India’s Tropical Himalayas Feel Impossible

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Okay, that's not rice in the mountains. Oh, no.  What the heck? Oh, he dips it in the chai. It's a spiritual pathway. Let's check out Sikkim's  bestkept secret. Camry. Kami. Welcome to the very, very beautiful area called Zongu Valley in Sikkim.  Zongu. Uh, this whole area is inhabited by the indigenous people called Lipchas. And they're a  very very special tribe out here. uh everywhere around Sikkim that we traveled they all told  us you must go to Zongu and uh live with the lipchans. So this leg of our journey uh is kind of  curated by this organization called Muhan and they basically create uh curate really beautiful and  uh intimate um trips around like tour guides. Of course we are here for the orange festival. You  know Zongo is known for its really 100% organic oranges you know. Now according in the mountains  of forklow out here there is there is this uh mystical mythical uh hidden paradise called Mayal  Yang as it says on my t-shirt and it is believed that Zo Valley is the bridge to this mystical  land. Look at that cool one in the middle. For me personally and I the moment we entered this  valley we were like bi this is the hidden land that everybody talks about. Sunu Valley itself  is the myalyang you know the moment you enter this place it feels like Jurassic Park there's  so many places in the northeast um you know 80s9s Himachel you know like Jurassic Park it's just  like untouched it's so scenic it is just so pure and there's something magical about this valley  the moment you enter over here and everybody in Sikkim told us that too it's so rich in flora  the produce over here the tight-knit community over here just the innate uh The demeanor of the  Lipa people is so calming and so peaceful. They are nature lovers. You know their gods are  nature. They worship the Tista river. They worship the Kchan Junga, the forest around them,  the food around them. They are basically our kind of people. And more than anything, we're going  to be meeting some really prominent community leaders who have been working for years to protect  this community, this whole area. That's cool. I love learning about the culture. flowers. Barti so  pretty, eh? Yeah, I watched a video from uh Ronnie and Barti from last time and I really like them.  They they seem pretty cool. So, five minutes. Now, this one was suggested also to me over and  over every video. You know who you are. So, I'm I'm looking at seek him this time. Walk  up to our home. in the middle of the jungles.

[00:02:56]Home stay up in the up in the mountains. Wow, look at all the oranges. And  I think that's a pomelo tree.

[00:03:11]What's in the comments? Hindi. Hindi.

[00:03:26]Okay. Time boy. Okay. She's as old as us.  Okay. Okay. Sorry. Now I have a habit of calling everybody. I I keep forgetting  I'm that old. Like biscuit. So he said he has a habit of calling people Dei  and he says I forget I'm that old. So, is Dee like uncle or aunt?  Let me know in the comments.

[00:03:54]You can make full fun of my Nepali, please.

[00:03:59]What's that? Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Okay.  This is a zero. They usually give it with chai by itself. It's quite bland, but Oh, he dips it in  the chai. Now, can I sing my favorite song? Yes.

[00:04:36]Finish. Nice. Good job fan. Yes. Good job. Okay  guys, this dongo is very confusing. Yeah. Yeah, on one side you have like snow cap mountains  like that's what I was wondering cuz it's like they're in the mountains and it's  the northeast and it's cold up there, but they have like oranges growing cuz in  America the the two big states that grow oranges is California and Florida and it's always  like perfect weather there. It's never cold. So, it's kind of interesting to see that there  were oranges and it's an orange festival they're going to very close and over here  you're in a t-shirt like the weather is nice.

[00:05:16]There are oranges growing behind me. It is so  confusing. Like how how is this happening? How is it summer in January? Oh, it's January there  and it's that warm in the mountains. Oh, weird.

