Sikkim & Kolkata cultural tour in India

Planet

1. Our environmental responsibility starts from the office. All our communication within and outside the office is paperless. We also encourage remote work and work from home in our team to avoid them from traveling every day.

2. One person uses 3-4 bottles of packaged mineral water/day on a tour. On a 10-day tour of a family of four, that accumulates to 160 bottles. We have removed single-use plastic bottles from all our tours and replaced them with a reusable, 2-stage filter, and BPA free water bottles. It filters 99.9% bacteria, parasites, and microplastics. The activated carbon filter reduces bad odor and taste, chlorine, and organic chemical matter from the water.

3. Our village accommodations use organic composting to process the waste produced. The farming that you will be participating in is transformed into organic over the last couple of years. Previously pesticides were used which had rendered the land useless. But slowly the land has now revived due to organic plantations.

4. We do not use any unethical practices to lure any wildlife on the Menam La trek. Any interactions you have with animals ensure that they are not harmed or exploited.

5. The raw material for meals is sourced locally. Not only it is fresh but it also reduces the fuel emissions caused by transportation from long distances.

6. The transportation provided to you is compliant with current emission standards in India.

7. The rural accommodations in Sikkim are owned by local families who have training in hospitality. Therefore, you needn’t worry about hygiene, food, and their availability to help you when you need.

People

1. The accommodations in Sikkim are family owned who have training in hospitality. Therefore, you needn’t worry about hygiene, and food. The earnings from your tour are shared directly with the accommodation owners and tour guides from the village. Over the years, we have been able to evolve a sense of pride together with the community which has inspired the youth to stay back in the villages. Some of our guides are also doing a masters course in their tribal languages.

2. The activities designed for you involve local families as much as possible to utilize their skill in weaving and wood carving. Women are involved in handicrafts like carpets and local dresses. We regularly advocate for gender neutral employment. 100% of earnings from any handicrafts that you choose to buy go to the artisan working with the Self Help Group (SHG). The earnings are also partially put in the community development fund used for plantation of trees, maintenance of homestays, and as an emergency corpus.

3. Drivers and guides are from the local community and are given fair wages which are decided on per day basis so that you are not overcharged at any point. The drivers and guides are trained in hygiene, communicating, hosting, and other factors necessary to give you an extraordinary experience.

4. Rather than painting only a rosy picture, we also share the social and economic issues of the tribes with you. These issues could be about rural-to-urban migration for employment, women, and children, education, environment, and more. It helps you form a 360-degree viewpoint of the community and the place.

5. The storytelling element in our trips helps you form deeper connections with the community thus enriching both the traveler and the host. Storytelling also helps in creating mutual respect.

6. It will be common to see the active involvement of the community irrespective of the gender in decision making, managing guests, finances, and raising the family. This helps us meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals.