I just thought it let you know that somehow, in the course of typing that last email, I busted the zipper on one of my three pairs of pants- the little car thingy came off, and i dont know what to do. Bradley, your "lingam dekincha" prophesy has come true again. For other folks, its "Schplitterbahn, the Indian Interlude." luckily its dark out now. i will hop into a cab and go hide my shame in the hotel. In other news, i am still ordering way too much food.

It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote. I guess you are all just about to get together and have all that thanksgiving food. I wish I could be there. I will have to settle for tandoori chicken and an extra helping of saag paneer, but there will be plenty of Indians at the table. I wonder whats happening in the states? Judging from the newspapers here, the new Brittany Spears album has created quite a stir. Every day there is a new article debating whether or not she is a serious artist yet. Then there is Michael Jackson and bombings in Pakistan and Turkey.

I'll fill you in on whats going on over here. Mostly I have been shuttling back and forth between schools in Sikkim, frantically checking to make sure that the daal bhaat stains on my trousers can be hidden well enough to make it through another interview with the headmaster and the teachers. Indian students are about to take a winter break that will last till mid-february, so I’ve had to squeeze a lot of these meetings in before the break starts. I have also had the good luck to teach a few classes on environmental science on subjects such as biomagnification, the value of biodiversity, and things like that. Students seem to be really interested in tragic/heroic stories like Rachel Carson and Dian Fossey. Next year, environmental science will be introduced as a subject in secondary schools here, so teachers are very interested in actually having some kind of text, so this is really good timing. I leave tomorrow to fly back to Delhi to meet Colleen.

So, in between schooltrips I have seen a lot of Sikkim now. The trip to the wildlife sanctuary never happened because I was whisked off to the village of Pastanga, which is about an hour outside of Gangtok. Pastanga is trying to pitch itself as an ecotourism/village tourism destination. So I was supposed to evaluate the project and give feedback on the whole experience. I gotta say, it was great to be in a warm, welcoming village because the hipsters in Gangtok were starting to get to me. Every night this month they’ve been throwing a “rock concert” in downtown Gangtok. One of the things about traveling is that when your own culture is interpreted and presented back to you, it can seem much more bizzare and incomprehensible than what we usually call “exotic.” I can understand eating beetle larvae, or piercing your cheeks, but this “rock music” was from another planet. Let me set the scene: the stage is dripping with a rainbow of crepe paper, huge urns of artificial flowers have burst into bloom under the anemic stagelights. And 8 guys in sweater vests and ties are mincing around the stage singing hindi show tunes in noxious falsettos while the band, looking extremely uncomfortable and struggling to hold their instruments, somehow manages to unleash wave after wave of sado-operatic elevator music to the ecstatic crowd. I left when the child stars (also in matching sweater vests) were handed microphones, and it was clear that they weren’t going to leave until this rock-n-roll juggernaut shuddered to a halt later that night at precisely 8 o’clock. And this how you piss off your parents?

So, I headed to the village of Pastanga to think this through. There I stayed with a Rai household P.D. Rai and Lal Maya Rai, and their two children Anita and Benita, as well as their two "adopted" children, Binu and Sukrash. I guess its pretty common for well-off families to adopt children from poorer families and give them food, clothes, and an education in exchange for labor around the house.

Things with the family were a little awkward at first. But when I showed them the miniature quilt that my mother had made, they were grudgingly persuaded that my family wasn’t entirely comprised of idle millionares who could do little more than light cigars with hundred dollar bills while dancing in bikinis in the back of a speedboat or whatever it is we do to pass the time in America. At least one of us could MAKE something that is remotely useful.

Ashok, my guide looked a lot like Tatoo from Fantasy Island-monobrowed and four feet tall. I dont make the comparison lightly. Anyway, Ashok used his cell phone to call ahead and tell them that I really liked shisnu (stinging nettle soup) so they had some ready for dinner. Shishnu, a slightly gelatinous, shockingly green soup, was what the Buddhist saint Milarepa ate for 10,000 years while meditating in caves in the Himalayas.

