Yuksom

The tiny village of Yuksom was the jumping off point for our first taste of trekking India style, not to mention an opportunity to do battle with the mighty Himalaya.

Booked in Darjeeling through the West Bengal Tourism Office, our trip was sold to us as an "easy introduction to hiking in the world's greatest mountain range" and promised great views of India's highest peak and its snow-capped neighbours.

What we weren't told - it took a discouraged French couple to inform us while we were warming up over a bottle of award-winning local whisky - was that the pass to Mt Dzongri was blocked by waist-deep snow and no porters were prepared to take the risk.

Over dinner with our trekking colleagues (London-based Pip and Alex, and yet another Dutchman in Roland from Breda) we discussed the reality of making the 4100m summit and sought assurances from our guide that his team would not shit themselves and turn back if the weather deteriorated further.

Obviously being India we were afforded all the assurances we needed, complete with Sikkimese head-bobble (more subtle than south India but accompanied by a guttural grunt), even though the rest of the village seemed baffled by our apparent recklessness and appetite for premature death!

In addition to being the trail head for the Dzongri and Goecha La treks, Yuksom (or "meeting place of the three lamas") boasts Sikkim's oldest monastery, Dubdi Gompa, and a stone throne that claims to be the crowning place of the first chogyal of Sikkim in 1641 - between you and us, it's just a slab of bloody stone, while the gompa is, well just another gompa!

But the village itself is beautiful and the locals more than made us feel welcome. Our hotel, while cold and short of hot water, was cheerful and well run and allowed us the perfect opportunity to catch up on yet more Z's ahead of the 10km trek to Sajan.