Gangtok

Sikkim's capital is expanding fast across several valleys and ridges. With its pagoda-style roofs and tall buildings, not to mention its relative wealth, it has a different feel from other Indian hill stations.

The main thoroughfare, M. G. Road, has a few shops selling colorful choktse tables (small carved writing desks), Buddhist items and interesting brassware—statues, prayer wheels, dorjes (ornaments signifying lightning), giant brass or copper oil lamp stands, brass tableware, and prayer bells. You might want to pick up a bottle of Sikkim's famous paan liqueur, sold for Rs. 70 in several shops on this road, or a sonf (aniseed) liqueur.

Once you escape city boundaries, you're surrounded by tropical forests rich with 600 species of orchids and 46 varieties of rhododendron. Waterfalls splash down mountains, powering prayer wheels. Tidy hamlets with cultivated terrace fields and prayer flags flapping in the breeze populate idyllic valleys. Sikkim's guardian deity, Mt. Kanchenjunga—the world's third-highest peak, at 28,208 feet—is still revered by all who live in its shadow.