[00:05:45]I like the kids that have the traditional. All  right. So now we are at Chalum Damro which is also known as the orange festival of Zongu. Chalum is a  really small scale intimate festival organized by the community for the community. Uh the intention  behind this festival is to get all the orange farmers the exposure that they need, a space to  sell their products and to celebrate obviously the harvest for the earth. That's awesome.  You know, this thing that they're the little festival that they that they're doing, it kind  of reminds me of the um the hornbill festival, right? but obviously on a much much smaller scale  cuz the Hornbell Festival was gigantic and it had I think like 13 or 14 tribes. Hey, Michael  Jackson's there. A bunch of really cute little stalls selling local products. We have a bunch  of really fun games that I'm looking forward to throughout the day. A couple of cultural programs  and in the evening there'll be some music. We have some food stalls. It's really tiny, really cute,  and like we love these kind of Yeah, I saw another guy wearing a hat and it had like some design.  Maybe that's is that like indicative of his tribe or maybe that tribe, the the Zongu tribe.  Um, but it looked pretty awesome. had that cool split feather in there events because it feels  so um tightknit like you can see how tightnit the community is. You can get to be a part of  it. You're not just another number, you know, like just another ticket holder lost in the crowd.  Like, first of all, there's no ticket over here, by the way. But anyone can come experience this.  We are at the bridge to Malyang. The bridge to paradise known as Zongu. That's cool. Let the  games begin. Oh, they have to braid hair. That's cool. Curry or buckwheat pancake. Oh, they have to  handmill their own flour. So, it's like a lot of, you know, things that they would normally do, but  like who could do it the fastest? That's kind of cool. Like local, you know, local things that they  do. That's cool. I like that. Making rice in the bamboo. Okay. That's not rice. It's like a like  a roti kind of pancake. It's like pancake. So, you know the rules, right? You cannot use  your hands at all. Okay. I have to peel the orange and feed it to you. Your hands  have to be behind your back. And how much time do we have? The participants need that. I  don't know. Two, one, go. Go, go, go, go, go.

[00:08:29]Five oranges down. Running. Five. I think  that's a good speed. It's fun for her, but he's got to stuff them all in his face. Good.  Are we doing good? There's seven down. Seven. Oh, they finished. No way. 10. My god, they 15  so far. How many? I will and come next year.

[00:08:54]Pumpkin smashing. Oh. Oh. Oh, dude. What the  heck? He's going crazy. Oh my god. I can't, bro. I can't. Look at these guys. These are  animals. Dude, I've never seen this dude taking out some heavy trust. I need my fingers, bro.  I need to shoot videos. I cannot do this. So, here we are. God, that was insanity. I mean, I  hope he won because he looked like he deserves it. Man, that was nuts. Sharing joy. And what  we plan to do is we plan to translate our like community narratives, no, into modern apparel and  accessories. So this is very precious because this here is our lecha pattern that our men wear in  their like clothing. No. So we want the youngsters like the coming generation no to be proud of their  community and to represent in different forms like there are so many expressions. No this is our  expression and we want other people to know about our community. Uh so our brand name is Agapi.  Uh we are based in Gangtok and we do a range of skincare products which is um all natural.  So initially it was just started as a hobby by a founder and she actually wanted to train  like women from north sikim. So she as a skill development then this is a traditional uh lepcha  fabric. This is made out of stinging nettle fiber stinging nettle. So, I've run into stinging nettle  on walks, hikes, going fishing, walking through fields, and stinging nettle does not feel good.  You brush up against that thing and you're just like, yikes. So, it must be like processed to be  soft. I don't know. Is it Is it like scratchy like wool or is it like soft like cotton? Has anybody  ever bought or worn anything made out of stinging nettle fiber? I need to look that up. That's cool,  man. Let me know in the comments if you have.

[00:11:08]If anybody could tell me in the comments  what he's saying, that would be great.

[00:11:15]Maybe he's saying it's like it's all  natural, all organic, grow everything here.

[00:11:23]Did you think?

[00:11:29]Okay. So, um tell us a little bit about this  space. As you can see, Sunali like simply mean house of story. This is like community museum.  When I came here, I was very young like 20 22 23 years old and I was also learning Nepta. Then  I came here then I saw the very richness of this community and I started filming here. Then  I saw them like how beautiful your landscape is. That's how this all happened. Everything is  donated. We we haven't purchased anything here.

[00:11:59]Okay. Nice. Even me also being a lipaure. So I  like for me for learning my own community took me almost 5 to 6 years. What are the some of the  challenges you've been facing in this process?

[00:12:13]Uh first like uh patience level because I feel  like it's not the over over the night thing.

[00:12:20]They built it from scratch. Took me a long time to  realize and convince people like you have so many beautiful things in your village and you have to  look it from the different perspective. That was the biggest challenge. So I film everything and  I do screening in the villages. Then then they started seeing all the oh this our landscape. Oh  this is me in the frame. So it makes them happy.

[00:12:41]It's not easy to uh like you said to make people  see how beautiful and value what they have, right?

