Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Day Six

It was the last day of our trip ...
if the previous few days and the trip in the morning was good , then the travel back was total contrast , the trip back to Siliguri was bad but the next journey from Siliguri to Kolkata in private bus was Ugly !
for the first time in last few days we dint have to get up very early , we left @ 8 for Rumtek Monastry which was below Gangtok (southern side) we reached pretty quickly in about 30 min , the monastry is a pretty famous and has had its share of controversies/disputes and is the seat of religious head ( who is in exlie). The place had high security with a posse of policemen around the monastry and a couple of other places in the complex . The ones near the main entrance were extremely rude to ppl ( just 3-4 visitors were around). The monastry had no specific timings and was closed when we went in the morning , we enquired in a shop nearby and were told that it would open by 8 in the morning but due to some reson it was no opened that day. There was the famous Golden Pagoda in the monastry and also it has university for religious studies for Buddists.We went to another monastry which was also beautiful in its own way , the architecture was totally different.
We reached Gangtok by 12 and then went around the main market area to pick up shawls and sweaters for ppl back home and moved to Jeep stand by 1 , we had get back to Kolkata , we had to catch a jeep t Siliguri andf from there we had booked tickets in a private bus @ 7 to Kolkata
We expected the Journey from hills of Sikkim to plains on Bengal to be another fun trip , but thanks to mad man at wheel of the crowded jeep the entrie journey was a nightmare , we were glas to reach Siliguri alive !
We went staright to railway station outside which is the busstand .The The journey was supposed to be 12 hr one , and we had flight to B'lore @ 10 so we wanted to reach the place by 8-8:30 so had booked thr bus @ 7 . But bus we were supposed to travel in had some problems and we had a delay of more than 1.5 hours before we finally got started . to add to our miseries the driver and conductor (perhaps irritated by our constant questioning) told us that it might take 14 rs to reach Kolkata which meant we may not make it in time !everytime we saw a signpost indicating distance to Kolkata we were making mental calculations about when we might reach !The roads were extremely horrible and the bus after travelling on these roads was a total wreck creaking and shaling each time we passed over a pothole , which was like every other minute . most of the seats were rickety and window panes kept shaking and moving and cold air kept coming in ... All this meant a horrible night topped by fear of missing our flight !thankfully the Airport was on the way , before we reached Kolkata city so we saved a lot of time and made it to Airport by 9 ( flight was at 9:50) and reached ontime. It was a journey which we could never forget for the sheer tension , frustration and exhaustion , i remember sleeping for some 15 hrs straight after reaching home that evening !!!on the whole it was total fun and gr8 trip given the fact that we had very little planning !

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Day Five - Sikkim

We started early that day our vehicle was waiting outside the hotel for trip to a few sunrise view points in the city. Our Driver suggested that we miss Tashi viewpoint as it will be crowded with toursits , he said Hanuman Tok which also gives a similar view would be a better choice and we agreed and that quite set the tone for the rest of the day as our driver cum guide suggested a lot of things each one of which made the trip really wonderful , we managed to have quite a good time and avoid the crowds. We reached Hanuman Tok first and we were the only ones there. The place was temple of top of a hill and it presented a magnificent view of snow capped mountains with Kanchenjunga standing out . Next to the temple is the burial bround of the Royal family and it was resplendent with flags. The temple itself was neat much to our amusement the priest at the temple after handing us the prasad showed us a snap of the mountain he had clicked 5 min back ! Mountain is looking really beautiful today and its such a clear day u guys r really lucky he kept repeating. He also showed us the best place to take snaps of the mountain from the temple. Only when we were finished and the sun was totally up did other tourists turn up and we appreciated our driver's suggestion to go against the normal tourists route. We next went to place called Ganesh Tok , it had osbservatory built by toursim dept. the views of the mountains one one side and the scenic hills and city of Gangtok on the other side were unforgettable. We then saw the Sikkim legislative Assembly building and then went to another view point which was right on top of a hill with beautify view of the valley below. It was wonderful to watch the entire valley gettin lit by sun's rays gradually.We returned back by 8Am , finished our breakfast and set out for Tsamgo lake(40 Km) and Baba Mandir (54 Km) , the trip was supposed to take about 2 hours. There are lots check posts outside the city 5th mile , 8th mile ans so on .. to go to any place you need to get a permit stating ur detaisl and ur reason for visit , the drivers get these things done pretty quick , they help Govt track people movement int eh border state and also check any possiblity fThe journey was amazing and roads built by BRO wind through the hills , its a really marvellous feat by building such high quality roads on such a trecherous terrian.
We stopped for a warm cup of tea just before reaching Tsango lake , our driver had mentioned that there a few places which were not part of our original itenary , but could be 'arranged'. We then reached Tsango lake (called Changu ) , but did not stop there , we went past it and our destination was a place called Baba Mandir , enroute we saw snow on one side of the road and barren rocks on the other side. in half an hour we reached this place called Baba Mandir , which was built in memory of a soldier. The temple also had memorial for soldiers who lost their lives for the nation in that region. Since we had gone on sundays we were provided with prasad at the temple on sundays all visitors were provided with lunch by the army. When we were eating lunch suddenly we were hit by a cold winds and the temperature dropped very drastically. thanksfully we were well equipped with wollens and gloves. During lunch the visibility was very poor though it was one clock in the afternoon. Our driver was very sceptical about covering the next place we had planned a couple lakes a bit higher than the Mandir. He checked with a few cabbies who were back from that place and told us that though there was a chance that the trip would be ruined by poor visibility and storms there was also a chance of the fog clearing off and asked us to choose.



