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Sikkim

The forgotten Silk Route – Jelep La

This is the fifth post in this batch of Guest-post series on this site. The contributions are from people like you and me but not necessarily from the blogging world. We see, observe and experience many mundane things in our daily life. The flavours are different but the interest is common in these posts … and that is Travel.
Over to Korak Basu.
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East Sikkim is a place of virgin beauty. Most of us are unaware of the rich flora and fauna and wildlife of this region. So there we were- a group of enthusiastic travel-men ready to trace the forgotten silk route of east Sikkim. Before the Chinese aggression, Jelep La used to be the main trade route between India and Tibet.

We took an evening train from Kolkata and landed up in New Jalpaiguri Station the next morning. It was a Friday- Good Friday to be more specific. We had already hired a van (courtesy- Sebastian Pradhan of Rishi Eco Tourism Resort) and in no time were on our way to Rishikhola. We reached there around 1 pm after witnessing a Good Friday mass in Pedang.

Jelep la @lemonicks.com

The resort was just

Year 2010 in travel

Warning: This is a colorful post. 🙂
Before I start writing about my recent trip of Philippines and Malaysia, I thought it better to recollect how was the year 2010 for me in terms of travel.
I think I will skip some of domestic travels since a few of them happened in a jiffy and I do not remember the details now. Also, I am not counting the local exploration of lesser known places of my town such as watching Flamingos at Sewri fort.

@lemonicks.com

Flamingos enjoying their meals.

The year started with a trip to

Video of Shoh – a dice game of Sikkim

If you are following me on Twitter, you’d have known that we had stopped at a small place called Sevok in West Bengal to satiate our hungry stomachs.

There, a little far from our table, we saw a group of locals playing this game. The group was making some sounds which made us curious. Language barrier and lack of time played against us in understanding the game.
Later when I came back, I searched on the net but could not find any information. I have already written here whatever I could gather from them, including the name and its spelling.
They did not tell me about wooden bowl or leather plate. It was me who looked at those things curiously and found out. 🙂

Here is a small video of this game.

Next time