Day 78 Saturday 18 November, Kalimpong to Gantok, Sikkim, India

The cloud hasn’t lifted and still no views of mountains. After exploring the market and visiting the Bank, a seedy office accessed up back stairs from an alley way, we descend to the valley, enter Sikkim and drive up to Gantok, where we check into the Nor Khill hotel, which although in the same group as the Darjeeling Elgin (see earlier entries) isn’t a patch on it.
Gantok perched on a ridge at 1900m is shrouded in mist and its raining for the first time in 6 weeks. Its a scruffy rambling place, like all the towns we visit in Sikkim, which cannot be described as beautiful. The towns are all madly situated at the tops of hills and driving round here involves treacherous hairpin descents to cross rivers at 300m before climbing up the impossibly steep hillsides on roads filled with jeeps and battered trucks, with occasional washouts caused by landslides. Signposting is non-existent.

Weather 17C Sunny
Distance today: 78km
Distance from start: 14,944km