Trim and lithe, her rich brown hair flowing over her shoulders, America's only working queen strides the hilly lanes of her capital, Gangtok. As she passes by, the Sikkimese smile, nod and stop to chat, all formality forgotten. Hope Cooke, the shy Sarah Lawrence student married five years to the King of Sikkim, finds herself very much at home in the tiny Himalayan country. "The mountains," she says, "give me such a secure feeling. I don't feel vulnerable here."
Five years ago, during the elaborate ceremonies marking her marriage to Palden Thondup...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,900504,00.html#ixzz1rdXLnvc9
.....................................................................................................................................................................
When Sikkim's benign and enlightened King Palden Thondup Namgyal was crowned eight years ago in Gang-tok, he offered this pledge for himself and his queen, former New York Debutante Hope Cooke: "Together may we make Sikkim a paradise on earth." Today, Indian troops patrol his capital and his dreams of paradise look dark.
Sikkim's precarious position on the Tibetan frontier has long worried India, which is responsible for the Himalayan protectorate's foreign relations and defense and keeps a careful eye on domestic affairs as well. The immediate cause for the disturbances, however, is a controversy over Sikkim's...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945233,00.html#ixzz1rdXhxi3y
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ten years ago, when Prince Palden Thondup Namygal was crowned Chogyal (King) of Sikkim, his young wife, Sarah Lawrence Graduate Hope Cooke, became "Queen of the Happy Valley" and "Consort of Deities." Together they pledged to make the tiny storybook kingdom "a paradise on earth." They also hoped to make Sikkim, an Indian protectorate since 1950, more economically and politically independent. That was a fairy tale not to be. Last week India's Parliament voted to make Sikkim India's 22nd state. It was the last act of a sequence that saw Sikkim's 300-year-old...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,913029,00.html#ixzz1rdXtgsK0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sacred Site
(rumtek.org)
In a Stupa: Wandering dumbly around a temple with no understanding of what you're looking at is incredibly boring. A quick visit to the official website of the Rumtek Dharma Chakra Centre, one of Sikkim's main religious destinations, will let you expound sagaciously about the turquoise and coral of the main stupa and explain the meaning of the butter-and-rice sculptures to your stupa-fied travel companions. A schedule of special ceremonies, such as the Mahakala mask dances and Tibetan New Year celebrations, will enable you to sound even more erudite.
(rumtek.org)
In a Stupa: Wandering dumbly around a temple with no understanding of what you're looking at is incredibly boring. A quick visit to the official website of the Rumtek Dharma Chakra Centre, one of Sikkim's main religious destinations, will let you expound sagaciously about the turquoise and coral of the main stupa and explain the meaning of the butter-and-rice sculptures to your stupa-fied travel companions. A schedule of special ceremonies, such as the Mahakala mask dances and Tibetan New Year celebrations, will enable you to sound even more erudite.
On the Map
(mapsofindia.com/maps/sikkim)
Start Plotting: This site's boring design and dull name hides some excellent content on the state of Sikkim. Links to sections on Sikkim's history-China briefly invaded the country in the 1960s-and a variety of useful maps make a browse worthwhile. It also has great links to help plan a trip to the mountainous state from Darjeeling and other points in India.
(mapsofindia.com/maps/sikkim)
Start Plotting: This site's boring design and dull name hides some excellent content on the state of Sikkim. Links to sections on Sikkim's history-China briefly invaded the country in the 1960s-and a variety of useful maps make a browse worthwhile. It also has great links to help plan a trip to the mountainous state from Darjeeling and other points in India.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,454549,00.html#ixzz1rdY5SMyt
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is usually little zest to life in Sikkim, India's tiny protectorate in the Himalayas. For day-to-day kicks, some citizens can only contemplate the crags of majestic Kanchenjunga, the world's third highest mountain, marvel at the gay flowers that grow in profusion beneath its peaks, or laugh gaily at the frolicking wild pandas of the region. But last week excitement galore gripped the populace as chic photographers, starchy diplomats and perfumed post-debs from abroad suddenly inundated the charming little capital of Gangtok.
