Trip to Namchee

A dog sleeping on the ledge
of the second floor of the restaurant 

   On Ghandhi's Birthday (last Tuesday, it was a school holiday) we spent the day visiting the largest Statue in Sikkim, a statue built with the help and oversight of Pintso's father, Sonam. It sits on the site of an old meditation hut in a town called Namchee.  To get there we drove about three hours, the first hour down into the valley of southern Sikkim and the next hours hours back up another mountain.  On the way there we drove through a lot of jungle and also drove through a couple of tea plantations.

The view from a rest stop.

Once at the statue site, a thick mist rolled in and we couldn't even see the statue from 30 feet below it.  After an hour or so, the mist lifted for about 15 minutes and we took all the photos we could.  Then the mist re-enclosed the statue.  There were many tourists there with us, mainly Bengalis (Maria told us) who like to travel to Sikkim after the monsoon season ends. They were very intrigued by all of us white people and asked Maria where we were from.

This is a snow lion holding up the
Buddha.  It is made out of fiberglass
and was drivin up from Siliguri.

Corrina, Christine, Maria and Laila take off
their shoes to enter the prayer room
at the base of the statue.

There was also a group of teenagers from Gangtok and one of them was brave enough to ask Grace would she let a guy in their group of friends take a photo with her?  She graciously said yes and much picture-taking ensued.  Laila took photos of Grace and the kids, I will upload them once she sends them to me.  Eventually just about everyone in our party had their photo taken with the students and they went on their way.

    The statue was in the process of being repainted, which Sonam was relieved to see.  After the people at his monastery built it (at the request of the government) they decided they should take it over and maintain it.  Of course, they didn't maintain it at all. While we were there men were climbing the scaffolding and scraping off paint.
      On the way home we stopped at a rest stop and ran into a group of white people, I think from Australia, who were taking a motorcycle tour of the mountains.  They looked pretty rough and tumble!