In the Indian highlands, we see blue skies
Darjeeling and Sikkim have greeted us with puffy white clouds and blue skies - a welcome change from the bleakness of Chennai and Calcutta. The air is fresh (when one is not standing by the roadside inhaling vehicle emissions) and invigorating. Where before the suffocating smog excoriated our lungs and collected in our nostrils as black gunk, the cool, sometimes chilly, air in the Indian highlands has all but completely rejuvenated us (when we blow our noses, we still get black gunk though - vehicles everywhere in India have terrible exhaust).
As a prelude to our grand expedition to Gochem La, we spent the day gallivanting around Gangtok, the present capital of Sikkim, in a taxi. A friendly Sikkimmese of Nepali ethnicity, Keyren, drove us up and down mountains and spurs, along winding roads, on sometimes gravelly track, to four monasteries. Through our chats with him we received an education in Sikkimmese history, the socio-political climate and how people in Sikkim live. (See tim's post for commentary from a budding social scientist).
Some other facts:
1. there are three main ethnic groups that comprise the Sikkimese people. The Nepali (approx 40%) , the Bhutanese (approx 30%) and the Tibetans (approx 30%). There are some interesting ethnic conflict dynamics going on between these groups - they don't all that like one another, from what we heard. (though i suppose that in any multi-ethnic society, some tension is bound to exist - racist jokes are everywhere). These tensions have been shaped by regional politics. China annexes Tibet so Tibetan refugees escape to Sikkim. Nepalese and Bhutanese, as neighbouring peoples, have traditionally been living in Sikkim. India lays claim to Sikkim while watching China's every move. Everyone wants a piece of this pristine place in the clouds. There are parallels with Singapore.
2. The roads around Sikkim wind around the highlands. There are many "turnings". Our driver, Keyren, contrasted them with "straight, just tunnel through the mountains" Chinese roads. I'm not sure if he was joking, but he told us that Indian engineers laid out the roads in an interesting way. They start with a case of beer. Take one bottle, walk and drink. When the bottle is empty, make a turning. Repeat until case is gone. Bring another case the next day. This explains why the roads wind so much.
We spend the night in a monastery. This is not something that every tourist gets to do but apparently our helpful tour operators have connections and gave us fake identities as "potential students of Buddhist teachings" as an excuse for us to experience monastic life. It'll be cool. We sleep in the prayer hall, with the pantheon of Buddhist deities watching us as we slumber. Perhaps they'll appear in our dreams.
For the next 9 days, we'll be cut off from civilisation. More blue skies beckon. I do reckon we'll get to see the stars at night.
As a prelude to our grand expedition to Gochem La, we spent the day gallivanting around Gangtok, the present capital of Sikkim, in a taxi. A friendly Sikkimmese of Nepali ethnicity, Keyren, drove us up and down mountains and spurs, along winding roads, on sometimes gravelly track, to four monasteries. Through our chats with him we received an education in Sikkimmese history, the socio-political climate and how people in Sikkim live. (See tim's post for commentary from a budding social scientist).
Some other facts:
1. there are three main ethnic groups that comprise the Sikkimese people. The Nepali (approx 40%) , the Bhutanese (approx 30%) and the Tibetans (approx 30%). There are some interesting ethnic conflict dynamics going on between these groups - they don't all that like one another, from what we heard. (though i suppose that in any multi-ethnic society, some tension is bound to exist - racist jokes are everywhere). These tensions have been shaped by regional politics. China annexes Tibet so Tibetan refugees escape to Sikkim. Nepalese and Bhutanese, as neighbouring peoples, have traditionally been living in Sikkim. India lays claim to Sikkim while watching China's every move. Everyone wants a piece of this pristine place in the clouds. There are parallels with Singapore.
2. The roads around Sikkim wind around the highlands. There are many "turnings". Our driver, Keyren, contrasted them with "straight, just tunnel through the mountains" Chinese roads. I'm not sure if he was joking, but he told us that Indian engineers laid out the roads in an interesting way. They start with a case of beer. Take one bottle, walk and drink. When the bottle is empty, make a turning. Repeat until case is gone. Bring another case the next day. This explains why the roads wind so much.
