01 Gangtok · Pelling Monastery Mornings Rumtek at 6.30 am, before the gates open to the day. Butter lamps, low horns, and monks who have done this every morning since they were nine. Pemayangtse if you're in the west.
02 Darjeeling The Tea Estate Table Walk a working garden with a plucker, then sit down to a proper tasting — first flush against second, muscatel against musk. You will never buy supermarket tea again, and we're sorry about that.
03 Lachung · North Sikkim The Valley of Flowers Yumthang in late April, when twenty-four species of rhododendron open at once across the valley floor and the river runs grey with snowmelt. In winter the same valley is white and utterly silent.
04 Lachen · North Sikkim Gurudongmar at 17,800 ft One of the highest lakes on earth, held between the Tibetan plateau and the Kanchenjunga range. Frozen for most of the year except for one corner that legend says Guru Padmasambhava touched.
05 Darjeeling The Toy Train Through the Cloud A UNESCO World Heritage railway that has been climbing this ridge since 1881, at roughly the speed of a determined walk. Ghoom and back, with the whole town passing an arm's length from the window.
06 East Sikkim Tsomgo, Frozen Twelve thousand four hundred feet up the old Nathu La trade road. Prayer flags, yaks in ceremonial harness, and a glacial lake that locals have read the weather from for centuries.
07 All properties A Sikkimese Kitchen Phagshapa, gundruk soup, sel roti and a fermented millet tongba you drink through a bamboo straw. Our chefs will cook it and, if you ask the day before, teach you to fold momos badly.
08 Gangtok The Prayer Flag Ridge Walk An easy two hours from Ganesh Tok along the ridge, under thousands of wind-frayed flags, with the whole Gangtok valley falling away on one side and Kanchenjunga on the other.
09 Pelling · West Sikkim Glass Floor, Long Drop India's first glass skywalk, cantilevered off a hillside beneath a 137-foot Chenrezig statue. Not for everyone. Absolutely for anyone who wants a photograph nobody at home will believe.