Ravangla

Ravangla is a small bazaar town on a saddle at about 2,000 metres in south Sikkim, with Kanchenjunga to the north and the Maenam ridge rising behind it. Its landmark is new: Tathagata Tsal, the Buddha Park opened in 2013 on Rabong Gyaza, a hill long identified in Sikkimese texts as sacred, where a 130-foot gilded Sakyamuni stands over a lawn and a relic hall that the Dalai Lama consecrated. Six kilometres away, old Ralang Monastery was built in 1768 after the fourth Chogyal returned from Tsurphu in Tibet, and the newer Palchen Choeling Monastic Institute below it fills each winter with masked Kagyed dances.

Down the eastern slope lies Temi, the only tea estate in Sikkim, planted in 1969 by Tibetan refugee families and still producing a single-estate flush that sells under its own name; the drive through it in April, past pruned bushes and a colonial-era bungalow, is one of the loveliest short roads in the state. The walk everyone should take starts at the Maenam sanctuary gate: four hours up through magnolia, oak and rhododendron to the 3,263-metre summit and the Bhaley Dunga cliff, with red panda country on either side. Evenings belong to the hot springs at Borong and Ralong on the Rangit, which villagers use through the coldest weeks of winter, walking down with bedding and cooking pots.