THE PERSON BEHIND THE JOURNEY
One family home in Gorkhey and owner-led treks through the eastern Himalaya.
ROOTED IN GORKHEY
Uden Tamang keeps Eden Homestay in Gorkhey Forest Village and personally conducts the guided treks. There is no front desk: Uden is the person you speak with when planning your stay or route.
Gorkhey sits beside the river that marks the Sikkim border. Guests arrive on foot from Srikhola or Bhareng; some come for the village alone, while others find Eden midway through a trek.
Start a conversationSTORIES FROM GORKHEY
Terraced fields, a handful of family houses and a stream that doubles as a border. A few things worth knowing before you walk in.
Gorkhey sits where a small mountain stream, the Gorkhey Khola, draws the line between West Bengal and Sikkim — cross the water and you have changed states. The stream feeds the Rammam, which rises below Phalut on the Singalila ridge and later joins the Rangeet near Jorethang. You can hear it from the village all night.
No road reaches Gorkhey. Most guests arrive on foot — down from Phalut, the high point where West Bengal, Sikkim and Nepal meet, or up the valley from Rammam and Srikhola, or across from Bhareng on the Sikkim side. The quiet you notice on arrival is the quiet of a place without traffic.
Gorkhey lies on the fringe of Singalila National Park — a wildlife sanctuary from 1986 and a national park since 1992. Its ridge forests of rhododendron, bamboo and oak shelter the red panda, Himalayan black bear and barking deer. Sightings are rare and never promised, which makes each one special.
A short walk away, Samanden spreads across an open plateau ringed by pines; trekkers call it the “Lost Valley”. A folk tale told of the place says a Lepcha hunter once fought a Yeti over hunting grounds. Neither could win, so they made peace, and a great stone was raised in the forest to mark it. Ask Uden what he has heard.
ON THE TRAIL WITH EDEN
Photographs from treks Eden has guided across the Singalila ridge — snow in spring, rhododendrons in bloom and high lakes above the clouds.
FROM A LITTLE DAYDREAM TO A REAL JOURNEY