We spend the night in a monastery. This is not something that every tourist gets to do but apparently our helpful tour operators have connections and gave us fake identities as "potential students of Buddhist teachings" as an excuse for us to experience monastic life. It'll be cool. We sleep in the prayer hall, with the pantheon of Buddhist deities watching us as we slumber. Perhaps they'll appear in our dreams.
For the next 9 days, we'll be cut off from civilisation. More blue skies beckon. I do reckon we'll get to see the stars at night.
singapore in the clouds
Experiencing different cultures have often been a defining feature of travel, but Sikkim bucks this general expectation. Surprisingly, Gangtok, a remote city near the Himalayan Range and thousands of miles from Singapore, shares many features that define Singapore.
Gangtok exudes a sense of artificiality. I couldn't believe that this haven could exist after Calcutta and Chennai. The Indian government is clearly seeking to fashion Gangtok as some sort of resort town, and town-planning is very evident. Mahatma Gandhi Marg, the main tourist walking belt has well-paved streets with plenty of clean, new benches, a sight that we are yet to see anywhere in India so far. Plenty of tourist police patrol the roads and there is virtually no touting and absolutely no beggars. This sense of artificiality is accentuated since we visited Gangtok after we haved sweated through the chaos of Calcutta and freezed through the slightly haphazard Darjeeling.
The diversity of ethnicity and cultures here mirrors Singapore's. Talking to the driver and asking him about the ethnicity of persons that we saw along the roads revealed that there are at least 4 ethnic groups in Sikkim: the Nepalese, Bhutanese, Bengalese Indian and Tibetan. On top of this there is the original natives, the lepchas. Hence there is a duality to identity here, just like in Singapore, split along ethinic and nationality lines. For example just as a Chinese Singaporean exists, a Bhutanese Sikkimese exists.
Signs of cohesion and assimilation are aplenty, but so are that of the inevitable racial tensions that usually plague multi-racial and cultural societies.
The food culture say it all as far as assimilation and integration is concerned. We had breakfast at this restaurant that served Indian puri with chickpea curry, together with a Bhutanese tourist policeman. Lunch was taken with our Nepalese driver at a local restaurant that had Tibetan and Bhutanese cooks and waiters that served Indian rice and curry.
However nationality and political creeds still exists. Our driver had his own views on the Tibetan presence in Sikkim. He feels that the 40% Tibetans make a load of needless fuss over the issue of Tibetan emancipation, and quipped that if they were allowed to decide whether to join Sikkim in India or Tibet, they would choose the former. To him, their concerns are hypocritical.
The onslaught of commercialism and capitalism is clearly evident, as in Singapore. The monks at the various monasteries saunter around with earphones plugged into their ears, and they are allowed to smoke and drink. The young tour guides at the tour agency we visited all have Facebook and Myspace accounts, and were astonishingly tech-savvy.
And the same paternalistic approach to government is adopted here in Sikkim. Signs with aphorisms that warn drivers on roads are plastered on mountain walls in intervals of about 20 metres, and rubbish bags, littering and touting are strictly banned in Sikkim.
Perhaps one difference is that Sikkim, unlike Singapore, has ceded its independence to India, in rather dubious fashion if the words of our driver can be believed. At the musuem of Tibetology a particular phrase struck me when I viewed the photo exhibition at the top of the museum. A particular description of a photograph quoted a Bhutanese politician, who said that the history of Sikkimese-Bhutanese exchange is worth studying and if there is anything to learn from it, it is not to do what the Sikkimese did, which is to surrender the sovereignty of their former independent kingdom.
Maybe I will see something drastically different tonight, when we sleep the night at this monastery near Gangtok. Meanwhile the world seems to share the same thoughts, hopes and fears, an overall comforting fact to me.
