Sikkim

The world’s third highest peak towers over this state, but that’s only one reason to visit sikkim. Mt khangchendzonga presides over a landscape of snowcapped peaks and hanging glaciers that sit majestically alongside alpine meadows and valleys carpeted with flowers, gushing rivers that tumble in to spectacular water falls, and no less than 4,000 varietes of flowers. This is a naturalist’s heaven. You would imagine that any state so abundantly blessed would be both large and touristy-sikkim is neither. A tiny strip borded by Nepal, Bhutan and china, it has a population of half a million. But the people, though few and far between, are warm and inviting, and no sikkim sojourn is complete without a cup of yak butter tea at a local home.