Sikkim

One-Eighth of an Inch from Tibet (judging from my Google Maps)

Most Americans have never heard of the state of Sikkim. That’s okay. Most Indians have never heard of the state of Wisconsin. Heck, they’ve never even heard of the state of Indiana and we named it after them – at least what we thought was them at the time.

A friend of mine had some business up in Mangan so I offered to tag along. A lot of my expeditions begin with “…so I offered to tag along.” It’s not like I don’t have other things to do. You bet I do! Seeing how fast I can open and close my mouth (personal best – 53 times in 10 seconds), practicing bending spoons using nothing but the power of my squinting face (nearly had it a couple times), trying to make my fingers do that “live long and prosper” thing,… I may be retired but I am good and busy. 

Sikkim was a kingdom till their king married an American and the people demanded to become part of India. Those, by the way, are two totally unrelated events. Nothing to do with each other. Just happened at about the same time, that’s all. Don’t jump to conclusions like it sounds like I’m doing. I’m sure she was a lovely woman. (Whew! Got out of that potentially nasty international incident rather neatly don’t you think?)

The distance from Siliguri, West Bengal to Mangan, Sikkim is about 90 miles – roughly the same distance as Chicago to Milwaukee. But where you can drive to Milwaukee in a little over an hour, driving to Mangan took us a bit longer. About 13 hours longer. 

One reason it felt so long is it’s uphill almost all the way. Another reason is 13 hours is a long time – especially in an 8-passenger jeep carrying 13 people.

Yet another reason is, after bumping along for three hours, our driver stopped and turned off the car. This is a frequent mountain road courtesy that allows cars coming downhill to do so for a few minutes. We waited half-an-hour. Then, without a word, our driver got out and started walking back down the hill. No one in the car talked – we just waited. (Indians can be very patient and surprisingly incurious about disruptions to their plans.) Figuring there must be an accident, I told my friend I was going to walk up ahead and see what the matter was. Cars were stopped behind us as far as I could see. Fortunately, it was a five minute walk to the front of the line where I perceived the cause of the holdup: The road was gone.

About 100 feet of it had been taken out by a landslide. On our side of the abyss, a diesel shovel operated by soldiers was banging away at the hillside causing new rockslides. After watching it do that for an hour, it began digging into the side of the hill. In another hour, it had created a kind of cave. Then it banged the roof off. More rockslides.

Then from the other side, with a blast of black smoke, a bulldozer came chugging across. Back and forth it went until it had bulldozed something that kind of looked like a road. Total elapsed time – three hours.

Trusting in appearances (to a degree that would make any auto insurance company blow coffee out its nose) traffic resumed. 

Like me, gentle reader, you probably have plenty of time these days to knit and read blogs and such but I wouldn’t want to presume upon your good nature. So let us pick up this thrilling narrative same time next week. Meanwhile, live long and..enh!…mmmph!…(doggone it).