I told the family that I liked "jungle food"--basically anything that you can find in the woods. So they served kinema, which is the local specialty. Kinema is made of soybeans that are wrapped in a tight bundle of ferns and left to ferment for fifteen days. Lal Maya showed me a basketful of kinema and when she parted the layer of ferns the beans sat there steaming like a freshly turned compost heap. Kinema would definitely be ok if it didn’t taste so bad. It has a sort of musty, tangy flavor and many Sikkimese turn their noses up when the food is mentioned. I also had ningro-fern fiddleheads, watchipa-a chicken and rice dish that is served in a banana leaf and bamboo and soybean pickle. And of course, tomba, red millet berries that are wrapped in ferns (a different kind of fern) and fermented with wild yeast. The fermented berries are served in a large sawn-off section of bamboo. Hot water is poured over the millet, and you let it sit for a few minutes so that the berries release the alcohol. You suck the liquid through a long, thin piece of bamboo. When it is made right, tomba tastes like a warm lemony wine, and the more your tomba is refilled, the stronger it gets.

Needless to say, my tomba became quite strong as the night progressed. Soon, the damaru (a two-headed nepali drum) was broken out and we commenced singing Nepali folk songs and dancing. C.D. Rai played a kinda jew's harp thingy, and then a blade of grass later on. I did my best impression of a Nepali folk dance, which, for males, is a curious roosterlike ululation- you sort of throw your butt out, perch your left hand on the shelf of your rump, throw your right arm high over your head and make like you are tussling an invisible head of hair that is seven feet off the ground while spinning in a slow circle. At least that's how I interpreted it. At the end of the night we were singing la bamba, which they learned from a guatemalan tourist. I thought of kirsten and guakie and I got some great recordings that night with the tape recorder sarah and her folks gave me. thanks!

On the next day we went for a trek through the cardamom fields and jungle above town. Cardamom is Sikkim's chief export. Its a large, well-behaved plant that looks like it would be comfortable in a dentist’s office, but instead it grows in mixed jungle (especially well near a certain tree that fixes nitrogen in the soil.) At the end of June, just as the monsoon is really kicking in, the cardamom plants flower. Dark purple flowers sprout at the base of the plant right near the ground. The seedpods are harvested in the fall and dried on bamboo racks over wood fires. People were drying the cardamom pods all around us as we walked up into the hills. When you see the spice dried it looks like a faint green pod about the size of a small garlic clove, but when its fresh, the cardamom pod is a translucent membrane that is filled with a yummy sweet juice. The seeds inside have an almost minty flavor. This was not a good year for cardamom and people say that a disease struck the crops.

While we were walking, Anita told me all the sounds that animals make in Nepali, for example, instead of "oink oink," pigs go "cronk cronk." Roosters don't “cock-a-doodle doo,” they go "koookariiiikaaa" and dogs go "awawawaawaa" sorta of the sound you make when you put something very hot in your mouth. Later that night we played pictionary, and I was creamed. The girls later admitted that they had totally cheated. I will give them filmstar "Sanjay Dutt" in 10 seconds, but who gets "Bill Clinton" in less than 30 seconds? I left Pastanga in a jeep that was totally filled with enormous sacks of fresh ginger.

The other two trips I took were to Yuksom in the west and the Lachung valley in the North. On the way to Yuksom I stayed in the filthiest hotel in the world. Hotel Kangchendzonga in Gyashling. Filthy! Every surface was covered in a tarry grime, the light switches on the wall looked like stained dentures, and the sheets had the telltale specks of blood that signal the presence of bedbugs. uggggh. Needless to say, I slept in my sleeping bag that night.

Nima, the owner, was a nice guy however. He introduced himself as a recovering alcoholic with an interesting story to tell. Nima was Bhutia and he was set up to marry a Tibetan girl. Before they were married, she applied for the Tibetan government in exile's visa lottery. Well about a year later, she found out that she had won the lottery and she was one of 1,000 Tibetans chosen to be resettled (along with her family) in the states. Well Nima was a godawful drunk at the time, and he told her to turn down the offer because he didn’t believe it could be true. Now he says that that was the biggest mistake of his life, his "rock bottom." He went into rehab and quit drinking...Now he has opened a branch of N.A. in Gyalshing to help other alcoholics and every year he goes down to the US embassy in Calcutta to plead his case, trying to win back the visa for his wife. He says that she should go without him. Maybe he can stay behind and clean up his hotel. kidding.

