[Sikkim:5] The Flower Valleys and Snow mountains

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The next day we were up early and by 6am were on our way to Yumthang Valley. Yumthang Valley is referred as the Switzerland of India with its beautiful landscapes, snow capped mountain views, several flora and fauna, particularly Rhododendrons. We could find plenty of colors and species and varieties of Rhododendrons on our way up and down. The way to the Yumthang Valley was out of the world. It was so picture perfect that I doubted if at all I was travelling in India or in Europe. The beauty of the place lied in the fact that it was all natural and on both sides of the road, we felt like we were walking through manicured gardens with snow capped mountains as a backdrop.

On our Way to the Valley:





We reached Yumthang valley which was basically a wide open space with the river flowing and the majestic eastern Himalayas all around us. We could spot a lot of yaks and the valley was more than beautiful to say the least. Then we headed up north again 30 kms from Yumthang Valley. Our aim was to see the Zero point where the motorable road ends in the east of India. And the one hour drive that followed took my breath way. There was ice everywhere. You could the see the whole valley covered up on Ice Mountains all the way till the Yumthang valley as you moved away and above closer to the Zero point.

A YAK lazes around in the Valley:

The Valley:


I won’t be exaggerating if I say that on every turn we took, every brake the driver put, there was a photo-op which would end up as stunning wallpaper desktops. If I look back now at the snaps we have from this place, it still all feels like a dream. I remember trying hard to spot the Himalayan range when we were in Shimla last year. But this time, we saw ourselves soaking up in warm sun, in the bone biting chilly weather outside with snow all around. There was so much snow even on the roads that I could literally put my hand outside the car window and I could touch and pluck some ice.

We reached the Zero point finally and we were in Snow. Like for the first time in snow in my entire life. (Snow World in Hyderabad doesn’t count as Snow) We played a lot in the snow, had some hot maggi and even did a little bit of adventure when crossing over in snow.

People having fun at the zero point:

We started our descent again and on the way could see the hot sulphur springs. On our way back we stopped at so many places to take snaps with the flowers, rhododendrons specifically. S was ecstatic as she jumped in joy at seeing so many flowers all in one place. It was as if the whole valley was painted with flowers and snow capped mountains.
Rhododendrons:

BRO at work:


We went back to the resort and had our lunch and started our way back. First a 7 hour drive to Gangtok and then an overnight stay there followed by the next morning 4 hour drive from Gangtok to Bagdogra which is the nearest airport to reach Gangtok and the flight from Bagdogra to Hyderabad via Delhi T-3.

There’s so much of travel and pain to be taken by us to reach and see these places which I just wrote about. But it has to be done to experience the joy in seeing those places for the first time in your life. I really won’t feel the urge to take the risk of visiting Kashmir after doing Sikkim.

“If nature is your fodder, Sikkim definitely is the place to be”

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[Sikkim:4] The Ascent and the Descent

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The next day would easily be the longest day of my life. In Sikkim summers, the sunrises at 4am and all of the people would be up and running by 5am. And like all the tourists we too got up quickly on the behest of our driver as he said it would be better if we start early.

GuruDongmar Lake is situated at an altitude of around 17,100 feet. It is one of the world’s highest altitude and most beautiful lakes. To reach the lake, we need an ILP(Inner Line Permit) and we have to cross around 5-6 army checkpoints. The best part of this is that no one other than Indian citizens are allowed. The foreigners are allowed until half of the ascent and I was told from there, they take some natural camp treks and return to Lachen. And the winds near the lake can get quite rough. By 11am the sun starts vanishing under the clouds and I was told that vehicles like Mahindra Scorpio would get pushed away by the wind force!

When you typically start from Lachen to GuruDongmar Lake you are gaining around 8000 feet in altitude in one day. Even though this was a last minute trip, I did Google quite a bit on what this means to us. And I can safely tell you one thing. If you Google for GuruDongmar Lake, in the top 50 results you will end up seeing “AMS”(Altitude Mountain Sickness) in at least half of them.

 AMS is overrated. People will give all kinds of advice if you are doing this trip. But if you ask me, if you are mentally strong and feel nothing would happen, nothing would really happen as I experienced. People also would recommend you to pop a Diamox whenever you feel the symptoms. I too took a strip of Diamox but didn’t have a need to use them.

We both kept drinking lot of water and munched some Popcorn since the locals believe strongly that this would help in nullifying the effects of AMS. We stopped by at around 8am for our packed breakfast. And Sikkim people are so hospitable that they welcome us into their homes, feed us warm water and make us sit near their fire logs to keep ourselves warm and also warm up the food we carry. All they expect in return from you is to buy hot tea from them. In this case, apart from the woolen wear we had on us, we rented out some heavy-duty wind shutters for our journey above.