Gangtok exudes a sense of artificiality. I couldn't believe that this haven could exist after Calcutta and Chennai. The Indian government is clearly seeking to fashion Gangtok as some sort of resort town, and town-planning is very evident. Mahatma Gandhi Marg, the main tourist walking belt has well-paved streets with plenty of clean, new benches, a sight that we are yet to see anywhere in India so far. Plenty of tourist police patrol the roads and there is virtually no touting and absolutely no beggars. This sense of artificiality is accentuated since we visited Gangtok after we haved sweated through the chaos of Calcutta and freezed through the slightly haphazard Darjeeling.
The diversity of ethnicity and cultures here mirrors Singapore's. Talking to the driver and asking him about the ethnicity of persons that we saw along the roads revealed that there are at least 4 ethnic groups in Sikkim: the Nepalese, Bhutanese, Bengalese Indian and Tibetan. On top of this there is the original natives, the lepchas. Hence there is a duality to identity here, just like in Singapore, split along ethinic and nationality lines. For example just as a Chinese Singaporean exists, a Bhutanese Sikkimese exists.
Signs of cohesion and assimilation are aplenty, but so are that of the inevitable racial tensions that usually plague multi-racial and cultural societies.
The food culture say it all as far as assimilation and integration is concerned. We had breakfast at this restaurant that served Indian puri with chickpea curry, together with a Bhutanese tourist policeman. Lunch was taken with our Nepalese driver at a local restaurant that had Tibetan and Bhutanese cooks and waiters that served Indian rice and curry.
However nationality and political creeds still exists. Our driver had his own views on the Tibetan presence in Sikkim. He feels that the 40% Tibetans make a load of needless fuss over the issue of Tibetan emancipation, and quipped that if they were allowed to decide whether to join Sikkim in India or Tibet, they would choose the former. To him, their concerns are hypocritical.
The onslaught of commercialism and capitalism is clearly evident, as in Singapore. The monks at the various monasteries saunter around with earphones plugged into their ears, and they are allowed to smoke and drink. The young tour guides at the tour agency we visited all have Facebook and Myspace accounts, and were astonishingly tech-savvy.
And the same paternalistic approach to government is adopted here in Sikkim. Signs with aphorisms that warn drivers on roads are plastered on mountain walls in intervals of about 20 metres, and rubbish bags, littering and touting are strictly banned in Sikkim.
Perhaps one difference is that Sikkim, unlike Singapore, has ceded its independence to India, in rather dubious fashion if the words of our driver can be believed. At the musuem of Tibetology a particular phrase struck me when I viewed the photo exhibition at the top of the museum. A particular description of a photograph quoted a Bhutanese politician, who said that the history of Sikkimese-Bhutanese exchange is worth studying and if there is anything to learn from it, it is not to do what the Sikkimese did, which is to surrender the sovereignty of their former independent kingdom.
Maybe I will see something drastically different tonight, when we sleep the night at this monastery near Gangtok. Meanwhile the world seems to share the same thoughts, hopes and fears, an overall comforting fact to me.
Gochen La
we had an amazing day today going around the various monasteries in Sikkim; not because we are great fans of monasteries but because we had a really good guide - Keyren. He basically gave us a great education on the sociopolitical culture and landscape of Sikkim and its various inhabitants and his own personal views and opinions on monks, monasteries, hinduism, football, cricket and just about everything under the sun. it is too much for me to put into words here and words will not really do it justice in any case.
we have also run into a slight problem. while trying to upload photos, our thumdrive was infected with a virus and as such the photographs of Darjeeling (later editions), the trip here to Sikkim and the monastery trips today cannot be posted. Its a shame because we took a photo with a really stunning Nepali girl with piercing eyes. But unfortunately you guys won't be able to see her.
