[Fordlover88]

In my previous travelogue(https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...ilk-route.html (To the Old Silk Route)) i had mentioned about our incomplete trip to the foothill's of himalayas. This is the travelogue of that trip.

The beauty of Sikkim is very hard to be penned down. Still i will try my level best to do justice to it. Sikkim has been in my must visit list for a long time now. I was even more excited as it was going to be my first hill drive. Shared the idea with few of my friends and they agreed instantly. South & West Sikkim(Ravangla & Pelling) were the destination decided & hotel bookings were done in advance. Two cars will be going- My Beast(Ford Ecosport Trend TDCI) & Dhritiman's Creta(1.6 CRDI). Shantanu will be travelling in my car, Souvik & Dhritiman's acquaintances will be in his Creta. Our machine's were thoroughly checked up and thus the wait for D Day started.

Day 1:Kolkata to Siliguri- I left home at about 4 a.m,picked up shantanu and waited at nivedita toll for dhritiman, who was supposed to pick up souvik & meet us here. They arrived after sometime and we departed at about 5 a.m from nivedita toll. The route followed would be NH2, Burdwan, SH7, Moregram, Malda, raigunj, Botolbari Dhantola, islampur, Siliguri. Encountered local traffic at SH7 as it was early morning. Road Condition between kuli & moregram was in bad shape for approx 15 kms. But it was quite manageable in high ground clearance cars. We halted for breakfast at BPCL COCO Moregram. Malda as usual was mess. So took the yet to be completed malda bypass. But to our disappointment, we were reverted to town halfway through the bypass. After negotiating narrow by-lanes of malda, we had to rejoin NH34 in malda itself, thus losing quite sometime there. We had late lunch at raigunj tourist lodge and then proceeded towards siliguri via botolbari-dhantola route. Encountered traffic snarls at islampur & conventional city jam at siliguri. Reached our hotel in sevoke road at about 8 p.m.

Myself at nivedita toll


The gang at SH7


SH7 at early morning


At BPCL Moregram


Yet to be complete malda bypass


Raigunj Tourist Lodge


Our Beast's at tourist lodge




Day 2:Siliguri to ravangla- I was very excited today as i would by having my first experience on mountain roads.We left our hotel at about 7 a.m. Our plan was to cover all sight seeings enroute and then check into our hotel at ravangla. Decided to take the longer route via rangpo as the conventional route via melli was in bad shape.We halted for breakfast at rangpo and then proceeded towards Temi Tea Garden. It was a thrilling experience driving through the serene surroundings through curvy mountain roads and hairpin bends. Reached temi in 1.5 hours time.The tea gardens are breathtakingly beautiful and so is the view from here. Since very few tourists come here, it's absolutely peaceful and serene. Here we had our first clear view of The Mighty Kanchenjunga & it was truly mesmerizing. We had tea, did some photo sessions & explored the surroundings there.

At rangpo


Temi tea garden


The Mighty Kanchenjungha at background


At tea garden


At tea garden


Our Beast's


Kanchenjungha clearly visible


My beast


My Beast




Next destination was samdruptse. But dhritiman was not feeling well, so he decided to go to ravangla directly and have some rest in hotel. Me, shantanu & souvik proceeded towards samdruptse. Samdruptse Hill-the 'wish fulfilling hill' is situated at an altitude of 2134 m (7000 ft). This epic hill is ornamented with a giant statue of the Guru Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche)- the patron saint of Sikkim who has been showering its blessings since more than 1,200 years. It is a 45 m tall statue, overlooking the whole city. The hill offers the vista of the magnificent Mt. Kangchenjunga amongst the richly forested hills under the blue painted sky. Don't have words to describe the pristine beauty of this place & it's surroundings. So i will let my clicks do the talking.

The beast at samdruptse parking


Entrance gate


The idol


The idol


Inside


View from Samdruptse


View from Samdruptse


View from Samdruptse


View from Samdruptse


Food joint & souvenirs stores




Had an awesome lunch here(Maggi & Momo). Next Destination was Char Dham, but i was skeptical of visiting it today as sun was about to set. Ravangla via char dham was 35 odd kms from here. Didn't want to take the risk of driving in dark in mountain roads. But finally gathered enough courage and proceeded towards char dham. It is situated at Solophok hill which is 5 km away from namchi town. The 108 feet statue of Lord Shiva is encircled and supported by a girdle of twelve Jyotirlingams Chardam, which is situated in India in four different places like East as Jagannath, West as Dwarika, South as Rameshawaram, North as Badrinath Dham.