After our breakfast, we resumed our journey. It turned out to be the journey of my life. It was as exciting as I felt in Paris if not more. At 13,000 feet we saw lot of snow but once we kept going above, all I could see was barren lands and snow capped mountains far away. We were inching closer and I could see army bunkers which they really use in case of wars. Once there, since it was so high in altitude we were told not to talk loudly or run or scream as the oxygen levels are very low.

Some shots on our way:






We finally reached GuruDongmar Lake. To describe the place in words is doing injustice to it. I felt for a moment that I was on top of the world. The pristine lake was half freezed and on the other half the water was as blue as the clear sky on that day. All that long days and long hours of travel was all worth it. I was told by locals that the water is so pure, that they never ever found a single germ or dust particle in the water. Since the place is considered holy, there was a temple. An army jawan was guarding the place and in far off barren lands, we could see the Chinese border.

I just was stunned by the beauty of the place. All the effort we take to reach the place would only sustain for around 20 odd minutes. After that anybody would start feeling the effects of lack of oxygen. If we feel the difficulty in breathing, it’s time to start your downward journey. If given a chance, I would recommend everyone to do this once-in-a-lifetime-experience at least once.

Some shots of the beautiful Lake:






Up there, at 17100 feet above sea level gasping for my breath I just felt one thing : “This is life”

The jawan who monitors the monastery/temple:

The other side of the lake:



Once we started the descent we felt quite okay. We rested for sometime in the resort, had our lunch and started to Lachung. Lachung is another small village which acts as a base point for Yumthang Valley and Zero Point. We reached Lachung in an hour and here the resort was great with a room heater and hot water. We quickly had some dinner and rested for the night with all the great visuals fresh in my mind.

A special mention to the man and the machine that took us so far safely and back:

AN apt message at the resort:


Life in Lachen:


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[Sikkim:3]The journey Starts

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The next day started off well. S was active all through the day and we enjoyed the scenic journey from Gangtok to Lachen a lot. Even though the journey was 7 hours, the distance is just 120 odd kilometers. But it’s the ascent that matters and in a day we gain around 7000 feet above sea-level as the small sleepy village Lachen stands at 9800 feet. Typically Lachen acts as a base point to the GuruDongmar Lake for the tourists and hence has all kinds of accommodation for the overnight stay.

Whilst our journey, we enjoyed the valley views and stopped by in between at a nice little road where for the first time I saw everything that I used to imagine and put in my elementary school drawings. There was this beautiful road, with the river flowing on one side, small shanty kind of huts, mountains, a bridge, small waterfalls and the weather was so pleasant and the air so fresh. It already felt good. There were innumerable waterfalls on our way from Gangtok to Lachen and after counting 41, we both let it be and just soaked in the beautiful countryside.

Way of the life in Sikkim:

River Teestha:

A scenic Village:

There are two organizations which you will frequently bump into when in Sikkim. The first one is “BRO” (Border Roads Organization) and the second one is “ITBP”(Indo-Tibet Border Police Force). BRO has done and is doing a commendable job in laying roads in such high and rough terrain, barren lands and snow capped mountains. All through our road trips in Sikkim, I was thinking of the efforts they have put in to make life easy for us tourists and army people. And ITBP is everywhere. Right from Siliguri to the top, up until the China border they have camps. And I felt indebtable to both these organizations that preserve what is rightfully beautiful eastern part of our country unlike what they have done up north.

BRO:




Once we reached the resort, we were treated with a cherry whisky and some hot tea. S liked the hot tea a lot. In fact all through our holiday, S was enjoying her share of tea, as it is quite famous there and hot tea helps a lot in coping up with the weather and altitude shifts. The resort was just okay but the room heater wasn’t there and there was no electricity to have warm water for us as it was freezing 3 degrees cold outside.

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[Sikkim:2] In and Around

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The night didn’t end as smoothly as I said in the last post. Once we reached Sarovar, I was negotiating good packages to visit North Sikkim. If you go to Sikkim, you must visit North Sikkim. Because that is where the whole activity is, that is what the whole world does. We had many places to visit on our agenda:

GuruDongmar Lake through Lachen
Yumthang Valley through Lachung
Gangtok Sightseeing Day trip
Changu Lake and Nathula Pass.