In any case, we leave for our 9 day trek to Gochen La tomorrow. Gochen La is the base camp area of Kanchenjunga, which is the third highest mountain in the world. We will be going up to 4960 (about 5000 metres) and it appears that there will be snow, judging from the view we got of some peaks today while triapsing around the monasteries. The weather is also unpredictable in these recent days so its anybody's guess as to what we will be facing up there.
that being said, we are in the care of a company that we randomly selected while walking around the streets of Sikkim. its kinda funny cos we appear to keep making good choices. the company turns out to be quite reputable, having offices in Singapore (near Peninsula Plaza), Switzerland, Nepal and Sikkim and they have operated for 14 years doing treks like these. to cut a long story short, logistically speaking they seem to be sound. And there are going to be Yaks to carry our bags. how cool is that?
we leave tomorrow for Yuksam. The original capital of Sikkim. there we will stay for one night in a hotel before dumping extra stuff into a locker and hucking our bags onto our friendly Yaks.
we should return by the 23rd assuming everything goes well.
tonight, we will be spending the night in a prayer room at a monastery called Tamang Gompa. Gompa is a generic term for monastery and Tamang refers to the ethnic sect of the people in that monastery. There are 4 different sects of buddhist monks and they correspond to 4 different cultural groups with their own practices. some monks can drink, eat meat and make love while others are not so lucky.
Sikkim is very very multi cultural and very very political in terms of its makeup. There are so many cultures and sub cultures here - Nepalese, Sikkimese (the original Lepbchu inhabitants of the area), Bhutanese, Tibetan and various Indians. Apparently, everyone doesn't like the Tibetans cos they "try to dominate others" and "are not friendly or grateful to India for [offering them shelter from China]"
there is a whole history behind the reason why Sikkim is a part of India instead of China. why chinese nationals are not allowed into Sikkim, why a famous tibetan temple in sikkim had funds contributed by Jackie Chan towards its construction, why there are indian army guards at the oldest tibetan temple in sikkim and how the state soccer team selection works. apparently, the law is also very malleable in sikkim. you can kill someone and if you have enough money to pay you will go scott free.
also, being sikkimese is not a matter of birth. its a matter of who your father is. if a girl from sikkim marries a foreigner, even if their child is born in sikkim, the child is not considered a sikkimese. only if the father is sikkimese is the child considered sikkimese. this has implications as non sikkimese people cannot own property in sikkim and one can only buy and sell property to someone of the same ethinicity (bhutanese to bhutanese).
Keyren also told us of some deadly practices where people pay other people to put poison in the food. this happens in specific locations around sikkim which is also why he doesn't eat in certain areas. as for the motivation why, i could not really understand his explanation.
we stood at a rock which was a place for suicides and the view was great. we had a local nepali lunch with an enormous serving of rice (about 4 bowlfuls of rice plus 2 servings of vegetables and pork fats with dal washed down with Coke) and we noticed that nepali girls are really quite pretty. bhutan girls have unique features (sharp noses, small eyes and very long hair to mid back) and tibetan girls look like samsui women from old time singapore.
keyren is 29 and he has a kukri knife of his own, although he uses it for cutting meat in the kitchen. he has a 5 year old daughter and his wife is 26 and runs a business. he regrets marrying so young (married at 23) because then your life priorities change drastically. he belongs to a higher caste called Chittier (all my spellings of sects/cultures/names are based on phonetics and may not be actual spellings) and the nepali people have many castes and sections in their society.
keyren also grew up in a village and he told us about the village shamans who could eat hot coals and jump amazing distances. they were impervious to poisonous plants and being burnt as well. however, this only occurred when they were shaking from head to toe in a trance. keyren saw all this himself with his own eyes so i guess there must be some truth in it. i did ask him if they could do all this when they weren't shaking all about and he said nope, they had to be shaking. so there ya have it - their achilles heel.
keyren however also mentioned that it was hard to be friends with those guys cos "if you give them normal food, they will start shaking".
see you guys in 9 days.
we have also run into a slight problem. while trying to upload photos, our thumdrive was infected with a virus and as such the photographs of Darjeeling (later editions), the trip here to Sikkim and the monastery trips today cannot be posted. Its a shame because we took a photo with a really stunning Nepali girl with piercing eyes. But unfortunately you guys won't be able to see her.