After Gyalshing, I visited the sacred Keochalpari lake-its surface is so calm and pristine its said that if a leaf falls in a bird will swoop down and grab it. And Pemayangste monastery- which has the most amazing murals and on the top floor there is an incredibly intricate sculpture depicting heaven and hell. The sculpture is 15 feet tall and 8 feet wide at the base and its said to be carved from a single tree. And I finally made it to Yuksam, the old capital of Sikkim, and the last village before Kangchendzonga national park. The big story there was that they nabbed two Russian "bio pirates" who were camped inside the park about a day's walk from town. The Russians were poaching butterflies and moths for the international collectors. They got caught because one of their porters went down to town to get gasoline. The quick-thinking forest ranger stopped the porter and asked him what he needed gasoline for, because the stoves run on kerosene. The ranger deduced that the Russians were using the gasoline to power a generator to run halogen lamps in the middle of the forest! The russians were netting the butterflies and moths attracted to the light. The “bio pirates” were thrown in jail for three months before their embassy got them out. Apparently they had made a living for decades poaching rare insects from Mongolia, Tibet, Turkmenistan, China, etc. People in Yuksam were really proud of that ranger.

There’s a little monk sitting next to me in the internet café right now. He’s wearing the robes and everything. He is instant messaging his friends and every time a note pops up on the screen he giggles and then taps out a reply. Its really cute.

I also headed to the Lachung and Lachen Valleys up in north Sikkim. The valleys were carved out by two glacial fingers that scraped southward from the mountains that make India/Tibet border. Before China invaded Tibet, yak caravans traveled up and down the valleys carrying salt from the Tibetan plateau and rice and other grains from Sikkim. Until recently, the area was closed to foreigners. Now, a few groups come every week to sightsee and soak in the hot springs. The Indian army also has camps up there. The Chinese army made a few half-hearted attempts to invade in 50s and 60s, but were repulsed by the Indian army. The bunkers and sandbagged defenses manned by soldiers from Assam and Punjab are pretty surreal amid the stone walls, goatherds, and millet fields up there.

The road up to Chamtang was one of the most dramatic, jagged landscapes I have ever seen. Its much less than a half an inch on most maps, but packed into that space are hundreds of forested cliffsides stacked on top of each other like a collapsed house of cards. You can't see the river below and you have to crane your neck to see the mountaintops. Waterfalls and springs were everywhere. In fact, the mountains were just leaking water. Massive landslide scars tore down entire cliffsides. Everything, even the soil, was flowing down. And the road our jeep followed cut across the hillside. Its hard to describe, but with the sound of rushing water everywhere and the landslides and the fact that you cant see the bottom, you sort of feel like you're balancing even when you know the road is flat.

The jeep dropped me and a bamboo basket full of chickens off in Chamtang, which is a village located at the confluence of the Lachen and Lachung Kholas. There I settled into my tomba and talked with the folks till I went to sleep. In the morning, finding no jeeps on the road, I stocked up on biscuits and decided to walk to Lachung. This is the point in the narrative where I learned the perennial Nepali lesson of "dui ghantaa laagcha." I asked how long it would take me to reach Lachung on foot and everyone replied, “oh about dui ghantaa” (two hours). Well paach (five) ghantaa later, I finally limped into the village accompanied by a goatherd who kept offering to carry my bag. No matter how far the next village is, its always two hours away.

Lachung was great, the kids play with these fake cars they make out of wire and bamboo. The Dali Lama stays at the monastary there for a couple months every year.