Entrance of Char Dham


Guide map


Gigantic statue of Lord Shiva from entrance


Inside Char Dham

[Fordlover88]

Continued.

One of the temples


Another temple


Inside view


My beast parked


Bhutan registered Kia sorento at parking




After visiting the temples in haste, we proceeded towards our hotel in ravangla. It was dark already. Drove carefully till ravangla and reached our hotel at about 6:30 p.m. It was chilling cold outside.We refreshed ourselves over a cup of hot tea & snacks and settled in our rooms. We had traditional cuisine in the form of Tibertian Paw for dinner. After dinner we decided to venture out and have a walk nearby. While walking we saw a glimpse of Buddha Park & it looked beautiful. We had planned to visit it tomorrow but after having a glimpse of it in dark, we decided to go there now(knowing it would be closed now). We went in dhritiman's creta.

Enroute ravangla


Enroute ravangla


Tibetian paw


Buddha Park


The gang




Day 3:Ravangla to Pelling(????)- Our destination for today was pelling. We woke up with stunning views of nearby mountains with The Sleeping Buddha & Mt. kanchenjungha playing hide & seek at times.

View from our homestay



The Sleeping Buddha & Mt. kanchenjungha visible at times





We were getting ready to leave for pelling when all of a sudden dhritiman came and reported a problem in his vehicle. Standstill rpm was unusually very high in the range of 1200 rpm & the car was loosing power in 1st gear on high rpm.We consulted Hyundai and some fellow travelers. Most of them suggested to clean air filter,but dhritiman had done it yesterday. He was using Performance Air Filter of K & N. We even tried to procure air filter of creta in local market but to no avail. The roads to pelling were in bad shape and were very steep at places. And in this situation it would be a huge risk to proceed towards pelling knowing the vehicle would be loosing power. After consulting hyundai and others,with a heavy heart we decided to skip pelling and proceed towards nearest hyundai service centre which is in siliguri. On a positive note, it left scope for us to visit this part of sikkim again. So Day 3 is now Ravnagla to Siliguri.Took the conventional route through Singtam, namchi, melli bazar. The road conditions were bad to worst at some places. Driving through this roads was a really a true test of patience. We had late lunch at melli while dhritiman skipped lunch and proceeded towards Siliguri.

Somewhere near namchi


View of river teesta from melli bazar



On reaching siliguri we found out that the problem was in the air filter. Hyundai blamed the performance air filter of K & N for this unusual rpm variation. Air Filter was replaced and his car was thoroghly checked up as well. We spent the night at Siliguri.




Day 4:Siliguri to Kolkata- We left our hotel at about 7:30 a.m. Got huge traffic jam at raigunj due to some accident & lost nearly 1 hour there. Skipped breakfast and had lunch at hotel golden park, malda. Crossing malda was pain as usual. We halted at shaktigarh for tea & snacks. Finally reached home at about 10 p.m after encountering heavy traffic at nivedita Toll. I loved each & every moment of our trip. And Sikkim will always be special for me as it was my first hill drive. Final Trip Odometer was 1411 kms. Wish it were more. Would be visiting Sikkim once more soon. Till then.. Cheers.



At hotel golden park,malda



Snacks halt at shaktigarh



Dirty cars look good.. Isn't it?






Final odometer reading.

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Samba]

It's raining travelogue's on North Bengal in Team-Bhp!
Can't go out of home and these are coming one after another!
Should I be happy, or should I be sad?

Beautiful travelogue with nice pics. Am just reading these travelogues and reigniting my own memories from this region. Thanks for sharing.

My ever trusted travel partner on the way to Ravangla.

[Fordlover88]

Originally Posted by Samba

It's raining travelogue's on North Bengal in Team-Bhp!

Thank you Samba da. This lockdown is giving us ample time to write our pending travelogues. But at the same time we are desperately missing our drives. Hope normalcy prevails soon. Your trusted steed looks gorgeous in every terrain.

[Travelmania]

Smooth travelogue with beautiful pictures. You missed the road from Melli to Ravangla. It's a scenic road. When I visited Borong in 2016, took that road. Sharing the video
This video is from Melli to Borong. I owned a Mahindra Xylo then.

http://youtu.be/cMH3hUGesrc

Did you avail the ropeway at Sandruptse? It's amazing.