In any case, we leave for our 9 day trek to Gochen La tomorrow. Gochen La is the base camp area of Kanchenjunga, which is the third highest mountain in the world. We will be going up to 4960 (about 5000 metres) and it appears that there will be snow, judging from the view we got of some peaks today while triapsing around the monasteries. The weather is also unpredictable in these recent days so its anybody's guess as to what we will be facing up there.
that being said, we are in the care of a company that we randomly selected while walking around the streets of Sikkim. its kinda funny cos we appear to keep making good choices. the company turns out to be quite reputable, having offices in Singapore (near Peninsula Plaza), Switzerland, Nepal and Sikkim and they have operated for 14 years doing treks like these. to cut a long story short, logistically speaking they seem to be sound. And there are going to be Yaks to carry our bags. how cool is that?
we leave tomorrow for Yuksam. The original capital of Sikkim. there we will stay for one night in a hotel before dumping extra stuff into a locker and hucking our bags onto our friendly Yaks.
we should return by the 23rd assuming everything goes well.
tonight, we will be spending the night in a prayer room at a monastery called Tamang Gompa. Gompa is a generic term for monastery and Tamang refers to the ethnic sect of the people in that monastery. There are 4 different sects of buddhist monks and they correspond to 4 different cultural groups with their own practices. some monks can drink, eat meat and make love while others are not so lucky.
Sikkim is very very multi cultural and very very political in terms of its makeup. There are so many cultures and sub cultures here - Nepalese, Sikkimese (the original Lepbchu inhabitants of the area), Bhutanese, Tibetan and various Indians. Apparently, everyone doesn't like the Tibetans cos they "try to dominate others" and "are not friendly or grateful to India for [offering them shelter from China]"
there is a whole history behind the reason why Sikkim is a part of India instead of China. why chinese nationals are not allowed into Sikkim, why a famous tibetan temple in sikkim had funds contributed by Jackie Chan towards its construction, why there are indian army guards at the oldest tibetan temple in sikkim and how the state soccer team selection works. apparently, the law is also very malleable in sikkim. you can kill someone and if you have enough money to pay you will go scott free.
also, being sikkimese is not a matter of birth. its a matter of who your father is. if a girl from sikkim marries a foreigner, even if their child is born in sikkim, the child is not considered a sikkimese. only if the father is sikkimese is the child considered sikkimese. this has implications as non sikkimese people cannot own property in sikkim and one can only buy and sell property to someone of the same ethinicity (bhutanese to bhutanese).
Keyren also told us of some deadly practices where people pay other people to put poison in the food. this happens in specific locations around sikkim which is also why he doesn't eat in certain areas. as for the motivation why, i could not really understand his explanation.
we stood at a rock which was a place for suicides and the view was great. we had a local nepali lunch with an enormous serving of rice (about 4 bowlfuls of rice plus 2 servings of vegetables and pork fats with dal washed down with Coke) and we noticed that nepali girls are really quite pretty. bhutan girls have unique features (sharp noses, small eyes and very long hair to mid back) and tibetan girls look like samsui women from old time singapore.
keyren is 29 and he has a kukri knife of his own, although he uses it for cutting meat in the kitchen. he has a 5 year old daughter and his wife is 26 and runs a business. he regrets marrying so young (married at 23) because then your life priorities change drastically. he belongs to a higher caste called Chittier (all my spellings of sects/cultures/names are based on phonetics and may not be actual spellings) and the nepali people have many castes and sections in their society.
keyren also grew up in a village and he told us about the village shamans who could eat hot coals and jump amazing distances. they were impervious to poisonous plants and being burnt as well. however, this only occurred when they were shaking from head to toe in a trance. keyren saw all this himself with his own eyes so i guess there must be some truth in it. i did ask him if they could do all this when they weren't shaking all about and he said nope, they had to be shaking. so there ya have it - their achilles heel.
keyren however also mentioned that it was hard to be friends with those guys cos "if you give them normal food, they will start shaking".
see you guys in 9 days.
important information about upcoming programme in sikkim
Since Nepal's situation is fuzzy at best, we have decided to trek to Goche La in Sikkim, India instead.
It is unlikely that we will be able to find internet access from 13th May till 22 May, so we will probably not be updating till then. However we will try our best to update.
