Sojourn in the Hills

Hi TWM,

My name is Rajorshi. This is my introductory post in any blog site.I'm not much into blogging but then I followed TWM for quite sumtime now and I must admit that the posts here are not just a good read but an amalgamation of creativity,knowledge and fun.

Had you been following Raj’s tweets in his FB acct in the past 3 days, you must have known by now that the 3 idiots hit the hills once again! And this time, as per the sobriquet, it was the ‘Land of peace & tranquility’.

As per the itinerary, we whistled out of Sealdah on Thursday night, Darjeeling Mail and reached the next morning at NJP. After a grueling bargaining with the touts, we finally managed to get a shared sumo and reached Gangtok after a well over 4 hours drive maneuvering the 125 kms. However, we quickly felt that we left the the hustle bustle of Siliguri behind us and by the time we reached the outskirts of the city, we completely forgot the heat and dust. The roads were not the usual twisters (snake like U-turns and hair pin bends) as is the case with most of the hill stations while the good old ‘Teesta’ river gave us a good company throughout our road trip. The woods, bridges, river, gorges everything gave a serene and a peaceful look enough to refresh you and relax your senses. Once we reached Gangtok, it was evening and we took a stroll in the nearby areas including M.G. Marg which truly deserves a special mention. It is around a 1 km stretch of road paved with stones and decorated with multi coloured fountains lit by beautiful lamps with flowering creepers holding on to them. It is the main market place where the footfall of localites and tourists is always high. We took a hotel adjacent area from where we could get a lovely view of this road. After a short nap, we went to a local pattiserie and had pastries, puffs, tarts to our heart’s delight followed by some shopping. The next day, we went for local sight seeing in the nearby areas which included places like Tashi view point, Ganesh Tok (we were lucky to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi at 7000ft),Hanuman Tok, Lingdum monastery and few other spots. The weather was cool with intermittent rains throughout. That night we went for a continental dinner @ ‘The Tibet’ restaurant. We also saw a group of enthusiastic foreigners who are on a mission and adventure trip from Gangtok to Jaisalmer on auto rickshaws !!

Next morning, we had planned to visit Tsomgo lake but unfortunately due to bad weather conditions and landslides, we, specifically me! (The other 2 people – Ratz and Raj had seen snowfall earlier) missed the snowfall which had started in those areas.



While returning back from GTK to NJP, we enjoyed a stroll (thanks to the driver who made a stopover) at a small beach along Teesta river where we found people angling. We finally left the hills and reached the plains again, but everything about the trip including the weather, nature and the people entice you and keep pulling you towards it for a next time…