The occasion was the long-postponed coronation of His Highness Chogyal (King) Palden Thondup Namgyal, Sikkim's own maharajah. Squatting...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,841834,00.html#ixzz1rdYHMdzy
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a debutante and a Sarah Law rence graduate (in Oriental studies), Hope Cooke had a crush on Central Asia. Her dreams seemed to come ro mantically true last March when she married Sikkim's Crown Prince Palden Thondup Namgyal in a now-legendary ceremony at the capital city of Gangtok (TIME, March 23). Last week, when the crown prince's 70-year-old father, Maharajah Sir Tashi Namgyal, died of cancer in a Calcutta nursing home, Hope and her husband mounted the throne of the mountain-locked Himala yan kingdom. The formal coronation will take place after...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875437,00.html#ixzz1rdYbpu2w
............................................................................................................................................................
Guests in top hats and cutaways mingled with others in fur-flapped caps and knee-length yakskin boots last week outside the tiny Buddhist chapel in Sikkim's dollhouse Himalayan capital of Gangtok. Wedding parcels from Tiffany's were piled side by side with bundled gifts of rank-smelling tiger and leopard skins. Over 28,146-ft. Mount Kanchenjunga, the world's third highest mountain and Sikkim's "protecting deity," hung a blue haze. It was an "auspicious sign," said Gangtok astrologers, for the wedding of a quiet, blue-eyed New York girl, Hope Cooke, 22, and Gyalsay Rimpoche Maha-rajkumar Palden Thondup Namgyal, 39, crown prince of the Indian...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896732,00.html#ixzz1rdYuQThm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TELEVISION
Wednesday, June 17
SIKKIM AND ITS YANKEE QUEEN (NBC, 9-10 p.m.)* The former Hope Cooke (Sarah Lawrence, '63). now wife of Maharajah Palden Thondup Namgyal of Sikkim, the tiny Himalayan kingdom, will narrate this on-location documentary about her new country and her new life. Color.
Thursday, June 18
ELECTION YEAR IN AVERAGETOWN (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Salem. N.J., like it or not, has been chosen to play the title role in David Brinkley's report on smalltown political attitudes.
Saturday, June 20
ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). Jockey Eddie Arcaro reports the Gold...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,871154,00.html#ixzz1rdZ4t7Op
....................................................................................................................................................
Down through the years, as the zing of arrows gave way to the boom of the bomb, the people who live on the roof of the world never complained about all the noise down below. All they asked was to be left alone. Except for the occasional call by Lowell Thomas or somebody looking for the Abominable Snowman, they got their wish. Down below, Hannibal and Hitler, Socrates and Sinatra flashed by; high in the Himalayas, ignorant and innocent of it all, the people went right on hunting snow leopards, dodging devils and...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,937067,00.html#ixzz1rdb3Twed
.............................................................................................................................................................
The focus of India's attention last week shifted to its Himalayan border in the north. There, while the war with Pakistan continued in bloody obscurity, Red China sharpened a knife for India's back. In Peking, India's charge d'affaires was roused at one o'clock in the morning with a curt summons to the Foreign Ministry, where he was handed an ultimatum. In brutal terms, the note gave the Indian government three days "to dismantle all military structures along the Sikkim border," or else take the "grave consequences."
Closed Neck. Ever since fighting broke out...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,834347,00.html#ixzz1rdbMbadD
.......................................................................................................................................................
Struggle for the Roof of the World
Violence marked most of the world's trouble spots last week: bloodletting in Algeria, upheaval in Argentina, a shadow war in South Viet Nam, a coup d'état in Syria. Almost unnoticed was an event of moment among the towering peaks of the Himalaya Mountains (see color pages), where India is struggling to hold back Red China's hordes. The event was the spring thaw.
With the melting snows, man once again can emerge from shelter, and the weird,
bloodless battle on the heights can resume along the obscure, 2,500-mile...
To read
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896034,00.html#ixzz1rdbZgGK2
...........................................................................................................................................
