The roads north to the mountains are often cut by landslides and are perpetually repaired by road teams. There were times we had to stop and wait while they cleared the road of the landslide. We sat with baited breath hoping another would not occur.
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The predominant religion in Sikkim is buddhism. The small village of Lachen, where the trek started, had its own monastery situated high above the colourful houses. The houses in the village were well stocked with wood in preparation for winter.
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For the first couple of days we walked through a forest with huge teak trees and large Rhododendrons flowering in a profusion of red and yellow blooms. In this photo you can see the immense scale of the trees compared to one of the supporting porters.
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Our last camp below the tree line was Yabuk. Here we were surrounded by massive mountains. As we were now moving to more inhospitable camps our porters, once they had carried up the loads, came back to here as there was a supply of wood for a fire.
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We continued on our way along the valley that had been caused by the Zemu glacier. In the distance we could see Kangchenjunga, the destination of the trip. On our left was the glacier with a steep climb to get to the edge of the morraine
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