THE mountaineers thought we were crazy. We met them at breakfast in our hotel in Gangtok: redoubtable men with legendary names like Gen. Sharma, and Col. Bull Kumar who had climbed Kanchenjunga. And they all seemed to be dismayed when we told them that we were leaving for Lachung at 10 in the morning. "But that's too late" said one; "You won't reach till seven this evening," said another, shaking his head dolefully. When tough climbers take such a jaundiced view of a road journey it's reason enough to think again. So, we thought again... and decided to go.

We're glad we did. The journey was a little rugged but the mountainscapes, out of urbanised Gangtok, were wild and beautiful: waterfalls that cascaded like spun silver; forests that seemed to breathe like great, green, lungs as the wind from the high snows blew through them and withdrew, blew-withdrew, blew-withdrew; rustic little houses, bright with begonias; and the air getting colder and cleaner as it scoured our faces and bit into our throats. The highlands of the world are stimulating, but the distant highlands of our land are magical.

Easy smiles

Time fled on swift wings and so it was way before seven, with a soft amber light in the sky, when we passed long stretches of golden fields stretching across a river valley. On these fields rose cottages on high stone pillars. "This was old Lachung village" our guide Mohan told us. "Here the first traders had settled on the caravan route from Tibet to Sikkim. But it's been abandoned now because new Lachung has the army: plenty of jobs." The cantonment was straight lines, camouflaged metal roofs, and crisp discipline. The civilian town was meandering stone walls, stacked wood, cattle being driven home, and rosy-cheeked people who smiled easily. Our hotel looked like a crimson-pillared monastery picked out in gold and blue. It had the warm fragrance of resinous wood. Somewhere in the distance, a solitary monk intoned the deep-voice chants of Buddhism, then even he was still and there was only the whisper-gush of a glacial stream. After a dinner, we let the soft silence of Lachung flow into us like a balm, soothing us to sleep.

We rose when the clouds still slept in the valleys. We gave a lift to a pretty girl, Donka, and her baby niece Prema, planning to meet Prema's grandmother, the Keeper of the Hot springs. Donka sang a soft lullaby as we drove out through the Grenadiers' check-posts, out and up. The mountains changed swiftly as we soared higher and still higher. Interlocking fingers at one point, a narrow glen at another, then unreal peaks like the settings for Scandinavian myths: craggy, bare and mist-snared: rounded hillocks in front cushioned in green; winding, white, snow-melt streams gushing through the dark, echoing ravines; a curious tumble of rocks and scree in the foreground, russet with lichen: that curious symbiot of fungus and algae that lives in the harshest of environments by sharing survival skills.

Not the season

Now dense forests closed around us and a sign proclaimed that we were in "The Singba Rhododendron Sanctuary, 43 sq. km, Rising from 8,000 ft to 17,500 ft." There were 18 species of these beautiful shiny-leaved plants here but, sadly, they weren't in flower. "If they were," said our guide, "you'd never want to leave this forest!" But when the rhododendrons gave way to conifers, we wanted to hurry away. Many of them were covered in long, grey, beards. "It's like a bacteria," we were told, "it kills the trees and there's no cure for this disease." The trees looked emaciated and sickly and we were glad to leave them behind. The valley opened ahead of us and a foaming river gushed between pebbly banks. We picked our way down, across a hump-backed bridge, up a long flight of steps, to the covered baths with steaming tanks of slightly sulphurous hot water flowing out of clefts in the rocks. Prema objected to her grandmother, at first, then thought better of it and snuggled into her arms. We made a brief acquaintance with the hot springs and then trudged back.

At 12,000 feet we discovered the Valley of Yumthang. It was as hushed and haunting as a Scottish glen and if a lone piper had appeared on a crag we would not have been surprised. We looked up. A river flowed down from the forested mountains, charged by at least one silvery waterfall. Just below the crest of a dark peak, a glacier glistened as the sun appeared briefly, and vanished. We moved on, striding past a herd of cows and hybrid dzos plodding phlegmatically. Halfway up the valley, a white stupa stood near a green-roofed forest bungalow, and prayer-flags marched up the quilted slopes like a line of sentinels. We wondered why they called it "The Valley of Flowers". And then, as one of us stumbled on the soft, green, sward, we discovered the garden. The carpets of spongy grass were starred with thousands of tiny flowers: red and yellow, coral, blue and orange; some like sunbursts, then a pin-cushion of flaming pokers, others as complex as orchids, still others like thimble-sized lilies, They spread around us in incredible profusion, heart-achingly beautiful but so minuscule that we would have walked by, crushing them underfoot, if one of us had not stumbled.

Art and beauty

We drove back, very thoughtful and climbed to Lachung Monastery. It was deserted and we wondered if any of the monks who came here for festivals had seen the micro-gardens of Yumthang. Then we noticed the trapezium window. It was embellished with paintings of tiny flowers. It could, of course have been a coincidence, if there is such a thing as a coincidence. Some day, perhaps, someone might establish the link between the window and the valley. But even if the connection is too tenuous to grasp, don't forget to stumble when you visit the High Hidden Valley of Yumthang.

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