Sikkim

Sikkim - beautiful northern region of India surrounded by Nepal, Tibet and Buthan. You need a permission to enter the state, but getting one is very straighforward, so no problem at all and it is really worth to see it.
We saw Gangtok - the capital, Rumtek with the biggest Buddhist monastery and Pelling, where we saw one of their festivals and met a few very nice people.

Gangtok

Rumtek is famous for its monastery and also for its masked chaam dances , that are held to celebrate major festivals. It's very beautiful and peaceful place, full of monks. One day on our way back to hotel we met a Spanish monk. After a short conversation he invited us to his room where we spend around 5 hours talking about meditations, life, ego, etc. He said he spent 9 years meditaiting in a forrest in Burma!!! Unbelievable! He was completely outside the normal world - no civilisation, no electricity, no TV, nothing! Just the forrest... He left Burma a year ego, wrote a book and now he is planning to open a Tibetan Yoga centre in Spain. Fantastic man!

Way to the Rumtek monastery

Monastery


Spanish forrest monk & I ;)

We were very lucky to arrive to Pelling when one of their festivals took place, which includes mask dances in tribute to Kunchenjunga.

Warriors chaam dances

Children watching the show...

We also almost became teachers in the local primary school with around 200 children of which 60 are orphans. Everything was agreed with the school principle, when an old Lama, who is in charge of the school, arrived and said that if we wanted to teach, we had to pay them... So we decided to leave Pelling and look for another place , where our work is more needed.

Children singing their school anthem before lessons start