Day 1 – Gangtok, 6 PM, Oct 28 2018
I reach Gangtok in the evening, after having endured a treacherous five-hour journey by taxi from Bagdodra. What is in store for the coming week I’m unaware of. But it doesn’t matter; all that matters is that I’m not at my office. I had to find a place to wander like a lost soul. And I’m here at - Sikkim.
There is light drizzle, gentle breeze, and a sense of warm welcome.
But, why Sikkim? Well, my friend, of whom, I will come to in a while is already staying in Sikkim and I thought perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to join him here. So, I land at Gangtok with my luggage - first time I’ve travelled this far all alone; still wondering of my visit with very little planning.
I meet a group of ten people or so - of which my friend is one – all from different parts of India, and among them is also one backpacker from Sweden. I haven’t met a stranger set of people in my life yet. I’m an outlier, not by a mile but by the length of a river. If they are literature, then I’m mathematics.
So, my friend, Subbu, was a colleague of mine at Nokia. He takes a sabbatical from work and is now jobless, roaming around the country and exploring his inner soul perhaps! And he decides to take this Vipasana course - a meditation journey where you learn about your mind and body and during which time you neither utter a word nor have an eye contact with anyone for 10 days - at Sikkim. And the above said group, consisting of random people, is formed only a few hours prior to my visit, that is after they had finished their courses and happened to meet outside at the Vipasana center.
I have an elementary introduction to the group, and we get on with a cup of tea – which incidentally I suppose is the only thing I happen to share with them, and perhaps along with that, the love for art!
As dark clouds cover the Gangtok sky, there seems to be an awakening in their souls. To my surprise this awakening is found in each one of them involuntarily - they must zone out. And every one of them zones out. I’m sitting in silence, rather embarrassed by my non participation, and watching things unfold one after the other: loud cheers, songs, dances, whirls of smoke from cigars of different sizes and flavors has engulfed the room. They have now started to speak of the science behind each flavor, how each leaf is different than the other and where the roots of happiness indeed lie! The passive smoker in me is at awe of what is transpiring here. I assume detoxification is one of the reasons for taking up the course if not the only reason, but what on earth leads them to toxify their minds and celebrate the way they do, on the eve of completion of their course is still a mystery to me.
Every one of them has quit his or her job. The group has at least a couple of artists, a civil architect, a trainer, a freelancer, a social worker, and what not. Without being judgmental, I must say, I’m toxified just by being here!
But it is one such night which carries smokes of strangeness in the chilled air of Gangtok.
To meet someone at a low-key concert which a very few attend, or to meet someone who is reading a book which you had read long back and forgotten, or to meet someone at the top of a lonely mountain where only a very few chose to be - and feel strangely and instantly connected is nothing but natural. It is a wonderful feeling. And I suppose, it is one such experience for this group, to meet people of the same frequency as theirs, outside the noise of this ever-fast-moving world.
Day 2 – Gangtok
The group disperses right after morning break. Subbu and I are about to begin our tour of Sikkim when two among them – Musafi Rana & Aishwarya - inform us they would join us for a few days . We hire two bullets for the coming week. We leave to Lachen.
It has been seven years to this trip now and I will have to play with my fading memories to land preciseness to the details I mention. Anyway it is an attempt to refresh.
The trail to Lachen was breathtaking - curvy roads, super fresh air, lot of green on either side and zero traffic. Enroute, we stopped at a small shop for refreshment from where we were taken inside to taste a wheat wine of sorts, whose richness left us with an impression.
It was a long, long day on the road. The initial part of the journey had decent roads, but it got worse as we went on. Night creeps in early during winters with an air of inhuman chillness, of which I was to experience in a couple of hours’ time – but to which my friend was surprisingly averse. As we rode, I sensed the air finding smallest of the gaps in my fully closed attire to hurt me with its sharpness. It was eating into me, numbing me by the minute. Never have I felt so weak and exposed. My friend had to check on me If it was indeed me in flesh and blood or a timber behind him. We finally stopped at Lachen. We were to stay there. The degree of certainty we had that rooms would be anyways available is something that even today I can’t comprehend. Well as it turned out there were no rooms! Not only at Lachen but anywhere near by. We were also joined by a couple of set of bikers searching for rooms. It was then, looking at our numbers, villagers suggested, that we could adventure to Thangu if we wished – close to 90 minutes or so ride from there.
All that meant was my night could only get even worse if it wasn’t already. Roads were treacherous, it was pitch dark and of the cold I’m only reminded of the tremors it caused me within. We finally reached Thangu, and our hosts were very friendly. Temperature was touching close to low single digits. With a set of unknown people, we had our dinner, and talks ran late into the night, of which I hardly recall anything because I was the least involved of the lot. I was done for the night long back, even before we reached there.
Morning expedition at Thangu was to melt the ice and find some water, for it was all solid and there was none in a liquid state. As sun kissed earth, ice melted into water - this gradual process of transformation is fascinating to watch. We managed to get some water and after our breakfast left to Gurudongmar lake.
It is situated at an elevation of 17,800 ft. making it one of the highest lakes in the world. Lake is vast and beautiful, surrounded by the air that is harsh. We took a very measured stroll around it even as we felt the pain starting to creep into our heads because of the altitude. Irony is that despite its magnificent presence we are only supposed to spend very little time. We can embrace its beauty but not the air around it or the lack of it! To feel the pain and pleasure strike in unison, with equal measure is quite a thing. Well, it can happen to us at times in life, and it does so happen at Gurudongmar too.
