Team-BHP
(
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)
-
Travelogues
(
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/)
::Foreword::
West Sikkim was in my watch-list for a long time since I moved to Kolkata. But due to unavoidable circumstances, this trip was getting postponed every time. But the itinerary was handy. Moreover, getting leaves from work is, as usual, the first impediment of such trips. But thirsty mind for travel always longed for a trip to the abode of beautiful Himalaya and staying in nearest place to it, Kolkata unlike my previous locations intensified the craving.
Meanwhile, I got my hands on a brand-new Mahindra Thar in February. Although some shorter road trips around southern parts of Bengal I did with it, a trip to the hill was pre-emptive. So, it happened, without any plan while reading a travelogue to hills by a fellow bhpian. Eventually, it was a weekend. Requesting the leave sanctioning authority in the office with my best effort I managed to get a leave on the dreaded 31st March.:D I sailed for Darjeeling along with my Mom. It was so quick that I didn't even get the time to change my office uniform before the journey and asked my driver to bring the Thar directly to my office. I prefer the Thar as a 2-seater for a long journey. So, this time, it was only my Mom and me.
::West Sikkim on Bengali New Year 1425 (2018)::
I carefully chalked out the maximum places to be covered within the short span of time and discarded those which were either beyond reach due to time-constraint or not in our wish list as per our previous history of travelling to those places.
I came back from office to my den in Kolkata. My parents came after some while from my hometown finishing their business errand for the day. As it was Bengali new year, a landmark day for Bengali businessman my father told me that he will reach a bit late. But I thought it would be good that the normal calculation for Kolkata-Siliguri shows we will enter dreaded Botolbari-Dhantola road just around 4 to 5 am in early morning. Needless to say, the Thar with NO front facing seat at back would be a source of utter discomfort for the 3rd passenger in a long journey. So, this time I decided to take my long-trusted road trip companion, the Alto 800. Whenever I take it on a long trip it reminds me of fellow bhpian's Gearhead_mait's Sherdil (Eon 800).
We started at 8.30pm from Tollygunge, Kolkata. Our first stop was at Moregram for refuelling. One by one we crossed Farakka, breezed past dreaded Malda town at midnight and as presumed we entered Botolbari stretch at 5.00am. Unfortunately, one bus met with an accident causing unusual bottleneck before Botolbari entry. Surprisingly, in this hot summer also, I found dense fog in that area. Probably, that abetted the bus accident!
The first sun-shine gleamed on us before we reached Dhantola. We continued towards Sevoke and stopped after Coronation Bridge as Dad wanted tea.
Next morning, our destination was Pelling. There are several routes to reach Pelling from Melli. The rented tourist cars usually take Melli-Jorethang-Nayabazar-Legship-Pelling route for directly going to Pelling. Moreover, that road is always very much prone to land-slide if little rainfall occurs; plus the road conditions is heard to be in complete shambles and in few places there exist no road at all. But those were not sole deterrent to take that route. We tried to touch upon some other tourists attractions. But the schedule was very tight. I had to chalk out accordingly so that we could cover the desired places as well as can reach Pelling by evening.
First, I decided to move through Kitam Bird sanctuary route from Melli. But as soon as we checked into Sikkim by showing our i-cards at the check-post and some verbal enquiries by the officials there I asked them about the road condition of Tarey Bhir. They assured me with a smile and said it's manageable. So Kitam route was discarded and we were soon into the road to Tarey Bhir.
The road upto Tarey Bhir is moderately steep at some places, narrow and even broken sporadically. But the scenic beauty of the road itself with the view of valley underneath we all were enjoying. After some time we stopped at
Tarey Bhir viewpoint. It's one of the exquisite viewpoints in Sikkim. But unfortunately, very few tourists were seen there. Ours was the only car to be parked when we reached there. There is ₹ 20 entry fee per head for the access to the viewpoint. I was quite interested to walk through nicely laid down stepped route around the hills. But it seemed quite a distance to cover by walking from the entry point. Time constraints dissuaded us going down. Instead, we wanted to enjoy the valley view from the entry itself. But a sinister misfortune was lurking at us when I elatedly asked for the camera for photo-shoot. My Mom just exclaimed at my face and said, 'Where is the camera bag?' I was taken aback, 'Where?' :Shockked:
Soon, we started from Tarey Bhir and our next destination was
Namchi, Char Dham.
Last time when we came to
Namchi the weather was so foggy that we couldn't even see the tall Lord Shiva statue. All the temples were also shrouded in cloud. But this time, weather favoured us. We spent some time there visiting all Çhaar Dham. It was around 12:15 pm by the time we finished. We were a bit hungry also and decided to have lunch in the cafeteria in the temple premises. It offers good vegetarian buffet meal ₹ 250/ head.
After the lunch, we went to
Samdruptse. I remember from my last time visit to this place that this is famous for
Guru Padmasabhaba's statue at the backdrop of hills. But when I got into the parking lot I found
Namchi cable car service has started recently. On enquiry, we found ₹150 per head for a to & fro journey and it takes you to the rock garden at Namchi. I spotted entry of
Rock Garden written on a board through downhill trekking road some kilometers back from Samdruptse entry gate. One needs to get ₹30/head ticket for Padmasambhaba's statue for entry. After spending half an hour time there we hit the road again. Our next destination was
Tathagata Tsal @ Ravangla.
Alto Parked in front of Cloud End Retreat
We reached Legship, and then Geyzing. Just before the upper Pelling climb, the drizzling turned into raining cats and dogs. The local drivers at the Bazar advised me to stop and not to climb uphill in that situation. But there was no sign of rain to cease after 15 minutes of waiting and I decided to climb up to Upper Pelling with that adverse situation. It was getting dark outside so we didn't want to delay.
The downpour was so heavy that the wiper at full pace was facing difficulty to provide a clear view from the windshield. Even I couldn't open the window and had to be on AC running as the glass was accumulating moisture inside making the frontal view vague enough. Alto pulled slowly well with AC on but just after half a kilometer on that steep incline a UP registered Santro stopped midway all of a sudden and tried to find someone for asking direction. Within a moment both the uphill and downhill traffic was in a standstill situation. The Santro driver found it too difficult to pull up from zero speed and resulted in perfect wheel spin leaving all of us scared behind. One local driver and I came out from the car getting drenched more than half in the heavy rain. He helped the driver to move the car aside to open traffic flow. Now, even our Alto faced some difficulty for the first time to pull from standstill with AC on and full load. Momentarily, I had to switch off the AC and it again went live and climbed up smoothly.
As soon as I started uphill a strange hammering sound from the Alto’s roof sent all of us into a tizzy. We could understand hail-storm had started. The ice blocks coming down were so bigger in size sometimes we all were afraid of our windshield getting cracked. Even my Dad asked to pull over and find some shed. Unfortunately, there was no such place to cover our car. Our hotel was near the Upper Pelling helipad. And after a super climbing drill, we reached our hotel parking at 5:45 pm. It was raining but not so heavily like while we were on the uphill journey.
Upper Pelling Climb with Hailstorm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOH2UDpGiIk
All times are GMT +5.5. The time now is 12:44. | |