The trek is potentially dangerous so we have posted some important information about our programme here just in case anything happens.
Duration: 14 May to 22 May
Locations: Yuksom to Gochen La, base camp of Kanchengjunga
Highest Altitude: 4900m thereabouts
Tour company: http://www.sikkim-holidays.com/
Contact information on the brochure: Sikkim Holidays, Sonam Gyatso Marg, Tibet Road, near Sadar Police Station, contact: +91 94340 10330 / 98323-91716, office: +91 3592-320095
We are staying the night of 12 May at Hotel Kanchengjunga, Mohamad Gandhi Road, and the night of 13 May at a monastery. 14th May onwards will be spent in tents in the mountains.
** Please take note of the estimated update day. We don't update by then, there might be problems.
It is unlikely that we will be able to find internet access from 13th May till 22 May, so we will probably not be updating till then. However we will try our best to update.
The trek is potentially dangerous so we have posted some important information about our programme here just in case anything happens.
Duration: 14 May to 22 May
Locations: Yuksom to Gochen La, base camp of Kanchengjunga
Highest Altitude: 4900m thereabouts
Tour company: http://www.sikkim-holidays.com/
Contact information on the brochure: Sikkim Holidays, Sonam Gyatso Marg, Tibet Road, near Sadar Police Station, contact: +91 94340 10330 / 98323-91716, office: +91 3592-320095
We are staying the night of 12 May at Hotel Kanchengjunga, Mohamad Gandhi Road, and the night of 13 May at a monastery. 14th May onwards will be spent in tents in the mountains.
** Please take note of the estimated update day. We don't update by then, there might be problems.
reliving our childhood days
Like excited primary school kids, we gaily walked to the Darjeeling zoo bright and early in the morning.
before our walk, we had breakfast.
"chow mien" darjeeling style
A potential dog-of-the-day! having breakfast too
On the way to the zoo, we saw:
our hotel, the quaintly (and aptly, i think, for a hotel in remote mountains) named hotel shambala.
another very aptly named hotel
real Darjeeling school kids going to school. Their uniforms (when not baggy/dirty) are a lot preppier than ours used to be.
we do not have a fetish for schoolkids. really.
assembly at boys' school. like us, they do drills and sing songs with no fervour whatsoever.
cutely named cafe. perhaps they serve aphrodisiacs. i don't know what i was doing.
excellent view
obligatory pose
i have never seen a sign like that prohibiting the same for humans.
cute ^^ red panda. elgin spent 10 whole minutes gazing forlornly at it. perhaps a kindred spirit?
garang mountaineering centre hidden in the zoo. its instructor list reads like an everest hall-of-fame.
elgin the law student was very interested in this. it was next to where we made our sikkim visa.
lastly: pretty flowers. a dandelion?
before our walk, we had breakfast.
"chow mien" darjeeling style
A potential dog-of-the-day! having breakfast too
On the way to the zoo, we saw:
our hotel, the quaintly (and aptly, i think, for a hotel in remote mountains) named hotel shambala.
another very aptly named hotel
real Darjeeling school kids going to school. Their uniforms (when not baggy/dirty) are a lot preppier than ours used to be.
we do not have a fetish for schoolkids. really.assembly at boys' school. like us, they do drills and sing songs with no fervour whatsoever.
cutely named cafe. perhaps they serve aphrodisiacs. i don't know what i was doing.
excellent view
obligatory pose
i have never seen a sign like that prohibiting the same for humans.
cute ^^ red panda. elgin spent 10 whole minutes gazing forlornly at it. perhaps a kindred spirit?
garang mountaineering centre hidden in the zoo. its instructor list reads like an everest hall-of-fame.
elgin the law student was very interested in this. it was next to where we made our sikkim visa.
lastly: pretty flowers. a dandelion?
flower power
We visited Lloyd Botanic Garden in the early hours of the morning, because we appreciate and respect nature. This is clearly not true, judging from the number of wet wipes and tissue paper used so far. The real reason is because the zoo is yet to be opened at this hour, so to make full use of our time, we decided to visit a place that has no opening hours for nature opens her embrace to all of us, all the time.