OK, so also I wanted to tell you about meeting the Chief Minister of Sikkim, Shri Pawan Chamling. Last night I was supposed to be having dinner at P.D. Rai's house in Gangtok. So we were sitting there, having some soup, when the cell phone rings, and its the Chief Minister on the line. He is like the president of Sikkim. And he is a great man who done so many progressive things for Sikkim, like banning plastic bags, banning the cutting of healthy trees, reserving 30 percent of all Panchayat seats for women (at the moment, 43 percent of the Panchayat seats are held by women in Sikkim). He even stopped the construction of a hydro dam near Yuksam because the people there objected to defiling the sacred landscape. Now he is settling monks in the abandoned houses built for the dam builders. So P.D. gets off the phone and says, "So, do you want to meet my Chief Minister?"

A minute later we are in a white jeep with a flashing red light on top. I am trying to tuck my shirt in as we negotiate the tightly switchbacked roads to the Chief Minister's house high above Gangtok. I am ushered in past the guards and told to sit in a waiting room while P.D. and the CM talk. Tea and cookies are brought. I eat them and then panic because I have cookies in my mouth and no more tea and Shri Chamling might appear at any moment. Panic subsides. I plan what to say and even write it down. I memorize it. Then I realize I should say something funny, so as to be memorable. Why did this have to be the day that im wearing sandals with socks instead of proper shoes! So I'm kept waiting long enough for the panic to melt into boredom. Finally he is announced and he comes in. Now, Pawan Chamling has a very distinctive look, I've seen him in a lot of photos so I was expecting it, but in person, he looks even more like a Mongolian Chuck Norris than he does in the photos. If you dont believe me, google him.

So he comes in and we shake hands and I sit down next to him. P.D. suggests that I tell him about my time with the maajhis, the fishermen of Nepal. So I do, and I tell him about the fisherman using dynamite stolen from foriegn aid projects etc. He is interested, but I dont really know where to go from there, so I blurt out, "Our fish are quite big in America, your fish in Sikkim are very small, aren't they?" Uncomfortable silence. The Freudian implications of the statement dawn on me a moment later and I struggled to come up with a way to recover. I had even made the hand gestures to make sure that every one in the room knew how much smaller the Sikkimese fish were. I mean here I am, meeting with the Chief Minister, the number one guy in Sikkim and in less than five minutes, I've managed to impugn the size of the guy's fish. How do I recover? Luckily, he helps me out by saying, "Yes, but our fish our fiesty aren't they?" I wholeheartedly agreed.

So the conversation moved on, and we talked about education in Sikkim and my impression of the schools. I told him an anecdote about a class that I taught in west sikkim. The teacher was teaching about respiration and asked me to take over. I took a look at the book, and it said "The average human body breathes 16-18 times a minute." While I am a staunch beleiver in textbook accuracy, I just wanted to be sure. So I asked the students to be quiet for a minute and count their breaths. After a minute i asked some of them how many breaths they took. Most kids said that they took between 20 and 25 breaths. Then I called on one kid, who clearly thought the other students had given the wrong answer, so he stood up with his finger tracing the sentence on the page and read aloud: "16 to 18 times a minute" I told the CM that that kid was the one we needed to reach. And quick.

So I am sorry for such a long email. I am back in Delhi now, will meet Colleen in the morning. Had a great day, I feel like I'm back in india again. Saw a russian/indian field hockey match this afternoon, the indians won.

Have a great warm, toasty thanksgiving. I miss you all and i love your emails. And please bear in mind the following pearl of wisdom:

"Traffic rules and your dreams--you should follow both."

There is a billboard for a type of brandy that is popular here, its called Honeybee Brandy and the ad shows a bunch of friends hanging out and the tagline is “Honeybee Brandy- its as warm as a great friendship.” Whenever I see it I have to laugh. All of your fantastic emails have kept me warm and toasty over here, so as of yet I have not been compelled to verify the truth of that bewitching advertisement. Should you fail to write however, you’ll know where to find me. And if I haven’t written you back yet its really because the connections here are fair to lousy. And finally I must apologize that this email is soooo long, I only expect my mother to read the whole thing. Think of this like three letters that you can read whenever. The thing is that power cuts are totally unpredictable here in gangtok, so I started this email four days ago and it keeps growing. I must send it now before we loose the juice again.