[jithin23]

A nice travelogue about Sikkim explained in pictures. Waiting for this covid-19 to go away for good so that I can drive to these places and Tawang from Bangalore itself!

[gatsby_great]

Wow looks like so much fun. one state where a person can quickly shift from one climatic zone to other and with so many of them has to be Bengal. With Sikkim and Bhutan nearby, the delightful travalogues are sure to appear. Eagerly wishing for a trip to Bengal from my hometown Varanasi post the lockdown phase.

[Vipin Kumar]

Originally Posted by Fordlover88

One of the temples

Another temple


Inside view

Wonderful trip!

Which exactly are the "one of the temples" and the "another temple" with a Dravidian threshold? Can you tell us the places? They look beautiful.

Cars always look perfect when they drive a lot through rains etc on long highways. We have that satisfaction when we see the car like that

[Fordlover88]

Originally Posted by Vipin Kumar

Wonderful trip!

Which exactly are the "one of the temples" and the "another temple" with a Dravidian threshold? Can you tell us the places? They look beautiful.

Thanks a lot. Sorry for giving a general reference to pictures. The two pictures are replicas of Jagannath Dham & Rameswaram Dham. Yes they look beautiful indeed.

http://www.sikkimtourism.gov.in/Webf.../Solophok.aspx

The above link gives a brief insight of Chardham.

Originally Posted by Travelmania

Smooth travelogue with beautiful pictures. You missed the road from Melli to Ravangla. It's a scenic road. When I visited Borong in 2016, took that road. Sharing the video

Thank you Abhijit da. Your video is wonderful. We returned through this route. It's scenic indeed but had many bad patches especially near melli. We couldn't avail Samdruptse ropeway as we were a bit short of time and to be honest we didn't know about it.

Originally Posted by jithin23

A nice travelogue about Sikkim explained in pictures. Waiting for this covid-19 to go away for good so that I can drive to these places and Tawang from Bangalore itself!

Thanks a lot.. Yes we are also desperately waiting for normalcy so that we can resume our roadtrips. Do visit this side of our country, you will surely love it.

Originally Posted by gatsby_great

Wow looks like so much fun. one state where a person can quickly shift from one climatic zone to other and with so many of them has to be Bengal. With Sikkim and Bhutan nearby, the delightful travalogues are sure to appear. Eagerly wishing for a trip to Bengal from my hometown Varanasi post the lockdown phase.

Thanks a lot. Yes staying in South Bengal has it's fair share of advantages as mountains are just an overnight journey away. And they are not far from Varanasi either. Do visit Bengal once this lockdown ends.

[Miyata]

Great post. Thanks for sharing. We had visited some of the same places on our trip to Sikkim! Attaching some pics from that trip - all taken on a cheaper smartphone. Was travelling with two infants as well so chose not to take any proper camera with me!

At the entrance to MG Road-

A Yak in the North Sikkim -

The Adi-Yogi from the same place -

Sights from North Sikkim: 1 -

Sights from North Sikkim: 2 -

[Fordlover88]

Originally Posted by Miyata

Great post. Thanks for sharing. We had visited some of the same places on our trip to Sikkim! Attaching some pics from that trip - all taken on a cheaper smartphone. Was travelling with two infants as well so chose not to take any proper camera with me!

Thanks a lot. I have read your sikkim travelogue. It is awesome. Pictures are too good.

[haisaikat]

Nice Travelogue accompanied with nice pictures.

Ravangla will always be special to me as it was my first trip that I remember to my fullest senses to the hills of East. We went with office colleagues on a nights trip to Ravangla back in 2006, back when it was still regarded as a offbeat destination suggested mostly by tour operators.

Posting some memories which are almost 14 years old

Looking out from the window was a bliss . . .


. . . liked taking strolls around the place as it was picturesque . . .




. . . visited among other places the Temi Tea Garden . . .


and did not miss the Teesta River rafting fun while returning to the plains.

[Miyata]

Originally Posted by haisaikat

. . . and did not miss the fun with River Rafting while coming down

Rafting at Ravangla, was it? I might have missed learning about it. Will gather info before a next visit. Thanks for sharing that.

[Fordlover88]

Originally Posted by haisaikat

Nice Travelogue accompanied with nice pictures.

Thanks a lot. The pictures you shared are awesome. Ravangla is a beautiful place indeed. We couldn't explore it much due to shortage of time and problem in the other car. Didn't know about rafting there either. Will be planning another trip to explore it to the fullest coupled with pelling.