What does one do when he does not have a project but lots of leaves available? Yes he plans for a vacation. But what if he does not have money? Does he beg, borrow or steal? Thankfully I did not have to do any of these, because long time back I had taken a loan to buy a Club Mahindra membership
A caveat to this is that options are limited.
The membership alone would not have helped, my wife's credit card played an equally important role. It was around 10 o clock in the morning that I woke up and after a cup of tea I started cribbing to my wife, Rajsri, that we are not able to go anywhere though we have the opportunity. Around noon, Rajsri could not take it any more and suggested that we go to Gangtok and stay in Club Mahindra. The fuel would be paid through her credit card. By 6 o clock in the evening, our Thar, called The Sherpa, was finding its way through traffic on NH2. Shaktigarh on NH2 is around 100 kms from our place and till date we have never stopped there en route to Siliguri. The transport department is my headache and I don't like frequent stops. But this time Rajsri, a big time foodie, made it a point that we stop at Shaktigarh.
Stop at Lancha Kuthee, Shaktigarh
The route was the tried and tested one through Burdwan, SH7, Moregram, Farakka, Malda, Raigunje, Botolbari, Islampur, Siliguri. There was a jam on Farakka Barrage and the culprit was this -
We crossed Malda after midnight and it was a breeze. It was 2 am when we entered the Botolbari route and it was a fast drive through the twists and turns. The Thar is quite fun to drive and the KCs helped in lighting up the empty roads. We reached Siliguri by 4 am and drove straight through towards Gangtok. Reached Club Mahindra resort at 7:30 a.m after a brief tea stop in between.
Tea stop, it was terribly cold by my standards at 5 in the morning -
Thar in font of Club Mahindra, Gangtok
The room
There was a nice little balcony attached to the room. The view from the balcony was nothing great, but for people from the cities like us, it was a welcome change!
In spite of reaching way before the check in time, the people at Club Mahindra allowed us to check in without any extra payment. I remember that last year the guys at Kandaghat Club Mahindra tried to deduct .5 days when we wanted to check in before time, but finally did not after a bit of an argument.
Ordered sandwiches at the hotel and devoured them in no time.
Took a quick power nap after breakfast and then got ready for the next agenda, i.e. visit The Square in MG Marg for lunch
It was one of those rare occasions that we forgot to take pictures of the food at The Square. The food was superb but there were not too many dessert options. So we went to the Baker's Cafe for pastries. Yes, we eat like Tasmanian Devils!
The hotel was a bit far from Gangtok and the road condition for the last 7 kms to the hotel was horrible. Coupled with that was the terrible ride quality of the Thar. But it was a boon in disguise, by the time we reached back the food was almost digested and we started planning for dinner. In the mean time we had discussed about Tsomgo Lake (Chhangu). Though it was supposed to be a leisure trip we could not come to terms with just staying in Gangtok for 3 days at a stretch. Moreover it had been more than a decade since we visited Chhangu! Found out the process of getting permits from a very helpful tour operator in MG Marg.
In the evening we went back all the way back to MG Marg and the same restaurant.
This time we clicked a few pics of the food.
While returning to the hotel I stopped and clicked a pic of the KC Lites in a desolate stretch of the road. I am pretty impressed with them!
We crashed into the bed early after a long day. The next morning we needed to wake up at 4:30 am in order to be at the permit office by 5.