The gates were not opened, so we had to squirm through the entrance at the side. Roger squirms through while Tim stands guard for signs of trouble from the ravenous monkeys. I stand at a distance and let them risk their lives first.
Got map can walk. But still got lost.
Once inside, we proceeded towards the flowers and began taking photos that can be used as desktop wallpapers. Guys, this is a good (and more importantly, convenient) source for pictures of flowers to be used for various means (e.g. birthday card, love letters written with blood) to placate (and bluff) girlfriends hungry for some show of effort, attention and lurrrvvvee.
For the geeky types, attaching explanatory notes for each flower might do the trick.
More heartachingly beautiful pictures of beautiful flowers. Whip out the Kleenex.
Glasshouse of neverending luurrrvveeee. The doors were closed, just like the windows of my heart.
Tim versus flowers.
The trees are HUGE. And they are coniferous trees. Which makes me feel happy and warm (deep inside).
The obligatory pair photo. It was cold. But our spirits were never dampened. With the map in the background anything is possible. Except maybe eating 18 momos at one go.
2 heads are better than one. But 2 phallic trees above head is even better.
The mandatory emo shot. This is good enough for our next Pakistani Hindi pop fusion album. Me trying to look like I don't care while Tim is not even half in the picture.
And the equally mandatory "what the heck is going on in this photo" photo. Tim searches for his inner child while Roger tries to pretend he doesn't care for Tim.
Roger is happy. I am just cold.
The view is GREAT. We can see a large part of the valley.
We than proceeded to ruin the scenery by adding ourselves.
Tim had to fart. I was too angry to look. Roger was too far to be affected.
After the fart, I was happy and raised my hands to celebrate the restoration of peace to the world. The rest looks in the same direction to emphasise the point.
Leaving the garden was never an easy task, given the loveliness of the place. Remember Hotel California? "You can check in any time you like but you can never leave".
It doesn't help when I tried to lead the guys off the edge of the cliff. I mistook the tents in the distance as our hotel.
The gates were not opened, so we had to squirm through the entrance at the side. Roger squirms through while Tim stands guard for signs of trouble from the ravenous monkeys. I stand at a distance and let them risk their lives first.
Got map can walk. But still got lost.
Once inside, we proceeded towards the flowers and began taking photos that can be used as desktop wallpapers. Guys, this is a good (and more importantly, convenient) source for pictures of flowers to be used for various means (e.g. birthday card, love letters written with blood) to placate (and bluff) girlfriends hungry for some show of effort, attention and lurrrvvvee.
For the geeky types, attaching explanatory notes for each flower might do the trick.
More heartachingly beautiful pictures of beautiful flowers. Whip out the Kleenex.
Glasshouse of neverending luurrrvveeee. The doors were closed, just like the windows of my heart.
Tim versus flowers.
The trees are HUGE. And they are coniferous trees. Which makes me feel happy and warm (deep inside).
The obligatory pair photo. It was cold. But our spirits were never dampened. With the map in the background anything is possible. Except maybe eating 18 momos at one go.
2 heads are better than one. But 2 phallic trees above head is even better.
The mandatory emo shot. This is good enough for our next Pakistani Hindi pop fusion album. Me trying to look like I don't care while Tim is not even half in the picture.
And the equally mandatory "what the heck is going on in this photo" photo. Tim searches for his inner child while Roger tries to pretend he doesn't care for Tim.
Roger is happy. I am just cold.
The view is GREAT. We can see a large part of the valley.
We than proceeded to ruin the scenery by adding ourselves.
Tim had to fart. I was too angry to look. Roger was too far to be affected.
After the fart, I was happy and raised my hands to celebrate the restoration of peace to the world. The rest looks in the same direction to emphasise the point.
Leaving the garden was never an easy task, given the loveliness of the place. Remember Hotel California? "You can check in any time you like but you can never leave".It doesn't help when I tried to lead the guys off the edge of the cliff. I mistook the tents in the distance as our hotel.
