Sikkim: A James Bond on the rocks with a diplomatic twist please!

Ahhhh Sikkim!

After lots of hassle with the Indian embassy on my visa; An urgent application for a Dutch passport during Christmas, an interrogation at the embassy in the Hague and general fuzzing around with issuing of the visa after approval, leading me to having to cancel my flights, I have finally arrived!

The flight was, breathtaking! All over land, across the middle East, past North Afghanistan and Pakistan.  And even though it was night during the last part, the snowy mountain ranges reflect moonlight and are thus visible even in the dark.  I am telling you... North Afghanistan is the ultimate wilderness! Only mountains, without any small villages, nothing! Wow! I was stuck to the window like a big kid in front of a candyshop!

My first 5 minutes on Indian soil (Delhi airport for a 9 hours stop-over) immediately brought back memories from my first time here in 2011.  As I was dressed for a maximum of zero degrees during the day and minus 14 at night, you can imagine I took off my winter-coat in the pleasant Delhi night temperatures, while waiting for the airport shuttlebus to take me to the departures terminal.  But even though I was wearing a VERY decent shirt under that, within no time I was surrounded by 7 young boys staring at me like only Indians can do (you know, from about 20 cm distance, wayyyy within your personal zone) and probably saying lot's of dirty stuff...  I completely ignored them and thankfully got saved by Khumar, a local taxi-driver who I was chatting to before, who sent them off.  When they were gone I decided to just sweat it out for a bit and put on my coat again... sigh.  Khumar had tried to get some business out of me, but when he finally understood I had shitloads of time to kill, so could afford to wait for the shuttlebus, he decided to just talk about his study and insisted on buying me coffee :)  Of course as things go, I ended up by accident not in the airport shuttlebus, but in a citybus, in the middle of the night (2 am) who just said "yes" when I asked about terminal 3.  It thankfully got me there safe, but god knows how many germs those 5 other passengers gave me as everybody (!) is sneezing over everybody else here... yuck

At Bagdobra airport (Darjeeling), I was picked up by my local supervisor and his wife.  Even though my supervisor (VImal) was swearing the whole time and told me off for not having arranged an Indian sim-card in Delhi.  (as if I was going into Delhi in the middle of the night with all my luggage on me) they helped me with arranging my Inner Line Permit for Sikkim in another town and put me in a jeep to Gangtok (Sikkim's capital).  Vimal's wife was lovely and while we were waiting for my jeep to take off I tried to start making some jokes to Vimal, which seemed to work because he finally started laughing and we parted in good spirit.  I will meet Vimal around the 11th, because he has some family business to arrange first, meaning I have about a week in the capital by myself.

So, here I am! In Gangtok! It has only been 4 days now.  But seriously, this place is something else...  Sikkim, is not at all like the rest of India.  Similar to Bhutan, Sikkim has a very green image.  They practice only organic farming, have banned plastic bags years ago, along with logging and high altitude grazing.  One of their biggest economic drivers is hydropower, which I am here for to research. Because even though Sikkim's agenda evolves around sustainability, it seems that hydropower development is just about economic gains.  The construction of many dams and roads have lead to flashfloods and landslides, of which the latter are hard to miss while your driving through the mountains.  The roads are smashed away in a lot of places and covered with big rocks that have rolled down the mountainslopes.  Apparantly the Himalayas are very vulnerable, and they are cracking away under all this construction...

In all honesty, Gangtok is such a small town, I had seen it all after 1 day. And as it way less chaotic then other parts of India and quite modern I am a bit embarassed to say I got a bit bored after 3 days of browsing the market and MG Marg (their central car-free shoppingstreet). It's a good thing I came here with a mission, so I could focus on making as many useful contacts as possible and try to arrange interviews with them in order to grasp the Hydropower problem a bit better.  

So I went to an internet cafe and started googling "Gangtok NGO's" and "journalists", on my first day.  And while I was printing out some maps, a guy started talking to me about the usual, where are you from? What your name? stuff like that.  However, when I asked him what he did for his job, he told me he worked for a local NGO and occasionally as a journalist!  I though he was pulling my leg, and maybe saw my browsing history, so I didn't say I was looking for HIM. I added him on facebook though and double-checked his story that night.  This guy has now put me in contact with an ex-minister and representative of the minority groups the Lepcha's (original natives of Sikkim) and Bhutia's (their bloodbrothers from Bhutan), quite a radical guy, which I have interviewed today.

This hydropower business is seriously tricky, people from Sikkim who look into it are being "targeted" as this guy said.  And I was warned to not ask questions directly about hydropower by my supervisors... At the same time there are apparently allies, to whom you can be open, like my other interviewee of today, a CEO of another local NGO. It's a bit confusing to me at the moment and I actually found myself googling "diplomacy" today.  I didn't sleep the other night because I had mentioned the name of my supervisor WITH the research project in an email to an ass. manager of a hydropower developer and thought I had brought her and the project into trouble... But today I found out he is actually/probably on "our" side (as in open to talk about this). Either way, I am learning quickly to be very discreet about what I am doing. Tomorrow I have my third interview lined up... with someone from the Mountain Institute.

On a bit more of a touristy/adventurer note.  Even though I didn't see ANY other westerners in this place, I of course ran into my first one in a Bakery (desperate for Western-style coffee, without 10 sugarcubes).  A German called Jan.  Just that morning I had asked my hotel to arrange a trip to the, for the Bhutia's, holy Tsomgo lake on 3700 metres, 5 km from the Tibetan border.  You can't do this by yourself as a travel-agent needs to arrange the Restricted Area Permit (actually as a Westerner, you're allowed in only a few places without these permits).  Jan joined me, so we could split the price.  Apart from that he was an absolute bore.  He never asked me one question, apart from the one whether he could join me and after a while I just started talking to our driver and his wife (who decided to join us) in Nepali - which I don't (yet) speak - go figure...

From the moment we entered the restricted zone, there were only military camps. And mist. And narrow, trashed, rocky roads into very steep mountains.  Seriously, James Bond all the way! I tried to film it a bit, but it was hardly possible as we were thrown over the whole car.  This holds a promise for when I finally leave this capital... and probably civilization.... 

There is a lot more to say... Especially about the culture mix and gender equality here.  But I'll keep that for when I have visited more tribal regions.