Sikkim has some rules and anyone and everyone should follow them. If we need to go up north of Sikkim, we have to have a Inner Line Permit. This also applies to Nathula Pass which is the Indo-Chinese border. And we have to submit a couple of passport photographs and have to wait a day so that the ILP is issued. This will be strictly checked on all the army check posts we find on the way. Since we had only four days at disposal, we were suggested to skip the Nathula pass/ Changu Day trip as we were going to visit the mother of all lakes GuruDongmar and the zero point beyond the Yumthang Valley. We could get good accommodation options for both Lachen and Lachung (or as we were told so), but at a premium of almost double the normal rates as it was a last minute trip.

So the idea was that we start from Gangtok in the morning and visit a couple of site-seeing places and reach Lachen. The next day we visit the GuruDongmar lake and come back to have lunch. Post-lunch we travel to Lachung from Lachen. The next day we go visit the Yumthang valley and return to the resort for lunch and then reach Gangtok by late evening.

On our Second day, we settled for doing a day-long Gangtok trip. We started off the day by visiting Rumtek Monastery and could see so many mini-Lama’s. We then moved on to visit a couple of view-points, a couple of waterfalls and a great Flower show. S was so excited about the flower show and it didn’t disappoint us. The range of flowers at display was great and S too bloomed alongside the flowers. As the last straw for the day, we took a rope-way where again I witnessed some silly Telugu family fighting with the local guards. Typical up-manship mentality of us Telugites, I tell you.

Sun shined bright:

A customary shot:

Lamas:

Monastery/Temple Ritual:

A common sight in the hill stations:

Entrance View:

A local painting depicts the culture:

I lied on my bed that night wondering what was all the hype about Sikkim and specifically Gangtok since it looked exactly like Shimla which I visited a year back. The saving grace was Gangtok, even though being a capital of state wasn’t as populated or commercialized as Shimla. Nonetheless, it was like any other hill station towns in India, with centre of town named egotistically “MG Marg”.

I didn’t even dream that I was to be proven wrong in the coming 72 hours.

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[Sikkim:1] A Hush-Hush Holiday

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I was contemplating on visiting Maldives, Paris and many other exotic places for my annual holiday. That was until I stumbled upon the beautifully written reviews on Sikkim and North Sikkim praising the place to the peaks by the people who have been there. Thanks to the ‘Tripadvisor’, ‘Indiamike’ and several such travel blogs, I decided this is the right time and the right place to go. Once that was decided, I started scouting for the places that we could see and what Sikkim has to offer.

On one fine day I came back from office and convinced S that we should do this trip and do it ASAP. We both took the ASAP part quite seriously (literally) and the next day we found ourselves flying. At 9.30 pm as soon as S said yes, I booked return tickets for us in Jet airways from Hyderabad to Bagdogra and back. We called for a cab, packed everything overnight, tried and slept a bit and we were off. The next morning it was a 6 am flight for us. It was a connecting flight with the stopover at Delhi and we could see the new swanky Delhi Terminal-3 at the airport. Commendable is a lesser word to describe the T-3.

Terminal-3 Delhi Airport:


From Bagdogra we were to reach Gangtok by road and this ended up as 4 hour tiring yet scenic journey. We could see the way people toil hard on those roads to build and widen the existing ones. And it is amazing to see how the drivers follow the rules and help each other (because this is the only way I guess to reach your destination) in this part of the country. I wonder how mana Hyderabadi’s would drive on those roads with our pin-sized patience levels.

On our way we could also see the main campus of Sikkim Manipal University. We stopped over at an army canteen to have some Dosas and this was the first culture shock I felt, of which many of them were to come in the days that followed. The places where they live, sleep, what they eat, it all seemed to me like a different country from which I come from. And they do a much nobler job with a purpose than what we do sitting in temperature controlled offices to pass the workdays and strolling around in big multiplex equipped shopping malls on the weekends.

River Teestha followed us all through the journey and as I read it somewhere “Sikkim is small, yet beautiful”, the place was already living up to its reputation. As this was a last minute plan, it was obvious that we didn’t had any * hotel reservations as is our customary in other holidays that we do. Once we started approaching Gangtok, I was frantically searching on the net for good hotels in Gangtok and trying to call them to see if we are lucky enough to get a good CP or AP plan. On the way, I even got down and enquired in a resort for a room, but in vain as they were booked out the whole week. Finally I could manage to phone Sarovar guys and they had a Valley view room at a steeper price. When we finally reached the place, it was real good and we felt lucky enough to get it as it was the last room available. And the view was pleasant from our room.

A tea estate on our way:

We did the fastest way to reach Gangtok and had almost spent 12 hours in doing so. So you can imagine how far it is from mana Hyderabad. We had a quite cozy dinner and retired for the night.

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2 Deaths

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Osama Bin Laden shot dead today.

And a week earlier, Satya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi breathed his last too.

Two deaths so contrasting, the former being the most celebrated one and the later the most mourned one worldwide.

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