we decided to try our luck and were not dissapointed the next few hours turned out to be the highlight of our joureny to sikkim as we went higher and higher and soon saw snow on either side , we came across the world's highest ATM and cyber cafe ! After that it was pure heaven ! we went as much 1400 ft high and the view of Himalayas and kanchenjunga mountain was amazing . After apoint he stopped the vehicle and there small hills covered with snow , where we could play with snow , we had a snow fight and it was truly a gr8 experience.






after an hour we returned back to Tsango lake which was oval shaped and over a kilometre long , thanx to influx of tourists a lot of shops selling trinkets and offering joy rides on yaks are there.
While we were ambling about enjoying the beauty of the lake and snow covered mountains we were hit by sudden winds and mist which made it even more memorable !

We got back to Gangtok with a sense of statisfaction this particluar day made the trip and would stand out among all the wondeful memories of this trip. Missing out Nathula was the only regret.



We came back to Gangtok and did some shopping for shawls n sweaters at the local bazaars and also finalised the itenary for the next day , the plan was to visit a couple of monastries nearby.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Day Four - Darjeeling/Gangtok

We woke up early morning and we outside the temp was 3 deg and got into our car and took off at 5:15 for tiger hill , we reached there in about 20 min , the vehicle drops u almost at the top of the hill. this is the place which affords u a brillinat view of kanchenjunga and also on a clear day a glimpse of Mt Everest ! But we were not lucky , it was a partially clouded day and we went up the hill and got into the observatory which was fast filling up with ppl. there rows n rows of chairs and glass panes arnd us thru which we were to observe the sunrise .


As time started progressing ppl started gettin restless and were bedoming a huge nuisance , outside it was real cold so we decided to stay inside the observatory where we could sip tea/coffee which were provided inside. As the first straks of light appeared on horizon ppl started standing up n clicking pictures ( God knows what they got ! ) and we decided to move out of the the observatory into the open after gettin our first glance of the rising sun.






What a spectacular sight it was ! then I heard a old gentleman telling everyone that Sun is not hat we should be looking it , we should actually be looking at the other direction Where Kanchenjunga will recieve its first sunlight of the day. We cam out and started cliking pics of sunlight and patiently waited looking at the op direction and then saw the marvelous sight of a huge mountain slowly coming into view in between the clouds , the first rays of sun falling on the whitish mountain and the resultant effect was unbelievable and just cannot be described in words ... After enjoying the sunrise and watching the entire valley slowly emrging out of darkness to a brnad new day , we started from tiger hill to the next point which was Ghoom monastery, followed by something called Bastasia loop which was a memorial. But these two turned out to be a big dissapointment as there was nothinh worth wacthing there. We returned back to our hotel some time after 8 , then got ready and went to the Mall and strolled around looking for some good restaurant and had a really yummy breakfast and then packed our bags and proceeded to the Jeep stand. We had made a big mistake in not planning this part of the travel properly , we had just enquired where the jeep stand was and had assumed that we would get a vehicle at all times. It turned out that they had only hourly service after 10 , so had to wait for a long time and finally got a jeep for Gangtok at 11 AM.






