Sikkim has a total of four holy caves and the 'largest' of these caves is the Eastern cave called Pe Phu or the Cave of Secrets! I felt like Indiana Jones already. Learning absolutely nothing from our previous experience climbing Maenam, Karo and I set off from Ravangla with no water in the late afternoon thinking it would be a pleasant stroll to some large, easily accessible cave, clearly sign-posted. Ha. We had obviously been spoiled by the clean streets of Gangtok.
The walk to the cave naturally took much longer than expected, but it was super beautiful and adorable little twerps hassled us on the way. Once in 'Sangmoo', the 'village' (one house?) where the cave was supposed to be located, we wandered around like tired, lost people and got adopted by the cutest child to walk on this earth. She's about six, guessing, and her only English is "come!" So we did.
The entrance area to the cave (pictured below) was cavernous enough, but from then on it's tight, dusty squeezes, all guided (and goaded) on by our dear tour guide (pictured above): "come!"
At the end we all stood looking at the Himalayas, and Karo and I gave our tour guide a hand-made pendant and snow leopard badge respectively and she held both the gifts to her heart and beamed at us. She had scrambled around the caves and the cliffs surrounding them with such incredible confidence and ease - I shudder to think how far into the cave system she has ventured.
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