| Tourists are slowly, but surely, finding their way to Sikkim’s incredibly picturesque attractions. |
Making up for the chill, along with the warmth and tenderness you experience when you watch your country’s borders being guarded with such zeal and dedication, was the sheer beauty of the valley below.
Incessant monsoon rains and landslides galore blocking various roads ensured that we had to change our Sikkim holiday itinerary every other day. It was a travel piece in a newspaper on Gurudongmar Lake, at an elevation of over 17,000 ft in North Sikkim, that had helped us — a group of nine from Chennai — to zero in on Sikkim as a holiday destination this year. Encountering the usual difficulty of all the members of a largish group being able to zero in on a con venient date we had to change our original schedule from end-October to early September.Through Banjara Tours and Travels we were directed to Himalayan Footprints, which strives to promote niche tourism in the North East in general and Sikkim in particular. Neil Law, founder of the organisation, was all praise for the ‘Incredible India’ campaign that has a special focus on promoting north-eastern destinations and says that thanks to it, Sikkim is seeing good tourist inflow.
“Unfortunately for us, till recently the travel and tourism trade in Sikkim was in the hands of wrong people who sold cheap packages to travellers, gave them poor or indifferent service, and spoilt the name of this small State.” Not many people know that apart from several exciting trekking routes, this is an excellent place for birders as you find exotic birds – Himalayan Bulbul and Treepie, Verditer Flycatcher and Whistling Thrush — in different parts of Sikkim. Now that both foreigners and upper-end Indian tourists have put Sikkim on their travel map, several people who own property in picturesque locations in villages far away from the bustle of small towns or big cities, have got into the tourism sector by offering heritage hotels, he says.
One such person is Ravi Pradhan, who has converted the property adjoining his house in Gangtok into a charming villa. Called Rhenock House this hotel has on offer only 10 rooms which are tastefully and elegantly done up and offer all the amenities of a four-star hotel. We stayed at his hotel for three nights — two planned and the third dictated by the flash floods in the Teesta river that put a quick end to our plan to visit Gurudongmar lake. We were pleased as punch to find the owner up at midnight to welcome his weary guests, who had to go through a seven-hour drive from Bagdodra, complete with patches of thick mist in pitch dark, with a punctured tyre thrown in for extra effect! And the man was up early in the morning to ensure that we got a sumptuous breakfast!
Nathula PassAnyway, the heavy woollens carried by us for Gurudongmar lake were not wasted, after all. Law came up with a quick alternative and organised our visit to the Nathula pass, the ancient silk route which has been reopened recently to Indo-Chinese trade. The approach to the Nathula pass, on the Indo-China border, is a steep but extremely picturesque climb that winds its way through a couple of lakes.
Right at the top and at the barbed wire Indo-China border we encountered several smiling and cheerful Indian soldiers and a few stiff and unsmiling Chinese soldiers on the other side. Aditya Thakur from Pathankot joined the Indian army barely six months ago and doesn’t find survival at 15,000 ft a problem. “No ma’am, we’re not bored at all. We have several TV channels and DVDs of latest films.”
He thinks the Indo-Chinese trade through this pass is negligible, though there is scope for improving it, and quickly adds that more trade items are already in the process of being included in the trade list. While the Chinese traders mainly bring some silk and yak and sheep products, from the Indian side basmati rice is quite popular.
Business bonhomieSo does he and his colleagues exchange notes with their Chinese counterparts or the traders from the other side? “Oh yes, we do, but little more than ‘Hi-Hello’.”
But apparently business has its own lingo and the Indian and Chinese traders share more of a bonhomie that is often facilitated by the presence of translators! Even though we did not see any trade actually happening as no trucks had come in that day, it was obvious that when the bottomline is profit, there are smiles aplenty.
But we failed to get a single smile from the Chinese soldiers seated in their glass cabin across the barbed wire border as their pictures were taken. But this provided no more discomfort than adding a little to the chill; the temperature around noon must have been hardly 4-5 degrees Celsius.
But making up for the chill, along with the warmth and tenderness you experience when you watch your country’s borders being guarded with such zeal and dedication, was the sheer beauty of the valley below. The mist cleared as quickly as it came in, to unveil a beauty and splendour that we from the plains can only dream of. Lush green slopes, gushing streams and waterfalls, tranquil blue lakes and winding roads; add to that a huge mera bharat mahan created in grass on the slop es. One couldn’t have asked for more.
Driver wish-list!Understandably there is no accommodation available here though a small cafe has been put up for tourists. After an hour we began the drive to Gangtok, with a lunch halt at Tsongmo lake, which seemed to have perked up the drivers who stepped on the gas, leaving our heads spinning and stomachs churning!
It was no small comfort that these would be our drivers only for that day as you require a special permit to go to North Sikkim, and as anywhere else transporters here too have regional cliques.
Compared to them, one of the drivers we later had on our proposed journey to Lachung was a sheer treat. Tenzing Norway was both a good driver and a lively person who was well informed about the dangers of deforestation and its relationship to landslides. So disenchanted was he with the slow but steady erosion of the green cover in Sikkim that he proclaimed one day with a serious face: “Several organisations are bent on destroying the hariyali (greenery) in Sikkim. I think ve ry soon I will have to leave Sikkim and go to Hollywood. Anyway, Jackie Chan is getting old so I will make him retire and take his place.”
