Yuksom

Yuksom Yuksom! 

Others may blacken,

Call you small and boring

But you showed me colors I cannot even imagine

You showed me beauty I could only dream of

Where else in the world could I have so easily seen

A sibia, a leiothrix and a red-billed chough?

I am not sure if I can enumerate all the things we saw in Yuksom. There was just too much beauty- the place, the people, the birds, the trees.

Yuksom has one main road, called the Yuksom Bazaar Road, which is where all the shared cabs/ private vehicles etc stop. Most home stays, hotels are also right there. It's not easy getting to Yuksom from Gangtok- you either need time or money. Since we were short on the former, we had to ditch our low-budget travel so far and invest some money into getting us a car that could drive down to Yuksom. It cost us about Rs. 6000 (including a tip for the driver), but looking back, it was worth it because a) the main roads were all crowded and this driver took us through the back roads of his village so we could circumvent the traffic b) Most roads closer to Yuksom were actually dirt paths, since the rains had caused landslides and there was some significant damage. It still didn't stop various vehicles from plying to and from Yuksom- one just needed money and many many prayers.

The great Buddha at Rabongla on the way to Yuksom

Phamrong Falls. There's a nice trekking trail from here to Yuksom. We need to do it next time!

Because Sikkim is so mountainous, every time it rains, it gets a waterfall. 

Tea at Yuksom. Yum yum!

The trail to the birds

Millet alcohol. Mild and warmth-giving.  

Organic rhododendron wine... amazing stuff, but more like juice!

A lot of our activities in Yuksom consisted of experiencing the culture, the food and the place. I don't have too many pictures, but really rich memories.

We stayed at a place called the Yak Hotel and ate all our meals at The Traditional Inn (which is where we got all the alcohol shown above). My favorite food item has to be the Tibetan bread with yak cheese. So good!

We trekked a lot while successfully avoiding the large parties of trekkers going up to Dzongri or Geocha Pass. We meant to go a couple of kilometers up the Dzongri way, but Ani was our line leader (as he likes to call himself) and he missed a turn and we ended up going to Dubdi monastry- the oldest monastry in Sikkim, built in the 1700s.

The entrance to Kanchenjunga National Park perimeter.

Glades like this are great for birdwatching

Yaks!

Durga makes notes of leeches and insects she's seen

 More wildflowers!

Dubdi Monastry, Yuksom. Built 1701

At this point of time, does it really surprise anyone that the stray kittens in the temple were temporarily adopted by the kids?




One of the best successes of this trip was how Durga changed her attitude to leeches. The first day in Fambonglho, she had thrown a major fit when she saw them. She, in fact, refused to come trekking the next day because she was so scared. But with sufficient counseling and love, and most importantly, a plan, she overcame her utter petrification really well.

This was the plan:
a) Have salt at hand at all times to control leeches- A baseline way of getting control over the situation. Ani was our solver of this problem.

b) If one understands the enemy, one is less afraid of what might happen. Towards this, she drew up a series of questions for herself. This was her survey instrument:

Where are leeches found? On the pavement, on trees, on leaves, on stones, in water, on her shoes, on fruits or on her ear muffs. She would put a tick mark wherever she found them

RK was so impressed with this initial instrument that he bought her a book at the bazaar for her to note down all her questions and answers after her research.

Durga's research notebook :)

c) Finally, to empower herself, she appointed herself the remover of leeches. So anytime any leech would try to get into our shoes and socks, she would get the salt, sprinkle it liberally everywhere and carefully remove the leech with a stick.

So, I must say, we are all really impressed with her.

A few days later, once we came back to civilization, I learned that apparently salt isn't to be used for leeches and it's better to flick them away with the pad of one's nails. But the sheer negative psycological effect of leeches and the definitively empowering effect of salt is significant and I, for one, will not stop using salt.


Ok, so now for some of the most beautiful birds we saw in and around Yuksom:

Rufous sibia
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Rufous_Sibia_from_Sikkim,_India.jpg

The red-tailed minla
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:RED-tailed_Minla.jpg

Red billed leiothrix

The minla, sibia and leiothrix are all supposed to be closely related. They don't look it, do they?

Yellow-throated fulvetta
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Yellow-throated_Fulvetta_-_Eaglenest_-_Arunachal_Pradesh_-_India_FJ0A0417_(34232515961).jpg

Blue winged minla
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue-winged_Minla_(34365059820).jpg

We managed to spot some warblers! For those of you who are interested in warblers, I've blogged about the difficulties in spotting or identifying these birds here and here.

Of the possibly dozen different warblers we must have glimpsed in Yuksom, we identified 3:

Ashy throated warbler
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Ashy-throated_Warbler_-_Bhutan_S4E8811_(19079890158).jpg

Grey cheeked warbler
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grey-cheeked_Warbler_Khangchendzonga_National_Park_West_Sikkim_India_18.02.2016.jpg

Grey hooded warbler
https://nv.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%CA%BCelyaa%C3%ADg%C3%AD%C3%AD:The_grey-hooded_warbler_at_Deoriatal.jpg

See the minute differences between them? They are all grey and yellow or a yellowish-green. To identify them requires standing still for long periods of time, tracking them without losing them, and making careful notes on exactly what's on the head and near the eyes, and what the tail might be like and what the beak might be like and so on. Most times, what results is a bad crick in the neck and nothing much to show for it.

Three black eagles followed us during our trek to Dubdi- magnificent birds.

And Ani tracked and spotted a green magpie (an endangered bird in the NE)

Hello, you striking creature!
https://pixabay.com/photos/green-magpie-magpie-3160688/

We trekked back to Yuksom just in time for a thunderous storm began just as we reached our favorite inn. Amidst the darkening sky, surrounded by clouds, we had masala chai and hot lemon-ginger-honey water. Right next to us were numerous trekkers who had just managed to get back from a week-long trek to Goechla Pass and who informed us that it had been raining on the path almost every single day at the higher altitudes and it had been a huge disappointment to them that they had spent so much money only get literally rained upon.

For us, though, it was a fantastic trip.

One thing to remember for next time: carry plenty of cash, for most of W.Sikkim does not have functional ATMs and any other source of payment is not accepted.