There's nothing like rounding the corner of a Himalayan trail in the rain and finding your cook making a hot meal. Unless your cook is Sikkimese. Our cook-he never offered a name-made good tea and noodle soup. But the rest of his food was an appalling improvisation-exemplified by his signature deep-fried cheese-and-tomato-and-peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich.
The catering is never dull, and neither is the trekking. And while Sikkim is big on adventure, it's a thumbnail of a place, hemmed in by Nepal, China, Bhutan and India. In 1975, this Hobbit-sized realm-a cute 110 km by 60 km-was annexed by India. But borders here have always been vague, making the Sikkimese a loose mix of Himalayan peoples and of forest-dwelling Lepcha, the area's earliest inhabitants. Unlike other parts of the Himalayas, few in Sikkim make their homes in the inhospitable mountains. Tending yaks and planting rice on barren slopes is a morale-draining drag, and those tough enough to do it are seldom asked for papers. Sheer survival is their passport.
Trekkers, though, are scrupulously monitored. Much of Sikkim is forbidden to foreigners, and access to the rest is governed by permits. Our trek was a seven-day slog toward the Goecha La plateau to see the sun rise on the world's third highest mountain: the mighty, 8,586-meter Kanchenjunga. Apart from a guide, it required three permits. But even if it wasn't illegal, wandering alone is a brow-furrowing prospect, for trails quickly extend beyond the reach of telephones. Dialing air rescue in emergencies is not an option, which is why, by the time we started, staff outnumbered clients. At the Yuksom trailhead, Samten Bhutia, our guide, hired the cook, a cook's helper, two dzos (hirsute offspring of yaks and cows), and a herder to manage the beasts and their burdens.
As we climbed, energy for whining about food became a laughable luxury. The thin air sapped our strength, and it was enough to curl up early with a good book. The first two days of the trek were exhausting, as we ascended more than 2,200 meters. Vegetation dwindled from oaks and pines to oxygen-starved, dwarfish rhododendrons. To avoid altitude sickness, we began sleeping no more than 300 meters above the previous night's resting place. This meant some days of short treks simply to acclimatize. Hours were measured out with cups of tea and swapped books. At the Thangsing camp at 3,800 meters we fashioned a ball from plastic bags, turning a dull afternoon into an impromptu football match, with dzo droppings for goalposts. But a hard lesson was driven home: playing soccer at altitude results in vomiting and a skull-splitting headache.
On the final morning, Samten got lost. The river crossing wasn't where he thought it was. At 3:30 a.m., at -15�C and 4,185 meters above sea level, this wore our patience as thin as the available oxygen. So he told us to shine our headlamps on the river, and in the halogen glare pointed out a perilous course across black rocks. I teetered giddily at the last boulder, making a leap for the bank and landing in supine embarrassment.
Then it was up to a wide, boulder-strewn plateau-Goecha La. Peaks once distant now towered over us. Ahead was the primordial bulk of Kanchenjunga, glowing bluish at first, then a soft pink. A curtain of cloud swept across its face, and for a moment its peak was just visible before disappearing again.
We vanished too, speeding downhill toward a dubious breakfast. A snow rat poked its head out, hoping for a crumb. I broke the park's rules and tossed him a piece of cookie. Feeding anything that lives at this desolate height has to be good karma. So long as you're not offering a deep-fried sandwich.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,454545,00.html#ixzz1rdboeHLk
...........................................................................................................................................................
Shortly after last week's cease-fire went into effect, Communist China accused India of still another act of "aggression" at Natu Pass, high in the Himalayas above Sikkim. The Chinese charged that a group of Indian soldiers had occupied "three aggressive military works" on the boundary and confronted Chinese frontier guards for 2½ hours. Actually, the soldiers were merely escorting four visiting journalists, among them TIME Correspondent Jerrold Schecter. His report:
At 14,500 ft., the mountain flowers are purple underfoot. Yellow lichens and red moss brighten in the morning sun, and the heavy granite block retaining wall of the caravan road to Natu...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,834414,00.html#ixzz1rdc0lBh8
...............................................................................................................................................................
No comments:
Post a Comment