Khecheopalri lake

After reading up on khecheopalri lake in the guide and hearing some good recommendations about town we booked into a homestay near the lake and crammed into a shared jeep with a bunch of french travelers and one american lady. We squeezed into the front "two" seats with niki paranoid about her bum getting in the way of the gearstick. It wasnt long before the makeshift luggage harness on the roof gave way and two bags plummeted down the windscreen and bounced onto the road. One of them niki's it escaped plunging in to the ravine but sustained some damage but luckily the tea didn't explode.

We got to the lake and made our way up what was described in the guide as a 20 min walk. It was more like a 40 minute and 400m vertical ascent up a slippery moss covered path. Nevertheless, the sweaty and backbreaking walk up made the arrival at the homestay much sweeter. Atop the hill was a tiny hamlet of homestays and farmland, each one having a resident cow, goat, dog, cockerel and chickens. We were greeted by the ever smiling chumden who led us down to her homestay made up of 4 spotless first floor rooms. We met two lads from switzerland and australia as well as a german lady and a group of young indian professionals.

That first night we were treated to an amazing home cooked meal outside including some stir fried local ferns which i'll be raving about for years (theyre like a cross between sprouting broccoli and samphire only much tastier than the former and slightly less salty than the latter). Ori, an israeli lad got on the guitar and exquisitely knocked out some classic rock then deepen (chumden's other half) took over and all the indian girls recited some of their country's faves which were a little less familiar. The beer went down a treat, sikkim's own "hit" super strong beer; both delicious and deadly. Mixing our drinks with this and a local warm millet brew (chhang) which was also quite potent and morish. The booze that keeps on giving all you need is a hot water top up and you continue supping... Cheap round. The next few days we hung out with the guys we had met including a another group just up the hill. We did the traditional traveller thing of not doing very much, just eating, drinking, learning new card games, sharing war stories and generally having a laugh. There wasnt much else to do as the weather was pretty atrocious. Ive never seen rain like it and it tipped it down most of each day we were there. We did get chance to brave the walk down (and back up) to the lake which wasnt much to look at but held a very serene ambience with the prayer flags lining the edge. Up the other side was a look out which took in views of the lake to the south and the old sikkim capital of yuksom the north two peaks away. We really enjoyed our time here. I got a bit down in the dumps in darjeeling after recovering from my horrendous bout of delhi belly and the degradation of the weather. Our hosts and the spot we were staying renewed our faith and the sikkim people proved to be the friendliest and most honest on our trip by a country mile. There's no hassle; everyone is laid back and happy with their lot and buddism definitely influences their acceptance of others and willingness to be outgoing and helpful. We decided to stay a couple of extra days which proved worthwhile; the weather cleared up somewhat and we braved the trek away from the lake an towards yuksom. The negative karma if the weather clearing up was ori the israeli guy resoundingly beating niki and i at scrabble.