My favourite place to stay in Sikkim

My favourite place is the Chumbi Mountain Retreat in Pelling because it has some of the best facilities in Sikkim, electric air conditioning, organic heating for the main hotel using wood burners and great heartfelt customer service which is rare anywhere in the world. It's designed by a Buddhist Lama using sacred Buddhist geometry who happens to be the owner too, Ugyen Chopel is also a well known Napali film producer, who has sustainability and biodiversity at his core and grows his own vegetables at the hotel.

It's been voted at the sixth best destination of twenty in India to visit by the Lonely Planet guide and was originally opened by Richard Gere in 2013

You can see the two wood burners in the picture above heating the main hotel on either side of the main entrance as you come into the front desk. The bedrooms are all Buddhist themed and I love taking breakfast on the outside decking area and seeing the summit of Kangchenjunga, which is the third highest mountain in the world as my backdrop.

It has a traditional Sikkimese spa and it's own unique cinema together with a area used by mountaineers as a forward base and there's some interesting memorabilia from previous successes including Everest, K2 and the local Kangchenjunga

For more information on the hotel, go to http://thechumbimountainretreat.com/ and click on the google map below to see exactly where it is. For special deals and last minute bookings see my blog on how to get the best deal in India.

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