Gangtok

Gangtok was a small settlement around a monastery until the middle of the 19th century, when the Enchey gompa was established on the ridge above it. Sikkim itself had been a Buddhist kingdom since the 17th century under the Namgyal dynasty, with its capitals in the west at Yuksom and later Rabdentse. British involvement grew after the 1830s, and the kingdom became a protectorate; when trade with Tibet through the Nathu La and Jelep La passes expanded after the Anglo-Tibetan convention of 1904, the town on the trade route grew with it. The capital was moved to Gangtok in 1894.

For the first half of the 20th century the town lived on that trade. Mule caravans carrying wool, borax and cloth came over the passes from Lhasa, and Marwari and Tibetan merchants settled around the bazaar. The route closed after China's annexation of Tibet and the border war of 1962, and Sikkim turned inwards. Tibetan refugees arrived from 1959, among them the Karmapa, who established Rumtek across the valley as the seat of his school in exile.

Politics changed the town again. Popular agitation against the monarchy in the early 1970s led to a referendum in 1975, after which Sikkim became the twenty-second state of India and Gangtok its capital. Statehood brought government offices, roads, schools and, from the 1990s, tourism, which is now the mainstay. Nathu La reopened for limited border trade in 2006. An earthquake in 2011 damaged buildings across Sikkim, and the flood that swept the Teesta valley in 2023 collapsed parts of the highway to the plains and cut the town off from the rest of India.

Sikkim's three main communities — the Lepchas, regarded as the earliest inhabitants; the Bhutias, who came from Tibet from the 14th century onward; and the Nepali-speaking majority who settled from the 19th century — give Gangtok its particular mixture. Nepali is the common language, with Bhutia, Lepcha and English also in use, and Buddhist and Hindu practice run side by side, often in the same family. Prayer flags, chortens and mani walls stand along the roads above town.

The festival calendar is unusually rich for a place of this size. Losar and Losoong bracket the winter with masked cham dances and archery; Saga Dawa fills the streets with processions in early summer; Pang Lhabsol, which honours Kangchenjunga as the protector of Sikkim, is the state's own festival; and Dashain, Tihar, Diwali and Christmas are all marked. Archery is the traditional sport, football the popular one, and the state has produced well-known Indian footballers.

Gangtok is also known for a certain civic discipline. Public smoking is restricted, plastic bags were banned early, the main street is pedestrianised and swept, and Sikkim has promoted itself as fully organic in agriculture. Visitors find people reserved but courteous; greetings are namaste or tashi delek, elders are addressed respectfully, and Himalayan etiquette around monasteries and sacred mountains is taken seriously, including the promise, kept by climbers since the first ascent, that the summit of Kangchenjunga itself would remain untrodden.

About 100,000 people live in Gangtok, which makes it a small capital even by Indian standards, though it holds a large share of Sikkim's population of roughly 600,000. Government is the biggest employer, followed by tourism, transport and trade; the university at Tadong, hospitals and schools bring people in from the districts, and many households let rooms or run vehicles during the season.

Building on a near-vertical ridge shapes everything. Houses stand on stilts and retaining walls, streets are stacked in tiers linked by stairways, and water, drainage and landslide protection are constant municipal concerns. Growth has pushed development down towards Ranipool and along the highway, where most new housing is being built.

The day starts early and ends early: offices and shops open in the morning, the market is busiest before noon, and by mid-evening M.G. Marg fills with families and students walking before dinner. Cardamom, ginger, oranges and organic vegetables come up from the villages, and much of the town has relatives farming in the districts. Road connections to the plains, damaged repeatedly by floods and landslides, are the standing preoccupation, along with the effect of tourist numbers on the high lakes and passes.

Gangtok eats Himalayan food with Nepali and Tibetan roots. Momos are the staple snack, steamed or fried and filled with pork, chicken, beef or vegetables and served with a chilli and tomato dip; thukpa and thenthuk, noodle and dough-flake soups, are the winter warmers. Phagshapa, strips of pork fat stewed with radish and dried chillies, is a Bhutia dish particular to Sikkim, and sha phaley, a fried meat pastry, comes from the same tradition.

Fermentation is central. Gundruk and sinki, leaves and radish fermented and dried, are cooked into sour soups; kinema, fermented soybean, gives a strong savoury base to curries; and chhurpi, milk cheese, appears both soft in soups and as a hard chew. Nettle soup, buckwheat pancakes and the round dalle khursani chilli, one of the hottest in India, belong to the same hill kitchen. Everyday meals are dal bhat with vegetables, and sel roti, a fried ring of rice batter, marks festivals.

Drinks are a local speciality. Tongba, warm millet beer drunk through a bamboo straw from a wooden pot, is the Himalayan classic, and chhaang is its close relative; Sikkim also brews and distils its own beer and spirits, which are cheaper here than in neighbouring states. Tea is drunk plain, sweet or in the Tibetan style with salt and butter, and large cardamom, one of the state's main cash crops, scents much of the cooking.