Day 79 Sunday 19 November, Gantok to Ravangla, Sikkim, India

A visit to Rumtek monastery, built in the 1960s as the headquarters of the Karmapa order. It's the largest monastery in Sikkim and is surrounded by the army to prevent the return as the head Karmapa (or chief lama)who escaped from China to India in 1999. Depending upon which version you prefer, he is either considered a Chinese plant as he’s the only lama approved by China or that his return to Rumtek is being prevented by India as appeasement to China. Either way it's not a patch on those we saw in Tibet.

The sect apparently has vast assets of several billion USD and although this Lama or Karmapa was supposely identified as a child in West Tibet as the reincarnation of the previous one, based on writings he left behind, some of the regents claim this document is a fraud and there is a different reincarnation who should be the head. However after one of the regents died shortly after in a 'mysterious' car crash (not really mysterious we would have thought given the roads and standard of driving)there's been a literal battle between the two factions, hence the army presence. All very medieval although perhaps not that different from the recent pope.

Then its down and up steep winding roads, with an average speed of barely in excess of 10km/hr, across a mad suspension bridge over the Teesta river, the deck over which we have to drive isnt fixed, and on to Ravangla, perched in the mist at 1950m where its raining and dark. We afterwards discover that LP describes this route in its trekking section which could explain the lack of road for some of the route. The hotel’s OK but has the obligatory 5pm powercut and no food. We can't find any in the scuffy little town but the hotel owner relents and cooks us what turns out to be quite a respectable meal, helped by our last emergency bottle of Rosemount cab sauv.

Weather 14C Cloudy
Distance today: 94km
Distance from start: 15,038km