A trip to the land of monasteries

By: Abhirup Senapati

My father, mother, brother and I, along with my aunt’s family, went to visit Sikkim for two weeks during the 2017 summer holidays.

I don’t remember much, but on reaching Sikkim the first thing we did was have lunch at the famous café. By the time we left the restaurant, I was confident, I had exhausted their whole stock of dumplings. We checked into our resort and then explored every corner of the beautiful property. We also took a bubble bath. After spending some time at resort, we visited a nearby market and collected some souvenirs and returned back to our rooms.

The next day we visited some monasteries and a tribal museum. For lunch, I ate another restaurant’s stock of dumplings (the previous one refused to let us in). In the evening, we visited a nearby tea plantation garden and I regretted my decision of tasting the freshly brewed tea that the elders were drinking as it tasted bitter.

On the second day of the trip, we visited a national park and saw a truckload of animals. Two rhinos, a herd of elephants, and a bunch of monkeys, and many more. When we were seeing the monkeys, my father handed me a banana to eat and at that moment, a brilliant idea struck me. I filled the empty banana peel with dried leaves and gave it to a monkey. The monkey was enraged at being tricked and slapped my cousin sister and ran away with my uncle’s glasses for revenge. I always had this dream to become a great prankster, but that moment shattered my dream into a billion pieces.

The next few days passed quickly as we visited monastery after monastery and got lectured by my uncle about Lord Buddha and the culture of Buddhism. And I kept devouring the dumpling stock, restaurant after restaurant. By the time we returned to Mumbai, not only was I completely informed about Buddhism, but also, I had not failed in causing a massive dumpling scarcity in Sikkim. (laughs)

Overall, it was a trip full of dumplings, monasteries, amazing views, and loads of fun. I would love to go to that place again.