Green Monastries

I wanted to see few monasteries in Sikkim to compare with the monasteries that I had came across in Ladakh. When I finished my first trek I met another Dutch person - Bas and a Tibetan girl - Pam and we decided to spend four days trekking together. For me Sikkim is kind of small Netherlands since... by chance I came across 6 dutch people and with 3 of them I went hiking.

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Bridge that we managed to cross.

Bas managed to travel to India from Netherlands mostly by hitchhiking on a very low budget, and Pam escaped from Tibet 10 years ago and now she misses her homeland a lot not having a possibility to go back.

We managed to hike together to Dubdi, Tashiding, Ralang, Rabongla and Pelling Monastry.
We slept predominately next to monasteries.

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Young monk in Ralang Monastery.

Once we did not manage to reach our destination before the sun set so when it was getting dark we looked for the home stay in the small village in the jungle on the way. We had hard time to communicate with the locals since the locals could speak only Nepali, but finally we manage to find a Bhutias family that spoke a bit of English and Tibetan and they offered us a very good meal and a place to sleep. That day the hike was very challenging. We had to walk down to the bridge on a very steep and slippery road. I slipped quite a few times there, and once... my rainbow umbrella that I was using as a walking stick, broke down. This same time Himalaya claimed my nail that I injured on the Toll Bridge (see the Under the bridge story). The new nail was growing all the time under the injured one and more than a half of nail is back already :)

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Vivid discussion lesson.

We reached Rabongla monastery in the evening in the moment that water started to pure from the sky like crazy. We managed to come across monk that was a teacher of Tibetan (so it was a great fun for Pam) and we stayed with him overnight.

There were few differences between the Ladakh monasteries and Sikkim ones. First of all Buddhism came much later to Sikkim than to Ladakh, so the monasteries are much younger here. Secondly here there are surrounded with the vivid green all over. Thirdly I had impression that there are more crowded with young monks. Lastly, all monasteries guest house were under construction. Dalai Lama is coming to Sikkim in December, and every one is preparing for his visit. I regret that I did not manage to join his teaching. Maybe next time.