s highest mountain range.
Until soon,
Dan and Greta