Trip to sikkim – cal , Njp, gangtok, tsango lake , unsuccessful nathula and baba mandir , endless daaru, the IIML crowd, rechristening as chotu Tarzan Murgi wali, the seven sisters fall.
lachung and Yumthang valley (-13 km) say no to Katau, in gangtok –Then trip to pelling, the separation in upper lower and middle pelling. Scary night adventure. The one man army, the bangu loving lawyer uncle and the neglected wife. Kanchanjunga vie,. River rafting in Meli that could never happen. In Pelling ancient capital of sikkim and old capital of sikkim a chorten
Before I begin let me introduce u to “ HUM Paanch” main alias chotu, Bangu, Dwivedi alias ACP, Bhaiya aur bhabi.
So Hum paanch start from our very own green land school and reach this supposedly sleepy city’s railway station at around 10 at night, and ahh or aha ! Here we are. We get our first worth describing scene. The station is medium crowded, pretty ok for the time. And we see at a bench behind us, in the middle of everything a couple playing sweet games as if it was talkatora garden or Victoria memorial park. On the railway station? on the platform ? Whatever. and then people say Orissa is backward.
We then board the train which takes us to Cal, morning at 8; most of us facing the same problem, you understand now don’t you. btw this problem stayed with most of us for most of the days in the trip. But still every time we saw food, ACP used to order –“sutoo”. Toh subah aath baje humne howrah st ke food plaza mein sutoo machaya. Aur fir Hum paanch Pappu ke ghar gaye. Ya … Hum chaar. Haan obviously Bangu is a bong and he shud have smn to meet up in Cal, now this was a special smn. Gud for him. So he left us and instructed us to meet him at 4.30 below a huge watch. “ tum log mujhe saRe chaar baje baRa ghaRi ke neeche milna”
We reached pappu’s place, where lucky Bhaiya was greeted with the traditional hug. From Pappu’s place we set out to explore a bit of Kolkatta where we met the other four creatures from Greenland who were headed towards Bhutan. In Kolkatta we saw Victoria memorial of course including the park. And a Photo exhibition. Here we were joined by my sweetheart Navs who happily treated us on lunch at a nice park street restaurant. She got a loud round of applause for the same in the restaurant itself. And for Pappu we chanted “seekho isse kuch seekho”.
Park street is a must visit if you go to Cal n I must say the tea in front of the CA institute was good.
Now since Bangu had called us to station 1 hour before the train time. We obeyed, and there we were waiting, “BaRa ghaRi ke neeche” baRi der intezar kiya par Bangu nahi aaya. And so when he came, the infuriated ACP stated “Tum Bengali #&%* tumhara makaan pote denge dhaniya bo denge” and rest is history. how this then became the favorite dialogue for chotu (me) n Bangu. n how the rest got totally sick of it.
We reached NJP (New Jalpaiguri) next morning n took a shared jeep to Gangtok, made all the arrangements for the stay n sight seeing at SEN travels. Pretty decent place, bangu used some of his Bengali antics n then we started from there.
A bit about jeeps, the mahindra savari or …………… is the common mode to travel which is packed with 10 + 1 (driver) people. Now it is best if you are 8- 10 of you who have gone to the trip else you will have to become 10 and ADJUST. Also within gangtok taxis (which are maruti omni) don’t take more than 4 people so 8 works out the best. Midway there was a roadblock that made us halt for some 2 hours. And then there was bachon ki chilpun, ulti (vomit) dhool (dust), pyaas (thirst) n all that, we were totally exhausted n freaked out by the time we reached our Wild Orchid Hotel room in gangtok. Point to be noted here is that as against Bhaiya and Bhabi I am not a fan of little and noisy kids, who scream, sing pakau bollywood numbers and vomit. So like I said the above stated is totally my point of view, totally biased and straight from the gut...
We went to Lal bazaar in the evening n bought a bottle of brandy, oh forgot to tell you it was chilly there. Otherwise we are nice kids we don’t booze n all. So this was brandy (1).
Next day early morn we started for tsomgo lake called ‘chango’ lake. What a place! A frozen lake and lots of snow all around. There were snow boots, leather gloves and jackets available there. Also yaks if you wana ride all the way to the top. Now a bit of description of the snow boots – these are gum boots, made of rubbery plastic, and are lent to you for ten bucks so over the years their heels might get worn out. and no one bothers
( you get the worn out ones if you are unlucky enough) like I was. So the minute I wore them I felt uneasy but I din react much. Now a snow place doesn’t mean all snow it means ice, water, stiff snow and all that, so wen u walk on such a place with boots as described, good things can’t happen to you for sure.