[00:12:47]Cuz we tend to least value what we have ourselves  and always look at others. Wow. you know that that's cool that she I think she left to study or  moved away but she came back and I mean she had to do a lot of hard work to probably fund raise and  convince everybody to you know the money needs you know we need to go it needs to go towards  this thing so that's cool I mean it cements their history you know look at that so peaceful  so finally made it up to the very beautiful monastery perched right on top of this hill. Uh  behind me is actually the original old monastery which is maybe a couple hundred years old. Uh  but sadly there was an earthquake a couple of years ago here in Sikkim and the monastery like  the structure has been affected quite badly by that. So that's why they've made a newer monastery  which is in the background over there. And today is a special day of the month. So a lot of people  from the village have gathered and their prayers going on and the ladies are making all the butter  lamps and everything. It's so cool because like we see this happen at home as well, but here  it's like slightly different. Like I'm just tripping out on the same same but different part  of it, you know? It's so beautiful up here. We're like surrounded by panoramic mountains all around.  You can see some snowcapped peaks also. It was a very nice easy walk. But the best part about the  hike up here was having Gabu with us. He's from the Lepcha community and it was so nice to have  somebody who knows the lay of the land, you know, who can tell you about the plants and the  flowers and what's in season and tell you about So there's ah there's stuff on the prayer wheel.  Okay. So I've I've never seen up close. Does each one of those have like its own separate prayer or  do you spin it and say a prayer? You know what I mean? Does like one the one on the right it's  for the earth the one on the end it's for the uh for health or or how does that work? It's  if anybody knows let me know. It's kind of cool because that one obviously has writing on it. from  this part like it's a very enlightening experience when you do come to these places and hang out with  locals and get to know their stories you know and I think that's one of the best parts of traveling  yeah 100% so scary to cross ancient technology ancient technology of course this is bridge called  rome definitely ancient technology bridge okay nowadays in the modern generation the this build  is used for the disaster time because we'll build within the short time and we need during the  front. No. Uh only this will help people rescue the within the short time. That's cool. It's made  out of bamboo, but it's not as cool as another one that I saw. And it's made out of roots, the root  bridges. I'll go ahead and put a uh a little a little link here to that one. That's a cool video.  So, check that out, too. That was that blew my mind. We have different different bamboo. No, but  we cannot use because this bamboo is cannot sleep.

[00:16:07]Just retry. No, not sleep. But but this bamboo is  very sleepy. This is the R is a cane. It will get very high altitude area. No, this is the can and  the actually the uh the how to walk in the cane.

[00:16:22]You cannot walk like this. No, we have to walk  like this here. You have to cross here. Yes.

[00:16:26]Yes. Like this. Oh, no. You can hold upper one.  Upper one. This is for first. First go. Come.

[00:16:33]This is scary. I know it's for  disaster times, but that's Man, that's I know backwards. So, even more. My gosh, that  was fun. This is the can. See how how difficult to remove this cover. Oh my god. Look, look at the  thorns. After the cleaning the all the thunder, you will find like this. Then it's like this.  Like this. So what's really cool about this spot is that you get to see uh bridges built  across different generations. To my right is a modern bridge that was made around 23 2023. The  bridge that we're standing on was made when Sikkim became a part of India in the 70s. And then the  Kane bridge of course that is their traditional technology. So that's really cool that you get  to see the passage of time standing. So she said that that middle one that she's standing on is was  built in seven in the 70s or 73 when Sikkim became a part of India. So who was who were they part of  before Nepal, China or were they the own state? If somebody knows, let me know in the comments. It's  interesting in one place. That is cool that all three of them there. Orange D. Orange tea. Oh  wow. Made with the local oranges, local honey, some I love oranges, so I would be down for  orange tea. Cardamom, some pepper, ginger.

[00:18:07]Ginger. This is um made with a thing uh buckwheat  outside and inside it's wild spinach. You try this one. Okay. Okay. Oh yeah. She said that's made out  of buckwheat. Remember they were in the festival they were grinding their own buckwheat. For sure.  That's what made of ta. Oh, ta like. Yeah. Champa and local egg with butter. And this is walnut  chutney and kila seed chutney. Oh, nice. Wow.

