Garden of the War God

Hassle-free and warm-hearted, it’s a state that’s all too easy to fall in love with, explaining perhaps why permit regulations prevent foreigners staying too long or going too far. Clean, green and ‘all organic’ since 2016, Sikkim is mostly a maze of plunging, super steep valleys thick with lush subtropical woodlands and rhododendron groves, rising in the north to the spectacular white-top peaks of the eastern Himalaya.