The journey was supposed to take close to 4 hours.


And we had braced ourselves for a tortorous trip as it was in a jeep. But it turned out to be quite an experience. The views were simply awesome , we passed through a few tea gardens and a lot of places where 'Terrace farming' was practiced.






The total journey itself was gr8 as the road to Gangtok was through hills and after a point we came across Teesta river and after that the entire journey the road and the river ran alongside and there lot of scenic views



There is also white water rafting on Teesta river which was attracting quite a big crowd. There was a place on the way where there were numerous resorts which offered rafting experience.






.Finally reached Gangtok which was also a city on hills at 4 and managed to locate out hotel Shilton Lodge(once again had found out about it through internet). The rooms were pretty good and very affordable .We had reached the place late afternoon around 3:30 and after checking in , asked the guy at the hotel about the places we can visit. To our dismay we were told that we wont able to visit any of the places we had planned as it was too late and places inside the city were all sunrise view points which were not worth it during evenings. So we went out dissappointed and hungry and decided to have a late lunch at a restaurant nearby , which had a band performing during nights. We had gone in arnd 4 and the band was somewhere inside practising for their performance later that night and after a point it was really irritating and they took a huge amount of time to bring the food , after waiting for 30 min we were angry tired and totallyclueless as to what to do. Everything seemed hopeless the mood in the camp was totally down. We were about to walk out of the place , then the food arrived ! I have never such good chinese food ever before in 10 min we had finished our late lunch and trooped out into the main market place. Which it turned out was very small just a couple streets ! For a capital city Gangtok is very very small. But still it was a pleasant expericence , we walked around looking for some trinkets. The weather was also very pleasant must have been 15- 20 degrees , a huge departure from Darjeeling where it was below 10 in the afternoon itself.

We headed straight to the tourist info centre ru Sikkim govt. unfortunately for us , by the time we made it the place was closed , it was around 5PM. Here also people shut shop much earlier , most shops close by 7:30. Then we started walking around the central area called MG Marg which had shops on wither side and was a busy street. We spotted a lot of Travel agencies and decided to ask a few of them the rates for sightseeing and then decide what to do the next day. The first place we entered , the guy gave us the normal tour package where you with a group of 10-15 which wud be economical but crowded and also suggested that we could hire a cab on our own ( Maruti Van) since there were 3 of us , it would be comfortable and not so hard on pocket for us. The places covered would be Tsango lake which was 40 Km from Gangtok but close to 2 hrs on road and a place called Baba Mandir which he assured me was wonderful. We also wanted cover a couple of other view points ( in this part of the country view points r meant to view the sunrise) and the cost came about 1500 for the vehicle. But he said all permits for Nathula Pass were finished so we cant visit that place. Nathula is on Indo-China border on the famous 'silk route' . You need to get prior permit to visit the place and visit is possible only on Tuesday, Thursday, Sat and Sunday. We had landed there on Saturday evening , which he said was a bit too late for permit. When we asked if it is possible somehow to procure a permit , he said that the no: of visitors on any day is limited to a certain number and he had run out of his quota , but told us that we can try with any other operator and if we were lucky (since it was pretty late) we might get , so we tried our luck at another 3-4 places each one told us the same thing , No Nathula permit. Finally we came back to the first guy and booked for trip to Tsango lake and also for early morning sightseeing in Gangtok. Tot cost was 1500.
One good thing about this place is that they treat the tourists really well , Govt stipulates a standard rate for these sightseeing trips and do a constant checking to ensure that those rates are maintained.

We had dinner at a hotel in MG Marg which served North Indian food , there were a lot of good hotels there and returned back to hotel to sleep early , the whole city sleeps by 10 ! We had planned our Sikkim sightseeing from 5:30 next morning.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Day three- Darjeeling

Train from Kolkata to Siliguri took exactly 12 hrs and we reached @ 7:45 in the morning

We had 2 options from Siliguri to reach Darjeeling , one was the 'toy train' which winds its way up the hills to Darjeeling , the jourey takes 8 hrs but is said to be really amazing. but we had to choose option 2 , travel via Hill cart Road along railway linecoz it takes only 3 1/2 hrs. With a cramped schedule like ours we dint have any choice moreover after an overnight train journey we were not really comfortable with idea of spending another 9 hrs in train.