[00:18:37]Definitely won the breakfast awards. That's so  good. Your food is I think the best I think I've had in chicken so far. Definitely. Hands down.  Hands down. Hands down. I think the best. So, we're staying with Gatso Lipcha in his beautiful,  beautiful homeay just tucked away in the jungle, you know, with just oranges all around. What  a beautiful And it's an award-winning homeay, by the way. Huh. And we've been really going  crazy with his wife's cooking. Oh my god, this is like paradise, guys. You know about  Rajuharti in Himachel? This is their Rajuharti out here. Top class, man. I love this experience  over here. Solitia is a very prominent leader and activist who has been fighting um you know  to protect these lands out here. So let's just hear it from him. If you had to explain  to someone who didn't know who the lepa are, how would you describe who they are? Ah we are  the children of the mother nature probably. Yeah, I think that's how we would like love to introduce  ourselves who are in peace and you know happiness in their own space and of course we are also the  the original inhabitant of this Himalayan belt.

[00:19:58]When I say of this Himalayan belt is the Kinjanga  range you're staying in my our home state which is called my lyang. What is my mileang is basically  nothing. It's a it's a hidden land and of course sikim used to be a hidden land you know away  from everyone you know tiny somewhere on the just on the base of the mountain and we don't  have a history of migration you know many many scholars many anthropologists uh from long time  been trying to trace down our migration history of migration but uh I think uh the thing is  the world doesn't know about us and in a way it's good Indians leapture people are always  with the nature nature There there are forest there are life right forest birds butterflies  horn bill wildlife rivers you know grow your own food you know you can farm so always you  are there in the mountains the whole mountain is your range is here but we never live there  we find our peace we know where which place uh gives us the ultimate space to grow as a human  society so they're they're native to the land he says they didn't migrate. So those people are  multi multigenerations of, you know, grandchildren to grandchildren that all have stayed there in  that area. He said, you know, Sikkim's very I guess it's hard to get to or it was probably  really hard to get to before. Um, but I'm sure there's it's there's modern ways to get there now.  Interesting. I think that's why you never find lectures in a very harsh climate. You have come to  Zongo, you see it's so comfortable, so pleasant, you know. Yeah. Is it is it that comfortable all  year round? Cuz he said that was January and it's they're growing oranges. So in the summertime is  it also much cooler there also. So it's kind of that like California and Florida like it's always  kind of that nice temperature. You know what I mean? Maybe it's maybe it's because they're in a  valley or just geographically where they are. It's interesting. Does anybody know? Let me know in  the comments. That's what lectures are. Nice. Oh, these are people going to leak, you know,  that village. Oh, up there. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:17]Just neighbors helping  neighbors, you know, on Sunday.

[00:22:25]Oh, that's the best thing. They also don't  know which day. I also don't know which day, dude. to live in a a lifestyle to where you don't  even know what day it is sometimes. Like I think I don't know what day it is sometimes because  I'm too busy and I'm like, man, is it this day or this day? But them it's just like laid-back and  it's like I think it's like Tuesday and it's all good. It feel that's that's the vibe I get from  there. It's like it's the it's all good vibe, you know? Ever seen a river so clean? My  god. One bottle also I can't spot anywhere.

[00:23:04]I've been trying to scan. I'm like, wow. This  river is also called because it's called wrong.

[00:23:13]So in lecture ourself, we address ourel as wrong.  Not wro, it's R. So we call ourselves wrong. No.

[00:23:21]So gong means prayer. The river which lecha  prayer. And uh if you look at we don't have concept of hell and heaven. So our belief is  somewhere on beneath this kjenjanga range.

[00:23:31]and you see tomorrow. So we need somewhere there  are sacred caves of each clans where my ancestor souls are resting. Okay. So what happens is I may  be in uh in London or Mumbai or you know Manali as a lecture but when I die my ultimate journey  as a lecture indigenous lecture comes back to is to go back to that sacred caves. That time the  shaman the lep shaman on earth he will perform a ritual by the family where he will bring my call  my soul wherever it is bring to zongu that's why zongu is so important it's like a it's a heart  like it's a source of our civilization everything so during that time wrong yong will be the path  to death so that's why you know this is not just a river flowing it's it's something which will  take me back to my ancestor. So it's so for us it's a spiritual pathway not a departure it's  a reunion to your your ancestors that's cool good tears amount of effort that actually is being  put into conserving preserving protecting culture stories history the lay of the land their  plants their food it is extremely inspiring ing and to educate their own youth. You  know, like it's not about educating us, it's about educating their own community so that  all of this is not lost. It's not forgotten with the ease of modern life. And I feel we all need to  really understand and appreciate what makes this place, this entire region so special and why  it is important to fight for its upliftment.

[00:25:21]Miley Young is a hidden gem um in Sikkim and  I am super glad that Ronnie and put this video out. Um that was that was Milo Young and I  will see you guys on the next one later. Bye.