I left noise and commotion Delhi on Wednesday. And I took a plane to Bagdogra regional airport in west bengal. The flight was remarkably unremarkable, the airplane was brand spanking new and the inflight magazine was a keeper. Oh and I saw the whole Himalaya range from the airplane window. Rising up suddenly from the plains, they look like crisp white cotton sheets kicked to the end of the bed by some restless god. They seem so unlikely rising up from the grey plans below. You see them and they inspire something akin to lust, you want to be in them, they really draw you. At least that’s how I feel.

So, I caught an unfortunate cab ride from Bagdogra airport towards the hills. The cab almost dropped its transmission every time we shifted, and the tape deck sounded as if it must be slowly consuming a bollywood starlet feet first and at maximum volume. The warbling music alternated between what sounded like slow hindi death knells and an andrenaline-charged choir of pentecostalists speaking in tongues. But these were acceptable misfortunes. It was a passenger we picked up on the way that really made the trip splendid. He called himself “Tiger” and he was the Chief Police Inspector for the Bagdogra/Siligiri area. He ambushed us when we were stopped at a light, and insisted on prying open the cab door and heaving his wheezing bulk in the front seat, beside me. Following him a moment or two after was a dense cloud of what I hoped was aftershave but quickly determined was rotgut dirtcheap bottom of the barrel rum. It was two in the afternoon. True to his name, Tiger was all teeth. However, Chief Police Inspector Tiger’s gums and incisors were so stained from decades of chewing paan that his mouth gave the overall impression of being a wet, meaty wound. You’d grimace, draw your breath, and look away. But unlike a road accident, you wouldn’t really feel the urge to look back again. Puffy and half-lidded, Tiger’s eyes were not “burning bright,” they could best be described as “aching red.”

Having made thus an impression, Tiger settled his weight down in the seat cushions such that the driver and myself canted over like stuck windshield wipers. Now that he had our attention, Tiger immediately began to impress upon us the gravity and immense responsibilities of his job. Of course, with immense responsibility, comes power. Immense power. It was this second point that Mr. Tiger really felt necessary to impress upon us. “I have ekdahm power,” he lisped and leaned in. “You want anything, you have problem, I fix it.” He then proceeded to list a series of dubious services that he could provide for me. By virtue of having befriended the most powerful man in west Bengal, the world was my gulab jamun. Although Tiger’s offers were surely heartfelt, the sincerity of his proposals was somewhat compromised by his repeated, less than subtle requests for baksheesh (bribes). The line between assistance and extortion was becoming alarmingly thin, and while there may be a time and a place for baksheesh, it is clearly not when someone has done absolutely nothing for you except to threaten to ruin your entire day. So it was no small relief when Chief Police Inspector Tiger finally conceded defeat and asked to be dropped off in the outskirts of Siligiri, presumably to fall face first in the dust and be pecked by chickens for the remainder of the afternoon.

The mood in the taxi improved immediately, and the noise and the dust of the cities gave way to rolling green pastureland and small settlements of Rais, Tamangs and other Nepalis. The pastureland became forest and soon we were climbing up into the hills. Troops of silvery langur monkeys squatted by the side of the road idly grooming each other, occasionally looking up at the taxis and trucks whistling by with the curious mixture of worry and disinterest that only monkeys are capable of. This is the West Bengal countryside. The streetlights and telephone poles are girdled with a few strands of barbed wire to keep the monkeys from climbing up and unscrewing the lightbulbs, or from pulling out the wires.

Soon the road met the Teesta river, which we would follow for the next several hours. The Teesta is a large, powerful, steel blue river that churns with the rock flour ground by glaciers high in the Sikkim Himalayas. We followed the steep switchbacks carved into the sides of the river valley, climbing higher and higher. At times, the road cantered out on the edge of a steep cliff, and the river was hundreds of feet below. At other times we would descend sharply to cross a bridge that straddled the valley. In some places large swaths of the road were washed away by landslides from the summer monsoons. When driving in these parts, pedestrians give way to taxis, taxis give way to buses, and absolutely everyone gives way to the massive TATA trucks that ply the route. When approaching blind curves, the strategy is to plumb the center of the road and lay on the horn for dear life. To my dismay I discovered that the taxi I had chosen had no horn. So I just held onto the handstraps for dear life.