On arrival tourists like us were chased by a swarm of agents who promised to find us exciting travel packages/ hotel booking. Finally we went with one guy who arranged the trip to Darjeeling for us and got us our bus tickets for the return joureny to Kolkata. Actually all we had to do was to step out of Siliguri station and right outside there is bus stand where u can book tickets and there are lot of private jeeps waiting outside which will take u to Darjeeling/Gangtok

The ride to Darjeeling was Rs.70 per head. The roads were winding and the views were fantastic and by afternoon we reached Darjeeling. Throughout the journey along with the roads you can see the tracks of Darjeeling Himalayan Railway line along the winding roads , how they manage to travel along such curves has to be seen to be believed.

We had booked a room at hotel Sunflower (got it through net) and the room was really good and worth the 1500 price tag. The temperature was 12 deg when we arrived in the afternoon. The town is at 7000 ft We decided to visit the Himalayan zoo and Himalayan Mountaineering institute in the afternoon/evening.

Dusk falls pretty soon in this part of the country and most places get closed by 6. so we spent the evenings walking along the streets looking for some trinkets. Bought some Tea which Darjeeling is famous for and some shawls for parents , cap and gloves to beat the cold climate. The temperature fell to 4.5 deg in the evening and later to 3.5 deg later in the night. The place had a colonial hangover and was full of cafes and cake shops and eateries each one seemed to be better than the other, all in all it was a wonderful day.
We arranged for a land rover to pick us up early morning next day for visit to Tiger hill.
4 wheelers are the only mode of transport in the steep sloping streets in the town . There are local taxis and jeeps which connect the town with neighbouring towns. It was prety cold that night , but we had room heaters so it was really cozy n comfortable, for the next day we had planned for Tiger Hill and 2 other places early in the morning and then come back and start for Gangtok for the next leg of the trip ...

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Trip-Day two - time travel

As we ventured out into the streets of Calcutta we started doubting if we travelled from Bangalore on an Airplane or was it a time machine ? (!) ... The roads , the buildings and the buses , trams and cabs seemed to suggest that we seemed to travelled back some 15- 20 years ... The city of Calcutta seemed to be what i remember of cities of late 80s ... Though we had an idea that this city is totally diferent from other cities of India and that it does retain the old world feel , adjusting to the city took some time. The city is called the cultural capital of India and has the legacy of Raj ( being the former captial city fo the country) . So we decided to check out the Victoria memorial and the museum first. The Chandni chowk metro station was pretty near to our hotel , so we decided to travel by the metro . Though we dint really like the cabs , buses and the congested roads , the metro changed our impression about the transport facilities in Kolkata. It really is a cheap, fast and effective means of transportation and i guess is one of the best in the country. The underground metro stations had maps indicating stations covered and train timings and was really hassle free travel for us.


We visited the Victorai memorial which was built as memorial for Queen Victoria who the empress of India in early decades of last century. It is made of white marble and is pretty well maintained and though it was a British Building at first glimpse it reminded me of Taj Mahal. Like Taj , this was also surrounded by sprawling gardens on all sides . Inside this there is a musuem which has a huge display of potraits/photographs from British era till Indian independence. The building is surrounded by gardens and a couple of big pools. After a couple of hours we trooped out to have a look at modern Calcutta.


Then we had our first glimpse of a tram ! The tram is a really unique mode of transport and tram lines run along the major roads and how all these vehicles on road , pedestrains and trams manage to co exist on same road is something really amazing !


