Gangtok trip ...

Lest i might forget it, so i thought of blogging it down.


Four of my friends went to Gangtok this Puja. So the gang comprised of 4 people: Rahul, Deepak, Mohit and me. Whole of the puja holidays were spent at the green soothing valleys of Gangtok. We started on 28th of September. Went there by a luxury deluxe bus since train tickets were not available. That was a awesome journey. All of its tyres got punctured and all in all it took around 13 to 14 hours to reach Siliguri, 3 hours more than the normal time.

We hired a SUV from Siliguri and it took around 4 hours to reach Gangtok. It was 29th evening. After
a search of 30 minutes we got a hotel. It was Bhaichung Lodge, little bit away from the gangtok downtown. That night spent out quite silently.

On 30th morning, we did the sight-seeing. Seven points were there. Rumtek Monstery was the most famous of them. Rest are Tibetology Institute, Ganeshtok, Tashi-View Point etc. It took the whole day to view all these. And the night was spent at 'Time-Out', One of the famous pubs of Gangtok. Uffff !! That was my first experience at a pub. I had a wonderful time there.

1st of october was a disaster. We could n't get up early in the morning. That's why cancelled the plan of going to Nathula-paas, the indo-china border, around 55 kilometers from Gangtok. So, we spent the whole day in the hotel watching television. And arranged for the next-days trip to Gurudongmar Lake.

On bapuji's birthday, 2nd october early in the morning, we set out for Gurudongmar Lake. The last night we were trying to arrange for both Yumthang and Gurudongmar Lake but the tour organizers forbade us to go to Yumthang. According to them, during this time of the year, ice is very difficult to find there. So we opt for only Gurudongmar Lake. It is a 2-day-one-night journey. Once you book the whole tour, you dont even need to spend penny for your foods. The travel agencies will bear that. Off course the charge for this trip is big. For a Tata Spacio (or any other sport-utility-vehicle), they will take around Rs 10,000/-. So ... we started around 10 in the morning. A big Tata Spacio and only four passengers. So that was a cool journey. Throughout the way, rivr tista went with us. Those huge terrains, waterfalls.. We started playing Antakshari. Around half of the way we kept on singing. It was a nice exprience. The city 'gangtok' comes in East district. and Guru.. lake comes in North district. You see, even Sikkim's districts are named in such a way that it wont create a trouble for remembering them: North dist, south dist, east dist and west dist.. Around 1:30 pm came Mangan, north district headquarter. It is almost 100 kilometers from Gangtok. We took our luch thre. It was so simple yet so good, so tasty.. Half an hour or so rest there. The journey started again. "Border Roads Organisation was always with us". Theis slogans were seen every now and then. Next kasba on the way was "Chungthang". From this point the road was bifurcated. One went to Yumthang via Lachung and the other to Gurudongmar Lake via Lachen. We took the second one. The weather was getting cold outside.

Ohh !! I forgot to mention about the falls. On the way, a fall came which is of 160 meters of hight. Sorry for not uploading its image. That was one of the wonderful sight i ve seen so far in my life. We took at least 5/6 photographs of the single waterfall. Another famous fall was Seven-sister's fall. I dont know where from the name came. Whenever a fall came, we stopped the car. Actually we had to. Their beauty was irrestible each and every time. After seeing aronund 7 to 8 natural falls in the way, we came to Thangu at around 5:30 in the evening. My god !! Why the weather is so cold here !! Temperature there nmust be at least 1o degrees less than that of gangtok.

That night was so cold. Thank god, we got a fire-place around. Having a cup of tea in your hand and sitting just in front of fire-place with your friends. What else do you need in life ?? We ordered for "Thukpa", sikkim special dish as our dinner. But unfortunately that was not served. Our driver Furdeng bhaaiya seems to be pretty cool. After an early dinner, we all went to bed before 8 since we have to get up early in the morning. So .. Good night friends. I am going to sleep.

Okay friends... Then came the morning of 3rd october. All of us got ready within 5:30 in the morning. The lake was still 2 hours of journey from there. This time i noticed the outside scenary has been changed completely. No more terrains and greenish mountains anymore. Rather it seems barren lands, more like a plateau. Flat land which is spread in all directions and road is coming in between. Bricks and stones were seen here and there. Since we were approaching the indo-china border (though it was 100 km or so away from there too), that area had a lot of army camps. We went through three military check-posts. Now about my health condition. I started vomitting and keep on vomitting intermittently. We were approaching to ice. Yes !!! Around 7 came the Lake. More than its beauty, its area astonished me. The whole area of the lake is more than 5 square kms. People say it doesn't freeze completely even in extreme cold.

We spent more than 2 and half hours there. The area was even lacking oxygen. I think thats understandable since the height is 17,500 feets !! The lake is sacred to both Hindus and Buddists. The ice-clad mountains seemed so close to that spot, yet they were so far. After taking a handful of pictures, we set out for our hotel around 10 am. After a long striding lengthy travel of almost 8 hours, crossing the villages Thangu, Lachen, Chungthang and Mangan, we reached Gangtok around 7 in the night. That night was spent at Hotel Priyadarshini. Aahh !! a long journey of two days came to an end.

On 4th morning, we set out for Nathula. But in the way, i came to know we couldn't go upto nathula since we couldn't manage the paas last night. Nathula is around 50 kilometers from Gangtok. But we went upto Baba-Mandir. Its a famous hindu temple there. This time the weather was tolerable. After half an hour at Baba-temple, we came to Tshangu-Lake. Due to Yak-business (clad in a lepcha-dress and then photo-shoot on a Yak), that area was very much dirty. As usual, we took some photos and left the place. In between we had our breakfasts with Momos. Yuummy !!

We came back our hotel around 3 pm. That night was spent window-shopping in the Gangtok markets. My friends bought some cool T's. Had our dinner at a ravishing restaurant. Sorry, I forgot its name.


Thus we reached the end of our jouney. The day of 5th arrived. Now the only work left is to see the Gangtok township and then leave for Kharagpur. We took a tour of the Gangtok Ropeway, which was inaugurated very recently, in the year 2003 if i remember properly. It had 3 terminals. Ganesh-tok at the top, Sikkim Assembly house in the middle and gangtok bazzar at the bottom. After having a light lunch, we set out for Siliguri. Bbye bbye Gangtok .. We will come back here soon... Tata ..

We set out for Siliguri around 2 in the noon. It would take around 4 hours to reach there. Rangpo, the town which is the gateway to sikkim is around 40 kilometers away from there. The return journey was very comfortable. The roads were well-maintained. We landed at Siliguri after the sunset. i came to know Siliguri is in Darjeeling district. Before i thought its in Jalpaiguri district. Siliguri-New Jalpaiguri distance is 8 kilometers. We came to NJP around 6.

We have to board down saraighat-express, scheduled time of departure from NJP is 1:05 in the night. That night was spent at the second-class waiting room having chats and discussions amongst us. The topics included everything starting from our trip to world-war II and modern India. The night passed away so fast. The train came at its scheduled time. After an initial rush, we found our seats. Howrah-bound suprfast express through Malda-Farakka-Bolpur-Barddhaman reached howrah station around 1:30pm. None of us had a meal last night and not even in the morning. So we went to the Food-Plaza straightway.

After 1 hour or so at the howrah station, we caught up a Kharagpur-bound local train. Reached KGP at 5 in the evening and hired a taxi. We returned home sad but happy. Sadness because such a wonderful tour came to an end all of a sudden and happiness because our KGP-dont-care-type life is going to resume soon.

Cheers friends. Our tour is completed. And so is this blog. So .. go back to your work ..