On way to Lachung

By Tanmoy Biswas

After starting off our journey from Gangtok to North sikkim, I have experienced some fantastic moments with nature, which I would share here with you all.

last night we had reached to Gangtok, those who had missed the story of reaching Gangtok, you can check the trip plan. after reaching here we had some issues with finding out the hotels as this is the peak season time. still its okay, we stayed at Hotel Madhavi, some few minutes walkable distant from Tibet Road.from there we had booked the North sikkim package for the next day, as we had very few days to complete our itineraries , so we didnot have much time to spend in Gangtok, always remember that Gangtok is a connective part to go to all the ways, coming to gangtok doesnot mean that you should visit the city well, though it depends on your vacation time. So we informed the Hotel manager that we need to go out the next day for North sikkim & asked him about the charges & formalities to prepare.

As we asked, we were informed that the North sikkim trip would cost for 2Night 3Days is 2200 INR (including your transportation & meals & stays during this 2N3D). so we were ready & submitted our Identity card,photographs (as these are very necessary for your permit to enter into North sikkim) .

The next morning around 10:30 AM , we started our journey to North sikkim, the itinerary for 2night, 3days was like:

Ist Day-Travelling to Lachung.

Ist Night- overnight stay at Lachung.

2nd Day- travel to Yumthang,zero point then reach upto Lachen.

2nd Night- overnight stay at Lachen.

3rd Day- Travel to Thangu,Gurudongmar Lake then return to Gangtok.

Our vehicle was a Mahindra Maxx, & it consisted 10 persons including me & my cousin, excluding the driver. Holy shit. the configuration was like that three rows consisting of ist row-2, 2nd row-4, 3rd row-4 .. the driver appeared late & it took almost 12:30 PM to start the engine.

As we started to move, I recapitulated the whole things that I had experienced during the last North sikkim tour in last June,2014. I would sure talk about in details about traveling through the hilly ways in some other post. The ways consisted only uphill & downhill breaking the woods from one hill to another hill. the distance between Gangtok & Lachung ( as the itinerary our ist days trip was to reach upto Lachung,see above) 103 KM , & it would take generally 6-7 hours , depending upon road conditions.

The journey was too long & we only stopped in between to have lunch,& in two falls to have some snaps, otherwise we carried the whole 7 hours journey just sitting at our own seats . in between I took some nature photographs of the river& the dark pitch roads.