We arrived by shared Jeep in Pelling by 9:30am. The Jeep, of course, was full to the brim, at one point we had 12 people, including one man standing on the spare tire rigged to the back door. The Jeep also acted as, not only human transport, but mail service, bringing letters, packages and even verbal messages to the towns along the way.
Pelling isn't as beautiful as Yuksam, but it does offer incredible views of Kanchenjunga, at least until about 11am when the clouds come in. We ate a second breakfast on the terrace of Hotel Kabur while our room was being cleaned (by a ten year old girl named Lakshmi) and noticed that the owners were consumed with an elaborate funeral on television. Later, as we tried to enter a bank and found it closed, we learned from the very helpful man at Pelling Tourism that Sai Baba, the self-proclaimed incarnation of the original and revered Sai Baba of Shirdi, had died the day before and the government had declared a public holiday for his funeral. The entire town was shut down and shrines to Sai Baba were paid tribute by lit candles.
The following day we woke early and began the walk to Pemayangtse Monastery, the most historically significant in Sikkim. Aking the way we stopped for tea at the Lotus Bakery, run by and in support of the Denjong Padma Choeling Academy for orphaned Tibetan children. The Bear had some sweet baked goods, despite the fact that we had already had breakfast in the room (our new habit to save money-we bought oatmeal and use the amazing Jetboil to cook it along with tea).
The road to Pemayangtse was uphill and flanked by wild daises and prayer flags. One bay of flags was captioned by a sign explaining that the flags stood for the alleviation of suffering of all sentient beings. The monastery itself contains three levels, all made from sturdy wood and connected by ladder-like staircases. The top floor was like a transparent arc of relics, holding items historically significant to the place such as drums, hats, animal carvings, shoes and prayer scrolls. The temples of the first and second floors display life-size representations of the various manifestations of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) and the Buddha himself. The useful offerings were laid out: bowls of water, fruit, rice, money. What most fascinated me were the intricate and mostly fading painting on all of the walls-in the second floor temple the paintings depicted scenes of the historical Buddha's life, and village life centuries ago. A king perched beneath snowy mountains receiving his subjects. Elephants and horses carrying lamas and royalty-once even a decrepit naked man carrying a king. My favorite room, however, was the temple next to the main second floor shrine which showed only paintings of the Buddha, always in siddhasana (the "perfect seat") but with carious mudras and at times accompanied by an animal friend. The hundreds of duplicate Buddhas served as a reminder of the eternal nature of the Great One's teachings.
After leaving the monastery we continued down Geyzing Road to the ruins of Rabdantse, the one time capital of Sikkim which was attacked by Nepalese forces in the 18th century. Lined in stone walls, the scene was remarkably similar to Vysehrad in Prague. We walked the remaining five kilometers to Geyzing past cow stalls, chicken coops and people carrying leaves from the forest on their backs.
In the evening, back in Pelling after yet another blackout, we wandered from hotel to restaurant in search of the traditional Sikkimese millet beer, tomba. It was finally found at a crumbling roadside cafe, Alpine Restaurant, where the only other patrons were four young men smacking their lips with some kind of greasy chicken dish. The drink, which took fifteen minutes to prepare, was served in foot tall bamboo mugs. The "beer" is actually cooked and fermented millet doused in hot water sipped through a bamboo straw fashioned to keep the grains from entering. It tasted more like a warm wine than beer and apparently is meant to be enjoyed for several hours, and the owner was surprised to see us leaving after only fifteen minutes.
The next morning we said our goodbyes to Sikkim, with the hope of possibly returning some day not too far in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment