Himalayan beauty lures visitors to the edge of India

This is Sikkim, one of India's frontiers with China and a popular tourist destination. It was an independent kingdom until 1975, when it became part of India. Fewer people live in Sikkim than in any other Indian state. Sticking upwards like a tiny thumb, Sikkim is at a crossroads: China to the north and east, Nepal to the west, and Bhutan to the southeast. Its unique location and rugged Himalayan beauty make it a striking place to visit, a place whose isolation is its own reward.

Though Sikkim has been part of India for more than 30 years, it feels like its own country. While I was there last December, more than one Sikkimese described visitors from other parts of India as foreigners. Another, when asked how he felt about Sikkim's unification with India, laughed and said that it was better to have been taken by India than by China. (Sikkim became an Indian state in 1975. It was an independent protectorate before then, and for years eyed by China as a part of Tibet, which it had claimed. Sikkim had been governed by a treaty that put its foreign relations and military in India's hands.)

An adventure in Sikkim is best begun in Gangtok (altitude 5,500 feet), a thriving city of more than 50,000 people. The Lepchas were this region's first settlers, and Gangtok, in the Lepcha language, means "hilltop." The city spills over the steep terrain and seems to have only two directions: up and down. Its potholed, steep streets switchback tightly, and small alleys climb snugly between buildings.

I was joined there by my friend Andrew Mahlstedt, an American teacher living in India at the time. After exploring Gangtok, we booked a day trip through a local tour operator to Tsomgo Lake, which sits at 12,400 feet in a mountainous basin only about 11 miles from Tibet. The ride there follows a narrow road etched precariously into the snowy mountainsides, and we shared the asphalt with lumbering Indian Army trucks, the wheels wrapped in jingling chains.

When we arrived, we found the lake partly frozen, and the surrounding peaks obscured by clouds; only their snowy, rocky flanks were visible.