After we came out, we cut across the Maidan which is supposed to be largest urban park in Kolkata , the Eden Gardens , Victoria Memorial , the turf club and polo club are located on its fringes. We then strolled through busy streets of kolkata for an hour after lunch. Then decided to check out the Kalighat , it is believed that kolkata derieves its name from it. Kalighat is where the famous Kali temple is located. But our timing was very bad , by the time we reached the temple had closed. But what was shocking was how the whole place was maintained , the place is full of touts out to squeeze money. Less said about it the better, this is one place to AVOID for casual tourists ie who are'nt really religiously inclined. Place is full of beggars and other assorted pujaris and their helpers out to snatch money under some pretext or other . The worst part is that all of of them are together in this and they have a unique model by you are forced to pay all of them. When you enter you are asked to leave your footwear in a shop ( there was no footwear stand outside temple) and hence you ahve to buy something from the shopkeeper and need to tip the guy who suggested the shop to you and so on ... The experience of visiting a temple is totally spoiled when you come across such elements . The temple visit turned out to be a really bad experience and we decided not to visit any temples in this part of the country.

We returned back to our hotel and in the evening visited the Howrah bridge ( Rabindra setu) and took a boat ride across Hoogly river.
Later in the evening we checked out of the hotel and moved to Sialdah station to catch the train to Siliguri. The journey was supposed to take 12 hrs. Another major problem we faced was lack of Restaurants at Railway station and surprsingly no one was selling food stuff.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Trip- Day one


Day one

For the last 2 years i have been going on road-trips with my cousins once in an year.
This time , me and 2 cousins of mine , Aswin n Sridar had planned an outing somwhere in Dec . By sheer chance i saw an article about sikkim and we decided that this is the place we are heading this winter. None of us had any idea what to expect or any friends at these places we were planning to visit. Thanks to internet we managed to gather adequate info about the places to visit , some do's and don'ts etc to make a rough plan. So this was the initial plan Bangalore-> Kolkatta->Siliguri->Darjeeling->Gangtok->Siliguri->Kolkatta->Bangalore

So finally we are off today on 20th Dec afternoon , the flight was supposed to be in the evening 5:05 pm , but it turned out that the flight was actually at 5:50 PM , anyways we reached the airport at 3:30 itself. All the while I had flown only with Indian Airlines and occasionally on Jet , this was my first flight on low cost carrier , we were flying in SpiceJet.

The flight was via Hyderabad and finally we reached Kolkatta at 9:40 PM , after retrieving our luggage and standing in a long Q for pre-paid taxi we finally got to our hotel (researched thru net) . It was at a place called Ganesh Chandra Avenue , we booked coz name seemed nice -> hotel Broadway. Also the location was near a Metro station(Chandini Chowk) and near the Sialdah Railway station also. It turned out to be pretty neat choice , the rent was moderate , the rooms were decent enuf . The city was full of cabs and buses , very less no: of Autos which we see here in Bangalore. Also when we looked around that night it seemed we had boarded a time machine and had landed back in 80's . That was our first impression of the city.
Most restaurants had closed by the time we reached our hotel and we had roam around for an hour around the city before we found one ! What a start !!!
Plan for tomorrow - Trip around "the city of Joy"

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Sikkim Trip !

Three of us ( me and 2 cousins of mine) went on a week long trip to Sikkim n Darjeeling this Winter !

Before we embarked on this trip , we had no idea of what to expect the idea seemed exotic so we thoght lets give it a shot.
All the info about the place , planning was done wholly based on info collected from net.
Internet has info about everything , all u need to bring to table is desire to explore places.
Nowadays wih the advent of low cost airlines , air travel has become pretty affordable and has made possible vacations to places in different corners of our country in limited time that we have.
These days you get a lot of books/sites about holiday destinations and most of the logistics are well covered.

I thought of blogging our trip , so that it provides some helpful info for ppl planning similar tripsand hopefully wud encourage ppl who have been planning to do something like this to finally do it.

We were what cud be classfied as budget travellers , luxury/best facilities was not the main criterion for us , but we were not always looking at the cheapest alternative either. All we had in mind was good comfortable holiday without being an expensive one.
We had decided on the hotels where we would stay in advance ,but we did not book them ie make any advance payment. We had telephoned and told them that we would be requiring rooms , since it was not the peak season that arrangement worked everywhere.

Flight and train tickets were the only ones we booked and all the rest were decided then and there ...

We left from Bangalore on 20th and came back on 26th Dec

the travel route was Bangalore -> Kolkatta -> Siliguri -> Darjeeling -> Gangtok-> Siliguri-> Kolkatta-> Bangalore.