Gangtok... Review on Gangtok

My tryst with traveling continues into hitherto unexplored territories of this beautiful and bountiful country ?my very own INDIA?. This time it was Gangtok (originally called gengthok). A 5 day holiday presented itself as a nice opportunity to hit the road. This time around I decided to enthuse a few of my friends also to join in and hence started the planning 1 month in advance, but culminated only on the morning of the day in which we were supposed to go, quite a detailed plan it was!!! And the plan was that we managed to arrange for a SUV to drive us to gangtok, and that?s it, what a plan aint it.

Settling in for a nice ride along the rural landscape of west Bengal with green fields on either side, men ploughing their fields and womenfolk tending to their children under the shade of majestic trees, and us ripping thru in our powerful SUV blasting rock, hip hop and mushy hindi numbers, we realized that it was not to be so, for the powers that are in our state and central governments somehow managed to suffer from partial amnesia about the existence of National Highway no 34.

This was the main route on which we had to do some 600 odd kms. Normally roads have potholes; here potholes had bikini strips of road between each one of them.That`s when we coined our motto for the trip, whatever happens ? just ensai?.Day 2 of the trip saw us depart from Malda at 8 am towards Siliguri our next stop. The road got better and we did good time, reaching Siliguri in 6 hrs flat. Siliguri loomed large ahead of us ,we came to a junction which said Darjeeling on the left and Gangtok on the right, Tenzing Norman was depicted in a huge statue, I somehow had a feeling that he was holding on to his crotch a la` Michael Jackson. it was unanimously decided that beer was beckoning to us on the ride thru the hills to reach gangtok.

Stopped over at a place and bought chilled beer the nice Samaritan gave us his bottle opener for free!!!! Without further ado we set off towards the hills, and what a sight it was, the lush green slopes, the frothing Teesta river and the nippy wind blowing thru ones hair was akin to gliding thru the meadows of paradise. Well all this was accentuated by the fact that the five of us were gulping down chilled beer!!!

We reached our destination at around 5:30pm, checked into a hotel freshned up and went into the market, the main point of tourist expenditure within the town named ? M.G Road?.We hit the hotel and crawled into the welcome warmth of the beds endowed with thick woolen blankets. The next days itinerary was not fixed and none of us had anything left in us to even think about doing something about it, we decided to take it as it comes, and were we in for a rude shock,man ?o-man we were surely done in.

Day 3 welcomed us with outstretched arms and at around 9 am all of us trooped downstairs into the lobby to ask our friendly hotel manager avenues for entertainment. The manager furnished us with a nice printed brochure with sight seeing details. Chango lake, Nathula pass and Baba mandir were on the same route but were not accessible on Friday, we were informed that permits are required to visit these points and that could be done only on the next day. Local sightseeing was an option and we decided to do that.

We went from point to point in quick succession as we had started the day quite late. Photos` were indiscriminately clicked all over the place. From the TASHI view point one can actually see the snow covered kanchenjunga peak with all its glory and might. Then we headed for the RUMTEK monastery, which was nestled amidst tall peaks and clear streams. As we parked our vehicles and climbed the winding slope to reach the structure we saw some 100 monks of all shapes, ages and sizes engaged in what looked like fun n frolic, I assumed that after a hard days work they were allowed some free time to relax. On questioning an elder monk we were told that this was no fun n frolic but an intense mechanism of questioning and answering to revise Buddhist concepts.

Then I realized that they were all in pairs with 1 sitting on the ground and the other standing next to him asking questions in a sing song way accompanied by dance like hand and leg movements.We entered the main courtyard which was a big square facing an impressive structure with loads of gold plated domes.On three sides of the courtyard one can see young child monks sitting with their face to the wall so as to not get disturbed by freaky and loud tourists. The main hall was a huge structure with bright colored tapestries,hundreds of small statues of Buddha and long rows of red colored low lying cushioned seats which I presume are used for the long hours of meditation.

Day 4 was bright and sunny.The ride in our SUV up the winding slopes of the base hills of the kanchenchunga range were fabulously breathtaking. The scenic beauty changed with bend we would take, and the first point where we reached an altitude which was in line with the lowest of the clouds made my very soul excited, felt like I was floating amongst the willowy softness of the pure white clouds,the slow climb continued persistently and after a point we had left the clouds far below us.The sight of jawans/sepoys saluting a passing vehicle whose passenger is obviously a high-ranking officer was also a show in itself. Hats off to these brave men in uniform who maintain their decorum in harsh living conditions far far away from home and who protect our country and people like ourselves from unseen enemy?s guns, canons and most importantly MINDS.

We reached ?baba mandir? which is at 14000ft, it is dedicated to one Sepoy named Harbajan Singh who joined the Indian army in the year 1967.In the year 1968 he was sent on a regular trip guarding a convoy of mules carrying supplies to a nearby encampment. Enroute he slipped on the slopes and fell into a ravine.He died due to that accident, and in the ensuing days he supposedly appeared in his friends dream and asked him to construct a memorial for him at that point.In the years to come there have been many stories which have contributed to his legend`s growth in stature and popularity. One very interesting story about this legend goes thus;

Chinese military from the other side of the Himalayas have launched complaints that on many occasions they have spotted a army jawan on a white horse with a turban on his head galloping on the Chinese side during the dead of the night. Now since there are no Indian jawans riding a horse on that side of the border in the night, it is widely believed that it is baba harbajan singh at work.

On Sundays and Tuesdays all who goto the mandir are treated to a sumptuous free Punjabi lunch as Baba`s prasad,and it is known to be very tasty. We went on a Saturday hence missed it by a day !!!!

On our way back down,we were treated to enchantingly scenic slopes, red ferns, heavy clouds, clear streams and a heavenly sight of changu lake from many hundred feet above it. It was a beautiful photo op to boot. We landed in the vicinity of changu lake and went about taking pictures on a jet black yak, I was wearing a jet black pullover and gloves to match.

Am sure that I must have come very close to looking like the lord YAMA himself. A few rounds of curio shopping later and a few plates of steaming hot momo`s and thukpas` we trooped into the van again. The ride down was quiet unlike any of our other rides together in that vehicle. Maybe it was the sinking feeling that we were nearing the close of our days together, end of a exciting vacation, leaving behind a lovely place with wonderful memories or maybe getting back to the normal monotonous grind of office work.