BRO, the border roads organization that builds and maintains these roads, thought it helpful to pepper the route with a series of disarmingly upbeat signs, which range from the moralistic: “SPEED THRILLS BUT KILLS,” to the suggestive: “BE CAREFUL ON MY CURVES,” to the grim: “BETTER LATE THAN LATE” to the stern and motherly: “THIS IS A HIGHWAY, NOT A RUNWAY” to the all-purpose: “DON’T LOSE YOUR NERVES ON MY CURVES,” to the truly bizarre: “IF MARRIED, DIVORCE SPEED.” Unfortunately, we were driving too fast to read any of the other signs.

So eventually we left the Teesta river valley and reached the town of Kalimpong after nightfall. Kalimpong is a bustling bazaar town located on a high ridge overlooking the paddy fields and villages in the valley below. It was the nerve center of Scottish missionary activity in the west Bengal hills in the 19th Century and no clearer example of these efforts can be found than the St. Theresa church located in downtown Kalimpong. In every respect the church looks like a Buddhist gompa (monastery) with its three tiered roof and intricately carved trusses. The only outward indication of the structure’s purpose is a small cross mounted on the roof. The father let me inside and I got some great photographs of thangka paintings depicting the Passion. Each image showed Buddha in the place of Christ. Buddha wearing a crown of thorns carrying a cross down the street being whipped by Chinese centurions. Palms outstretched, the Buddha addressed Tibetan noblemen at the last supper. The table was piled high with momos and other delicacies. There is even a Tibetan Mary dressed in traditional Tibetan clothes comforting the Buddha in his last moments. Surely, the Buddha would have been shocked to travel 2,000 years in the future only to find a Roman civilization just as barbaric as the one he left.

Kalimpong is famous for its orchids and gladioli and many people have beautiful, multi-layered gardens that are blooming even now with the onset of winter. It is located on a primary indo-tibetan trade route and has been the site of political intrigue and upheaval for ages. In the late sixties, Elisa Maria Langford Rae, a British woman with pretensions to Belgian royalty was exiled by the Choygal of Sikkim and settled in Kalimpong. She called herself the Kazini of Chakung and used Kalimpong to set up a shadow government to overthrow the king of Sikkim. She pushed her doltish, unambitious husband, Kazi Lendrup to play lead in the macbeth-like plot. The Kazi eventually became the first chief minister of the newly democratic, newly Indian Sikkim in the mid seventies. She got what she wanted, but was booted out of the country a few years later and returned to her estate in Kalimpong. It remains unclear whether her ambition for power or her hatred for the king’s American wife, Hope Cooke was her greater motive.

More recently, Kalimpong, along with Darjeeling was the center of the Gorkhaland movement in the 80’s. The resistance, led by Subash Ghising, fought for an independent homeland for Nepalis in the west Bengal hills. There are monuments to the Gorkhali leaders who died in the hills around Kalimpong, but when I talked to people they were glad that those times were over. Elisa and Ghising may still be in Kalimpong and I will look into this when I return.

From Kalimpong I took a shared jeep upwards upwards to Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim. Now I am sitting in an internet café with a black cat named kaalo on my lap. I am in the back of a tibetan gift shop, smoke for juniper incense lays thick in the air.

Sikkim is so different from the rest of India. For example, this morning I woke up at six and went for a walk along the road above my hotel. The road leads to the palace. Mist everywhere…tall groves of bamboo, moss, giant cretaceous ferns and flowering cherry trees. Absolutely beautiful. And pretty soon, a steady stream of joggers begins trickling by. Joggers. Jogging is not a very common pastime in India, but here dozens of Sikkimese in track suits are jogging past me. They are soon joined by a flurry of kids in their school uniforms on their way to class, their backpacks are larger then they are. So incredibly indescribably cute. Cuter than a handful of buttons, cuter than a kitten’s nose. Just cutecutecute. So I sit on this bench and I’m writing this down and after about 45 minute I realize, no one has talked to me at all! No “Hello what is you good name? No “Where are you from?” and certainly no “Hello, Ek rupeechocolatepenchangemoneyhotel?” Nothing. Finally when I’m convinced that I might be a ghost, an army guy (jogging by) says hello.

