The hills are alive

“There’s every possibility of a snowfall now” — these words are no less than Mozart’s Symphony to the Indian traveller’s ears. For me, it meant forsaking all the comforts of a three-star hotel in Gangtok and travelling further north of Sikkim to a beautiful place called Lachung.

The road trip
The journey to Lachung, not really famous on the map, began on a cold December afternoon. “It will take us precisely five hours to get there (from Gangtok),” the man sitting behind the wheel declared, with the confidence of a veteran. The day was misty and soon, Gangtok was fading away somewhere into the background.

The road too was changing in appearance. Narrow and curvy, the term ‘on the edge of one’s seat’ was not felt before by me with such intensity. The roads were in a bad shape in some parts, and driving here was all about relying on just pure instinct. Here, it takes sheer skill to avoid a collision with an oncoming vehicle. Here, I also learned about new delays that can catch you unawares. For example, in the hills, traffic snarls are replaced with massive landslides. The job of clearing the rubble later, takes a lot of time and that process becomes a  good test of patience. It is also a great learning experience. The army personnel here go beyond just protecting the frontiers and help ease the lives of the locals.

But if you’ve made peace with the winding roads, and the landslides, and spare a glance outside the window, the view is unadulterated beauty at its best. There are pine trees lined-up on the steep mountains, occasionally interrupted by a gorgeous waterfall or a stream of water. So pristine is this land that the connecting bridges seemed to be the only man-made ‘interventions’ in this landscape.

As part of the tour package, we stopped at a small eatery for lunch. The driver however warned us that a full stomach usually instigates travel sickness. He went on to narrate stories of tourists throwing up on the journey and that was enough to kill our appetite. Ignoring the offer of a free lunch is never an easy task, but the imminent consequences restrained us from placing orders.

It was back to the roads again. I distinctly remember John Denver’s Country Roads playing in the car radio — there couldn’t have been a more appropriate song to play in the background during this trip. ‘Sometimes the journey itself is the destination’ — the drive through this part of north Sikkim brings alive that very saying. The journey however, did take longer than the promised five hours. Just a suggestion, senior citizens and infants may not be considered ideal companions on a trip through this terrain.

On reaching Lachung
Dimly-lit, Lachung awaits the travel weary. The cold and its remoteness leave little room for any outdoor buzz after the dark, so try to make the most of your day here. The morning after, I woke up to find myself in very a scenic village. Autumn may have taken away some of the greenery, but the leaves that have managed to survive have turned into shades of auburn, with hints of green.

That breathtaking view
From my vantage point, I could see a stream running through the middle of Lachung — its water crystal clear and icy cold. Then, a monastery stood nearby wrapped in vivid colours and flags in multiple hues fluttered against the strong breeze. The serene beauty of it all has to be seen, to be believed.

At last, snow
But as I stood by the window, I thought to myself... where’s the snow? And when I asked the guide, about that promised “possibility of snowfall”, he just sighed, “But that depends purely on nature here. But you can travel a bit further for that elusive snow if you wish. You won’t be dissapointed.”

That location is called Zero Point, which is another half an hour’s drive up the hills, near the Indo-Tibet border, where there are army bunkers and army men standing guard, wrapped in camouflage prints. As I whizzed past the camps, vegetation vanished, making way for boulders that dominated much of landscape.

And then the car finally came to a halt, I just found sheets of pristine white. Finally, snow — perhaps from the fall overnight. The late morning Sun had given it a golden sheen and it was all over the mountains, had settled on nearby frozen stream and had cloaked the trees too — a sight that could’ve inspired poetry. And worth risking every landslide.