The last week traveling...and back home!

Once we were finally on the bus...heading out of Siliguri up to Gangtok!
The bus convoy we were apart of that included a police escort to get us through the blocked roads from the strike in West Bengal.
The first place we camped on our trek.
Prayer flags at our 2nd campsite - there are many Buddhist monasteries in the area.
Me looking down toward our second campsite.
This was where we were supposed to see mountains...the weather did not cooperate!
Valentine's Day dinner at our lovely hotel in Gangtok - momos are the crescent-shaped food you see and they are DELICIOUS!
A view of Gangtok, capital of Sikkim.
Z bought Tabla! Luckily we were about to bring them back safely to the U.S. as well.
Our last night in Delhi, just before we left the city center to head to the airport...what an incredible trip!


Hello from snowy and cold Minnesota!

We had quite an eventful last week traveling together, and now have returned to a solidly winterized Minnesota - quite a shift. Our last entry was from Bangalore, where we enjoyed time with our new good friends, Gautham and Paro. The day before we were to depart for our next "act" in our journey, we learned (luckily) that there was a pretty significant strike that had just started in the region we were set to travel in. Apparently, some people in W. Bengal (which is a Northeastern Indian state w/ a border to Bangladesh) have been unhappy about their working conditions and decided to strike. After a long morning researching many different options and making many phone calls, we decided to continue with our plan to fly to the region, however knew that we would need to divert our travels to a different place in the hopes that we would still be able to do some trekking.

We were put into contact with a very kind man names Bickey, who met us at the airport in northern India (we flew into Siliguri, W. Bengal). Then we went with him to the bus station. The roads were all blocked with strikers, but travelers and locals were still able to get on limited government buses, which daily were being escorted in a large convoy by the police to a state north of W. Bengal called Sikkim. Sikkim is the northernmost Indian state in that region and has borders with Nepal, China/Tibet, and Bhutan. After realizing that there was quite a lot of chaos at the bus station, we discovered a tourist office that was helpful, mostly because it put us into contact with a number of other tourists who were able to offer some advice. We returned very early the following morning to get into a line to hopefully be able to buy tickets (separate lines for women and men...that is the case throughout India, including at the airport). After quite a lot of waiting, asking questions to of people who only spoke limited English, and wondering if we were ever going to get out of there, all of a sudden a man approached us (by that time we were a group of about 10 tourists all waiting to buy tickets) who said he had just found a bus to take us up to Gangtok (capital of Sikkim), but that we would have to RUN immediately to get onto the bus before other people realized that it was departing. Mild panic ensued, which luckily resulted in all of us getting ourselves and our stuff safely on the bus into seats. Phew!

Once we arrived in Gangtok, the next challenge we faced was finding a trek that would work for us. We had to cut our plans by 2 days because of the strikes, and the trek we had booked (though luckily hadn't paid for) was not available from Gangtok. We met with a friend of Bickey's, who did offer us a trek for 4 days, departing the following day. We departed around noon the next day, and had 3 days of trekking in the jungle mountains in the lower altitudes of the Himalayas. Unfortunately, our weather was incredibly cloudy and foggy, so any altitude that we were able to gain did not result in the views we had so hoped for. We returned on Valentine's Day a bit discouraged, but hunkered down at a wonderful hostel for 2 days, made good friends with the staff there, and explored a bit of Gangtok the following day.

We were lucky enough to get a bus down to Siliguri, even though the strike had continued while we were there. Another surprise we discovered was that trains in India hardly ever run on time, so we had to give up our long train trip across northern India to get to Delhi for our flight back to the states. Instead we flew to Delhi, which allowed us one more day to explore in Delhi last Friday. It was a beautiful and relaxing last day for us, which included a nice rooftop breakfast in a bustling area, a long walk to the National Museum, a great little market where we did some final shopping, and an evening meal complete with the sunset. Then we headed to the airport and flew for 16 hours to get home...just ahead of the snow!

So those are the stories...or some of them, at least. We have really enjoyed keeping you updated on our travels and have many, many more pictures to share if any of you would care to take a look. We are so incredibly thankful to have had such an intense and foreign experience together, and we will be digesting all that we learned there for a long time.

Namaste,

L&Z