We left Gurudongmar soon after. We were to go to La Chung from there. Again, it was quite late when we reached La Chung. We had our dinner at a local restaurant. We were joined there by a couple of Bhutanese riders. One of them was Ugyen – who sang a song perhaps with a guitar as we were having dinner or is it just my fading memory, I don’t know. Perhaps he did sing. And, I was pleasantly surprised, over a year later, to come to know that he acted in a lead role in a Bhutanese movie – Lunana: A Yak in the classroom. I did watch the movie later, and it is quite beautiful in fact.
We had a wonderful stay at La Chung, and a good night’s rest.
To Yumthang, the next day we left. The Yumthang valley is known for its marvelous display of Rhododendronds throughout its glorious stretch, mostly to be seen in the month of April, and not to be during the time of our visit. Nonetheless valley was beautiful with small streams, snow clad mountains and light welcoming breeze.
My friend had a troubling tooth ache, so we stopped at an army camp on the way, to get some tablets. As we went in, we were very pleasantly greeted. He was from Kerala, and soon he noticed we spoke Kannada and took us to the army canteen, where he had a few of his Kannadiga colleagues and introduced us to them. Coincidentally, it was Nov 1st, the Kannada Rajyothsava day. We were all smiles as we greeted one another. We were served tea and Pakodas. We spoke for some time. They were very happy see us, and we them. We received tablets, snacks and lots of brotherly love. Tooth aches can be very annoying, but this one felt like came with a good intention!
We stopped at Yumthang. There was a hot water spring nearby and we spent most of the time there just being in the waters. In that chilling cold, to be in hot water was nothing but surreal.
We had to leave for Gangtok, around 6 hours journey from Yumthang. We met a few Bengali riders who warned us with their ghostly stories from their previous visits, which came with the advice that we reach Gangtok before it became dark. So, after a pleasant stay at Yumthang, we left around noon I suppose to Gangtok.
If I remember rightly, we ran into a problem with our bike, around 2 hours away from Gangtok. I suppose the last fuel station was closed and we ran out of fuel or something. So, we waited for around two hours to get the refill done. It was already dark by then. Though we didn’t meet the ghosts, we met with enough trouble to be reminded of them.
The next day we travelled to Nathula pass.
Enroute, we stopped at the Tsongmo Lake. It was serene, pristine and silent. To stand next to it and stare at its stillness, was such a soothing experience.
We next stopped at Baba Harbhajan Singh temple. He is an Indian army soldier who is said to be serving the country even after his death by landing in the dreams of soldiers and aiding them. As my friend was into cleaning tourist places which were littered, we joined hands with him in cleaning the area in and around the temple and collected a rucksack full of litter and placed it in the nearby dustbin.
We encountered a minor fall as we took a steep curve on the way to Nathula. Funnily we were warned about this curve when we started our ride in the morning, only that we didn’t know this was the one. An Indian army soldier was standing at the end of the curve, to help those who felled. He happened to be from Belagavi; we spoke with him for some time. But only thing that intrigued us was that why was he standing at the end of the curve rather than at the beginning of it, where he could have warned us beforehand, than providing a helping hand later!
Nathula Pass is a border shared by India and China. It is a tourist destination at the Indian side of the border whereas on the other side we only saw the Chinese soldiers with grumpy faces, guarding the area, as habitation is at quite a far distance from their border. The cold wind here was so harsh that it could pierce and tear through your skin. One could hardly smile as teeth would start aching in a while if one did, with the kind of breeze that was blowing. Nathula was more about the journey rather than the destination itself.
We returned to Gangtok by night. My other two friends departed the next morning. At Gangtok, I don’t recall how many days we spent, maybe it was four days. It was never about time for we did nothing there. By nothing I mean absolutely nothing. We didn’t have an answer for what next.
We left to the home stay located an hour’s drive away from the city. We met John there. He was lot younger than us; had just about completed his management course and was taking care of the home stay. He was very friendly and had a lot of stories to tell, which with time seemed to get boring, but we did put up with him. He took us around his organic fields, had lunch with us, made us taste a wine as he took us for a drive in the evening. He accompanied us pretty much everywhere he could, even at times when we felt we didn’t need him!
We made friends with the kids who stayed next to the home stay. We went around with them to the fields; sat next to their cattle and spoke for long; we played football with them, took them some gifts, and more importantly shared a few joyous moments. As we were departing, the Home stay owner gifted us a bible each, of which not a page has been opened so far!
In the process of doing nothing, we just did one thing right, we were living, without the burden of - time, place and people.
After returning from the home stay, as I recall we spent one more day in the city. I hit the road in the morning to have my tea and breakfast even as my friend was asleep. I went to a café after that and read a few pages of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha. For a while I kept staring at how the coffee was being served, how the waiter went about his job, how he cleaned the table, how the cashier was starting to settle into his routine, how the passersby just passed by.
Later, I stood next to the road overlooking the football field. I watched for some time - boys play football from a distance. I watched - kids dressed up in uniform head to school, college students walking in groups and having fun, a lawyer dressed up in his suite leaving to his office, someone having tea with his cigar, all this under a beautiful sky and at a beautiful place. I couldn’t hold myself back from living a moment in each one of theirs.
I suppose that afternoon we left to Bagdodra and from there took the flight back to Bangalore.
Today, I remember Sikkim, by its roads, by its air, by its trees, by the snow clad mountains, by the people I met, by the little moments of joy it gave me. I remember Sikkim by the time I spent there, when time on its own wasn’t given the due which it otherwise gets without asking.