Read Kathie's detailed and very engaging report about our trip to Northeast India. Places visited in Sikkim, India include Gangtok and Pelling. Then on to West Bengal where we stayed at the Glenburn Tea Estates and spent a half day in Darjeeling. After that we went to Kolkata where we spent 2 days doing real walks with Calcutta Walks (highly recommended!!). If you're interested in visiting this part of the world or just want to learn more about what we did and even liked and didn't like... Well, here's an excerpt to get you started.

"I remember reading about Sikkim as a child. There was a time back in the early 1960s when the majority of American school children knew where Sikkim was. An American woman, Hope Cook, married the Choygal of Sikkim, and press loved the story. Of course, I'd read James Hilton's book, Lost Horizons, and Sikkim sounded like Shangri-La to me. This tiny country fascinated me and I put it on the list of places I wanted to go someday. As I began to consider where to go this year, Sikkim came up as a possibility. As I looked into a visit to Sikkim, Darjeeling came up as a logical extension, and since we'd have to fly through Kolkata, that was added to our itinerary..." read more