Zero Point, Gangtok
Sikkim set up its Directorate of Handicrafts and Handloom in 1957, while it was still a kingdom, to train artisans and keep its crafts alive. It still works that way, about 1 km from MG Marg.
Photo: Amol Nakve
The first floor
Visitors may walk the first floor and watch the trainees at work: carpets, masks, thangka painting, carved tables and paper. Move quietly, as you would in any classroom, and ask before you photograph anyone at their bench.
Photo: Ahad Hasan / Pexels
Thangka
Thangka painting is taught here at the bench. To see older work, the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology keeps painted scrolls of the kingdom's Namgyal kings, and monastery porches such as Rumtek's carry painted walls and ceilings.
Photo: Soumyojit Sinha / Pexels
Choktse
Choktse are the carved folding tables of Sikkimese homes, and trainees learn to carve them here, alongside masks and carpets. Watch how a panel is cut, then look for finished ones in the emporium.
Photo: Jayanth Muppaneni / Unsplash
Argeli
Sikkim's handmade paper comes from the bark of the argeli shrub, and the trainees make it here. It is one of the lightest things you can carry home from Gangtok, and the emporium sells it.
Photo: Shibaji Mondal / Pexels
Monday to Saturday
The Directorate opens Monday to Saturday, 10:00 to 16:20, and shuts on Sundays and government holidays. A museum opened here in 2007, and a two-story emporium sells the work you have just watched being made.
Photo: Unsplash
In a Gangtok week
It fits the quiet afternoon after a Tsomgo morning, or a day when rain shuts the road north. Tell us which day of your stay is free, and we check it is not a Sunday or a holiday before we plan it in.
Photo: Yash Sanghani / Unsplash