I lost balance once on the plane road, but din bother then all of us started climbing on the snow capped peaks. Ur feet could go atleast 2- 12 inches in the snow every time you put ur feet on it. And here I slipped again, and again I then gave up “ mujh se nahi hoga” I was panting heavily and I was feeling as if I will die of an heart attack or my heart will burst. But bangu and ACP helped me climb a bit more. I crawled like a chimp on the snow slipping and standing. From a particular point every body was sliding down in a snow slide. So did all of us, it was great fun. Now after the slide ends u gotta walk, but I wished the slide continued. Cause now the minute I stood I wud fall, so after hurting my back side painfully thrice already I refused to stand up only. Finally crawling slipping sliding and with help from ACP I almost reached the road, when he said now stand up there is a lot of yak-shit around and u will get dirty if u slide on it. So for one final time in front of some 5-6 yaks and 15-20 people in a passage I stood and took one step just fall on wet concrete road, decorated with yak sit, my woolen cap was on my side and I was lying prostrate in the middle of all this. This was the final blow I cud hardly move after this I couldn’t really feel anything due to the cold water that had made me numb. So when we reached back I kept lying on the bed for that day with Volini and a hot water bag. So much for the day and like always we ended the day with brandy (2). So day 1 of sight seeing had only Chango Lake (not that I could take more) and due to snow blocked roads and bad weather we missed both Baba Mandir and Nathula pass (china border). Supposed to be nice places yet not very different from what we saw. Baba mandir has some café and is named after an army man who died fighting in the sino-indian war and is still supposed be hanging around in that place. So every year a jeep is sent for him to go back home n all.
Next morning on a painful hip and a nice sunny day. We started out to a 2 days and 1 night trip to Yumthang valley, this time in the shared jeep we had better luck our co passengers were a group of 5 guys from IIM L, nice people to. The road trip to Yumthang via Lachung is beautiful and bumpy not snowy though. It’s a 5 – 6 hours journey, so the driver spent some time trying to get his cassette player fixed but no use. Now we started without any entertainment source except ourselves. We took lot of snaps on the way, of deep valleys and high peaks and the river teesta. Some of us also tried to display our vocal cords to the amusement of every body else. Once when I saw a deep n dark valley n there was a killing silence in the jeep, I said “ yahan toh Tarzan hona chahiye” on this people burst laughing and later when I saw few big murga’s on the road I shouted “woh dekho murgi” on this small mistake of mine, I was instantly rechristened as Chotu Tarzan Murgiwali.
After seeing the Seven Sisters fall on the route we reached Lachung in the evening it was even chillier there and it rained too. So we had brandy again (3).the day was spent traveling, singing and eating.
Lachung was an amazing place there was a water fall inside the place that we stayed. The lodge was called MYSTIQUE INN. Just like you have your very own garden it was your very own waterfall.
It was only next morning that we started for Yumthang valley, the way up was covered with snow and 14 km prior to the valley, in the Rhododendron sanctuary all cars stopped as the road was also covered with snow and ice. So we got down to enjoy whatever we got. We walked for 1 km in the snow with our regular shoes (thankfully) and reached a quite snow covered place where we shouted, played in the snow, threw snow balls at each other and clicked lots of photos. Rhododendrons means ‘Rhodo’ for brown ‘Dendron’ for plants. Actually snow plants. And yes I did not fall or break anything else here. proving the fault in the snow boots.
After Yumthang valley did not materialize, the driver said that we can pay some more and go to a place called Katau. Supposed to very gud covered with snow ice and all that.
All of us refused it saying ‘aur nahi katwana’ so from there we went back to base Gangtok.
Next day had been kept for sightseeing in Gangtok, for which our travel was not booked the hotel guy said it wud take 700 per taxi and we wud need two since one taxi carries only 4 people but then we sealed the deal in 500 per taxi, with a local guy. True under age taxi drivers Now there are some 7 -10 points in Gangtok u can choose haw many to see - Rumtek monastry nalanda institute, rope way, and other useless places like flower show and viewpoints. The only worth it place is Rumtek monastery and it is real gud. Heard there is a Hanuman tok around which is also gud, Tok is a mandir.
Next day we went to Pelling. after frantically searching for a taxi or jeep finally we got one via Zorethang. So the connecting flight from Zorethang to Pelling was an open jeep, what fun to have an open jeep in absolutely chilly weather. Fortunately we reached in afternoon so we were able to go sight seeing that day. A tour was booked at 200 per person for 10 spots to be covered in 2 days. We saw the old capital of Sikkim and the ancient capital of Sikkim, which are two distinct and very beautiful places especially the old capital, a monastery, alpine forests, several waterfalls and lake a very picturesque place, the singing stone which was a farce and other view points. Next day in the evening we experimented with funny sounding dishes like Fak-thuk, ……………
In one of these water falls, which was actually our last view point for the trip ACP, bhaiya and Bhabhi sick due to lack of adventure ventured out to reach the start of this huge waterfall. Me and Bangu sensibly chickened out. It was a rocky climb up to the fall. They also chose not to come back through the stairs and explore their own way through the woods. Their adventure was succusfully fulfilled with ACP getting a bruised arm and bhabi slipping once leading to near heart attack for bhaiya. Amazing courage on the part of all three.
Pelling is a small and very beautiful and quite place, if not for lodges and hotels it would have had no population at all it seems. The entire town max 5 km of winding roads is divided into upper lower and middle pelling. So after walking down the road from our hotel in upper Pelling in ten minutes we could reach middle Pelling. Our hotel was run by one man – appropriately named the one man army. This guy alone managed the cash counter, room service and food; there was supposedly a girl also who helped in cooking etc, though we never saw her. He also packed lunch for us the day we went for sight seeing. Woke us up at 5 am to get an awesome view of the Kanchenjunga mountain peak from our very own balcony. Amazing ‘one man army’