Inside Gangtok's Monastery Trail

Most people do Gangtok's monasteries in the afternoon, because that is when the tour itineraries put them. This is the single biggest mistake you can make with a day in this town. By two o'clock the courtyards are full, the prayer halls are hot, and the monks — who have been up since four — have gone.

Go at dawn instead. The whole thing takes about five hours, costs the price of a taxi, and you will be back at the hotel for a late breakfast having seen something most visitors never do: these buildings actually working, rather than being looked at.

Here is the order we send our own guests in, and the reasoning behind it.

Start at Rumtek, and start early

Rumtek is twenty-four kilometres from town — roughly an hour on a road that spends most of its length arguing with the hillside. Leave the hotel at 5.45 am. You want to be at the gate by 7, when the morning prayers are underway and the golden stupa room upstairs is empty.

The monastery is the seat of the Karmapa and the largest in Sikkim, rebuilt in the 1960s as a replica of the original in Tibet. There is a security check and you will need photo ID — it is a functioning political building as much as a religious one. Bring it.

Sit at the back of the main hall for twenty minutes. Do not photograph the monks' faces. The low horns start somewhere around half past seven and the sound sits in your chest rather than your ears — it is the reason to have got up.

Do Drul Chorten, mid-morning

Back in town by half nine. Do Drul Chorten is a white stupa ringed by a hundred and eight prayer wheels, built in 1945 by Trulshik Rinpoche on a site that was said to be haunted by evil spirits. It is small, and it will take you thirty minutes.

Walk the circuit clockwise — everyone does, and going the other way marks you out immediately. Turn each wheel as you pass. The point is not to finish quickly.

Enchey to close

Enchey sits above the town at around six thousand feet, a two-hundred-year-old monastery on a site chosen by a tantric master who was said to be able to fly. It is the quietest of the three and has the best view back down over the Gangtok ridge. Come here last, when the light has come round.

What to know before you go

• Carry photo ID — Rumtek will ask for it at the gate
• Shoes come off before entering any prayer hall
• Photography is fine outside, restricted inside, never of faces mid-prayer
• Shoulders and knees covered at all three sites
• Walk clockwise around every stupa and every wheel
• Carry small notes if you want to make an offering

Arranging this from your hotel Our travel desk at Hotel Renam runs this circuit as a half-day with one of our own drivers — flask and blankets in the car for the 5.45 start, back at the hotel by eleven. Ask at reception the evening before, or add it when you book.

A last word on the hour

You will read a lot of guides that tell you these three monasteries are "worth a visit." They are, but that phrasing misses the point entirely. At two in the afternoon they are architecture. At seven in the morning they are a place where several hundred people are doing something they have done every day of their adult lives, and you are allowed to sit at the back and watch.

Set the alarm. It is one morning.