Hi Friends,
We(Me, dad n my sis Alpa) had gone for a vacation from 22-Feb-08 to 7-Mar-08.
I had planed this trip. It was to Beautiful Sikkim & Darjeeling.
Just to give a brief idea. We had gone by(Mum) LTT-Gawhati Train which
took almost 46 hours. We boarded train on Friday morning 8pm and
reached New Jalpaiguri(NJP) on Sunday morning 5:30am. It was a good
journey giving us India darshan;)
From NJP, we went to Gangtok by share jeep. As it was off-season,
we got good deals in hotels too everywhere mostly Rs 1100 rooms were
available for 400 Rs.
After local gangtok(5500 Ft height) site seeing, we booked for 2
days 1 night trip which covered Lachun(8000 Ft height) and
Yumthang(12000 Ft height) in north sikkim. For us, we had never seen
ice, so it was more fun. We played in ice like kids. Though because of
ice, we were not able to reach yumthang top(12 KM down) but it was
still beautiful all the same. They informed us that during april end
instead of ice we can see 36 types of flowers there.
Next day we went to India-China Border(Nathula Ghat), Chongu lake
and Baba mandir. Here we got interesting group who knew something more
abt area and we paid more to driver and visited a beautiful place
called Thukla which has original baba mandir(Baba Harbhajansing was an
Indian soldier who died and he requested someone in dream to make his
mandir).
It was Thukla where we saw the awesome KANCHANGANGA(3rd highest
in world) mountains for the first time very closely. We were going thro
frozen rivers, houses covered in snow, beauty all together. Actually it
was more like seeing a geography book live:) AWESOME.
At Nathula we have to climb some part as vehicles are allowed till
an extent. Oxygen was less, it strained but it was worth watching
Nathula border. It was an experience of life.
This was the first time I realised importance of couple of things,
one is indian army in what circumstances they live, and one was Border
Road Organisation(BRO) who had provided beautiful roads and State Bank
of India which was visible at places we cant imagine.
Next we visited beautiful quite Pelling(6800 Ft ht). which had
beautiful Pemayangste Monastery, Khecheopalri Lake, Also visited
Rabdanste Ruins of king’s palace (its ex capital of sikkim). I was not
able to visit Yuksam which had king’s things(another ex capital of
sikkim).Bollywood Actor Danny Denzopa is from Yuksam.
Actually my plan was more for Darjeeling area but as Darjeeling
and West bengal were on strike for separate gorkhaland, we spend more
time in the beautiful sikkim.We were lucky atleast we got 2 days in
Darjeeling.
Finally we made our way to beautiful Darjeeling thro beautiful tea
gardens. We watched india win Tri series on tuesday along with a
beautiful storm with thunder and lights.
In the morning I went for tiger hills at 4 am, we saw snow was all
around in the morning, sky was clear, we were able to see moon and
stars but my bad luck just before sun-rise it become very foggy so I
was not able to see the most beautiful event ie sunrise of darjeeling.
Its now pending for a next time along with Kalimpong which we missed
because of lack of time.
Finally we made an abroad journey to nepal pashupati market on our
way back to NJP we went to Mirik and jorepokri. this whole mirik
nepal journey was very foggy. I felt it was like movie. too
beautiful.
Finally from NJP at night wed-thursday 1am we can back to mum on fri-sat morning 1:45am.
Though destination is very beautiful, I felt the journey was too
too beautiful(journey from NJP->Gangtok going with teesta river,
too Beautiful North Sikkim, Going to Pelling from Gangtok, Journey from
tea gardens from Pelling to Darjeeling, Last but not at all the least
foggy journey From Darjeeling to NJP via Mirik)
One thing though I will like to mention here is that people out
there in north-east were very friendly, innocent, simple and beautiful.
I am sending you link of Sikkim photos.
https://picasaweb.google.com/purnima20/Gangtok
We were able to get Veg/Jain food everywhere. In Gangtok there is one
Agrawal Fast food which was serving delicious dishes(Bombay style). We
were able to request them to make specialty delicious MOMO also jain
specially for us.
This was one memorable trip. Actually photos don’t do justice to it. I
have recorded some video thats also good. But the best thing is if I
close my eyes I can see beautiful Sikkim with just there as it was.
https://picasaweb.google.com/purnima20/Darjeeling
Purnima