Yuksom, India
The word "charming" was invented for the village of Yuksom, in the Himalayan foothills. A five-minute walk in any direction from the village's one street was enough to bring us onto huge forested hills, past tiny farms, or into lavishly decorated monasteries. We took a very steep one-day hike to Kecheopalri, expecting a serene lake that's holy to Sikkim's Buddhists but finding instead some idiotic tourists throwing biscuits into the water to feed the fish. In a...