[The World Tour of Oopsies is an ongoing series of travel stories about my first decade of travel. During these adventures and misadventures, I had to unlearn many things I thought I knew about life. Welcome to my miseducation.]
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Catch up on the World Tour of Oopsies travel stories:
- Chapter 1: The Scorpion
- Chapter 2: The Bucket Shower
- Chapter 3: The Goat Sacrifice
- Chapter 4: The Idol
Part I / Somewhere in the Himalayan foothills
Following a harrowing visit to the Kalighat Temple in Kolkata (see Chapters 3 & 4), my small group headed north to Darjeeling, then into Sikkim’s capital city of Gangtok.
The goal of our trip was to backpack across the Himalayan foothills in Sikkim (India’s second-smallest and least populated state) to learn more about Tibetan Buddhism and culture.
Up until 1976, Sikkim was ruled by a Tibetan monarchy. Though the monarchy has since dissolved, the majority of residents speak Tibetan and follow Tibetan Buddhism.
From the capital city of Gangtok, we headed further into the foothills.
And by foothills, I mean mountains. The ‘foothills’ of the Lower Himalayas sit at heights from 920 feet up to 20,000 feet.
And when I say we headed further into the foothills, I mean our group of 15 Western youths and the three leaders herding us around packed into four-by-four jeeps, then started to snake around those insane mountains on dirt roads. (Thankfully, I was too young to fear death.)
During these long days spent driving, we were treated to special experiences, like being invited into homes to drink yak tea for the Dalai Lama’s birthday, for example. I also remember dreaming vividly of donuts, as we were mostly eating plain curries with rice.
A few days in, we had a particularly long day of driving on curvy, mountain roads at a tedious but safe pace.
Finally, the jeeps stopped in a small village on a mountainside, and we eagerly scooted toward the doors, desperate for fresh air and the chance to stretch our legs.
Part II / Cameras & temples
I leapt out of the car like everyone else, except I had my camera ready.
I had saved up for a nice Canon digital EOS camera, and immediately started taking close-ups of exotic flowers and the above-the-clouds vista from the roadside.
After a day spent cooped up in the car, almost the whole group was buzzing with energy. We left the jeeps and started chatting loudly, complaining, wandering off, taking photos, and more. Pretty much anything but greet our latest hosts.
Sure, we were teenagers who’d spent the day packed into Jeeps. We weren’t exactly the prime candidates for mindfulness.
Still, I look back and feel embarrassed about getting out of the Jeep and taking photos instead of greeting people. At the time, I saw my camera as a great artistic tool.
Now that I’ve lived in Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella, where I’ve been casually photographed on the street, I know that the camera lens can feel dehumanizing. It makes me feel like I’m just a prop in a museum that someone is passing through.
(Also, you would think I would have learned my lesson about cameras during the goat sacrifice in Kolkata? Alas. This is the World Tour of Oopsies.)
Our group eventually settled in at the direction of our group leaders, lugging our backpacks out of the jeeps and then eating a quick meal.
From there, we went on a short, steep trek to the local temple. The stairs seemed to go up and up and up, almost vertically. One member of the group struggled to finish the hike, while others started to feel off.
Really, really off.
Part III / Doom (The Boot)
I also started to pick up on that ‘off’ feeling during our hike to the temple.
The Buddhist temple, which included elements of local folk belief, too, was lovely and calming. The views were stunning, the temple itself was peaceful, and it was colorfully decorated. A great place to unwind after those long Jeep rides, in other words.
But a strange feeling started to take hold as we spun the prayer wheels and learned about the temple.
The feeling was almost one of doom. You know, like if someone had taken a hallucinogenic drug, then started having a ‘bad trip’. It felt like that; a sort of weird and very unpleasant sensation that tells you that something’s wrong, but you aren’t sure what.
We managed to hike back down to our lodging for the evening, where that sense of doom spread throughout the group. Again, one member of our group had to stop to get their bearings multiple times.
The feeling mounted hour by hour.
What started with a graze of doom now condensed into something more attention-grabbing. The type of feeling that makes you want to call your mom just to check in and make sure everything is okay. The kind that makes you think about how you’re acting and what you’re doing with your life.
Like you survived a brush with death, and now you’re ready to turn over a new leaf.
I remember our three group leaders doing breathing exercises to calm down some of us in the group—because what else do you do when a group of teenagers gets spooked on a towering, remote corner of the world?
First thing in the morning, after a long night of restless sleep and missed Zs, we left. That wasn’t a surprise because we’d always intended to keep delving further into the foothills after our short stay.
But later on, one of our group leaders confided in me and a friend that we’d been asked to leave sooner rather than later. Still, I think we were all relieved to get out of Dodge.
According to the locals, the mountain had rejected us, and we weren’t welcome.
That would sound outlandish as hell if I hadn’t felt the mountain rejecting us.
To put it in modern layman’s terms, we hadn’t passed the vibe check.
As with my time at Kalighat Temple, I don’t know how else to describe that—just that some places are powerful and sacred, and they will pack a punch whether or not you believe in that kind of stuff.