There are internet cafes and cell phones everywhere. People zip by in track suits or jeans and sweaters. I feel totally unhip. This morning I'm sitting on the rooftop of my hotel having tea and I look down and there is this kid, on a rooftop far below riding a scooter. Shades, baggy jeans, and he’s on his scooter slaloming between Buddhist prayer flags that are raised high on bamboo poles on the roof of his house. Gangtok is so different than it was when I was here 9 years ago. Sure, its cleaner and there are a lot more hotels and there are internet cafes and everything, but the fundamental change here is this newfound middle class prosperity.

G.B. Marg, the central street in downtown Gangtok is broad and divided by planters that run down the street. At night they close the street to traffic and families of Indian tourists walk around shopping bags full, stopping at sweets shops and just being tourists. In the souvenir shops among the thangka paintings, prayer wheels and other “authentic” knicknacks, are these tacky portraits of indigenous rais, lepchas and bhutias. They almost look like velvet paintings. Think of those trading posts you see out west, in Arizona and New Mexico, you know where you can buy a cheap statue of Crazy Horse slumped over his saddle, or a velvet painting of the noble apache warrior with the hundred yard stare. These are not for the western backpacker. In Sikkim, domestic Indian tourists make up 80 percent of the tourism market. The Bollywood film industry which inevitably stages a Himalayan dance number at some point each 3 hour film is part of the reason for this tourism boom. But the other reason lies much closer to the core of the modern Indian identity. Just as the frontier and cowboys are central to who we are as Americans- the imagery pops up in advertising and songs, the idea of the village occupies a similar place in modern Indian identity. Gandhi went a long way solidifying this is idea.

I met with P.D. Rai last night. He is the main architect of the ecotourism policies in Sikkim. And I asked him, well if ecotourism is a concept that appeals only to a fraction of the 15,000 foreign visitors that come to Sikkim each year, why is it relevant? And he quickly pointed out that Indian tourists are by far, the largest consumers of ecotourism in Sikkim. The village homestays and cultural programs they offer here are incredibly popular with Indian tourists. Parents want their children to experience the village life that they grew up in. And in modern India’s crowded cities, the concept of village life is as foreign, if not more foreign, than life in an American city. Likewise, they go birdwatching and trekking. This groundswell of interest in ecotourism and the environment is known as the Green Rupee.

The influx of rupees, green, pink or otherwise, has certainly made life prosperous and pleasant for the people here. As perhaps a symbol of the sea change that has occurred in the lives of the Sikkimese in recent years, the shops on G.B. Marg sell a very strange kind of khukuri. The khukuri is a long, heavy knife with a viciously angled blade that is the all purpose machete of Nepali village life. And crossed khukuris were the symbol of Nepali nationalism in the Gorkhaland movement-they represented alienation and revolt against a central government that was unresponsive to their terrible poverty. Now, for 120 rupees anyone can buy a glass replica of the deadly knife, although this one is filled with rum.

My health is good, I’m fighting a little cold, brought on no doubt by the cold fog that envelops the hills here. It’s a wall of white so thick that I can’t even see the other side of the valley, let alone the mountains, but I’m told they exist. Right now the weather is sort of like san francisco. There are bookshops, good food etc. yesterday I stumbled hopefully into a bookstore only to find that it was a Christian bookstore, a half hour later I managed to escape, but not before accepting a handful of religious tracts with names such as “Let’s Play Cricket with God.” Still getting my “charpi legs” There are a bunch of students from Colorado’s Naropa institute living in the hotel next to mine, so we are hanging out. Going to the disco tonight.

As for work, I met with P.D. Rai and he is very interested in working on environmental ed. curriculum with me here. He has set up an ambitious schedule for me to meet with teachers and headmasters and other folks and I have to do a powerpoint presentation for a group of people here next week (weird).

I miss you all and will write soon. I am leaving for a wildlife sanctuary for a couple days, hoping to spot a red panda and give it a tickle.