Tucked into the Eastern Himalayas beneath Kanchenjunga — the world's third-highest peak — Sikkim is home to nearly 250 Buddhist monasteries, most belonging to the Nyingma and Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The largest, Rumtek Monastery, was built in strict accordance with its sister monastery in Tibet and today serves as the seat of the Karmapa lineage — its golden stupas and vivid murals a living record of a tradition that has endured in these mountains for centuries.
Sikkim's culture is a genuine blend of three communities — the indigenous Lepcha, the Bhutia, and Nepali settlers — who share a deep reverence for the mountains, rivers, and forests around them as sacred. Prayer flags in five colours, representing earth, water, fire, air, and sky, flutter over nearly every village, monastery, and mountain pass in the state.
The same high-altitude climate that shapes Sikkim's spiritual life also makes it one of India's most important growing regions for large cardamom — a perennial herb cultivated under mixed forest canopy exactly as it has been for generations, traditionally dried in wood-fired kilns called bhatti. It's this rare Himalayan terroir that Vedikly is working to bring into its Ayurveda and wellness catalogue.