Over the last few days, we have been at Sikkim, the Northern eastern Himalayan state nestled in between Nepal and Bhutan. Known for its pristine beauty of glacial lakes, breathtaking valleys, gushing waterfalls at every corner of the mountain drive, panoramic view of the snow-capped Himalayas, and the precarious mountain passes. Mind you… exploring Sikkim is not for the faint hearted or one with a sensitive stomach - it involves fortifying yourself for freezing temperatures, being prepared for anytime down pour, and enduring through winding and meandering drives through changing landscapes, bracing yourself for breathlessness at high altitude points and of course grappling with motion sickness even when you have never ever got sick during travel!
But all
such discomfort dissolves into delight with one look at the mist covered calm
waters of Tsomgo lake, or the chance to snowball each other even in summertime
at the “Zero point”, or the awe-inspiring views of the majestic Himalayas on
the way to Yumthang valley, or experiencing the roar of the “Amitabh Bacchan”
waterfalls on the way to Lachung, or taking in some cool refreshing
mountain air while on the pine forest trail to Rabtanse ruins at Pelling,
or waking up after quick shut-eye during a long drive to a spectacular
sunset coloured sky over the silhouetted valleys… truly …travelling around
Sikkim is all about enjoying the journey as much as the destination … more like
life itself…isn’t it!!
It’s after
almost two and half years that we’ve donned on our travelling pants (even
literally!) and our trip was wedged in between Abhay finishing his class 10
board exams and the reopening of courts in Bangalore after summer vacation and
amidst incessant rains, and peak-season rush through out Sikkim and Darjeeling,
Aadya’s terrible motion sickness (we had polythene bags tucked in at every
compartment of the vehicle only to find them missing when we most needed them!)
and Abhay’s annoying obsession with uploading stories on his instagram handle
(now that his exams are over we had to keep our promise of letting him resume
his social media activity!) …. we did manage to make it one of the most
memorable trips ever!
Our last stop
was the West Bengal’s queen of hill stations - misty Darjeeling which was more
of a reality check and reminder of the traffic jams back home in
Bangalore! Since we were nursing a minor stomach upset and were also
exhausted from our Sikkim adventures, we avoided the usual touristy spots and
chose to take it slow and indulged in some retail therapy on the Mall road,
while enjoying some live jazz at one of its famous eateries - Glenary’s and stopping by Oxford Bookstore.
One of the sure
ways of avoiding the crowds is to either travel during off-season or
visit off-beat places within popular destinations. While it’s nearly impossible
to travel during off season with school going-exam-writing kids,
and it’s not always possible to have the entire trip comprise of off-beat
places, but it’s always possible to be a discerning traveller and look out for
not-so-oft visited places like museums, quaint cafeterias and bookstores that
are storehouses of local history and culture. For instance, while there were
serpentine queues at the ropeway ride, there was not a single soul at
Gangtok’s Black cat museum - which we pleasantly discovered to be a wonderful
state-of the art museum showcasing Sikkim’s history and the trajectory of the Army's Black Cat Regiment stationed in Gangtok. While none of the localities were even
aware of this museum, the administrator of the museum himself appeared to be curious
about how we discovered this place. So much so, that even the taxi driver whom
we hailed to go to our next destination was even more inquisitive about our
visit and wondered what interesting things possibly lay therein!
….which
leads me to our next destination….bookstores. As always in all our travels, one
of the mini highlights of our trip is to visit a local bookstore and by now our
entire family looks forward to it and given a chance Aadya would have spent an
entire day at two of Gangtok’s famous bookstores - Good Books centrally located
at Gangtok’s MG Marg and Cafe Fiction or Rachna Books (as it’s listed on
Google) located opposite Gangtok’s Secretariat Office.
Just off one of
the busiest parts of MG market and near Baker’s cafe (a famous cafeteria with
charming and eclectic decor, offering delectable variety of baked goodies and
eateries ), Good books houses a wonderful collection of mainstream books and
many works by local authors where we ended up buying a few regular Usborn
Early Readers for Aadya and an interesting compilation of tales of the land of
Lepchas (Sikkim’s aboriginals), aided by amiable and helpful bookstore
owner. Good Books is indeed a lovely place for book lovers to make a pit stop
amidst their MG market shopping!
We also dropped
into Cafe Fiction, an award winning bookstore cum cafeteria that has a
beautiful display of a wide variety of mainstream and independent publications that
one can pull out from the aesthetically placed bookshelves and curl into their
super-comfy chairs reading them…while sipping a hot cuppa coffee, by the giant
windows offering beautiful views of the street below. I wish “Namma Bengaluru”
too had our very own Cafe Fiction!
Anyways.. thanks
to Make-my-trip, we now return to Bangalore glad that our Sikkim trip was by
and large uneventful (though there were scares of landslides at certain places
owing to heavy rains) refreshed and rejuvenated for our routine grind back
home, our social media accounts full of stories and posts to put up and our
minds full of happy memories and four bags full of laundry! :-)
Well… as my colleague was intrigued to notice books even in my travel DPs .. I must say that a travel without books is no travel at all! Despite long road trips during the day.. reading to Aadya was never given a miss (not that she would herself or let us go to bed without a book) and thanks to “Good Books” and “Cafe Fiction”, we were never short of interesting reads. But to commemorate our Sikkim trip, we read from “The Legends of the Land of Lepchas Folk Tales from Sikkim” by Yishey Doma and Pankaj Thapa.
A beautiful collection
of folklores on various aspects Sikkim’s environment, history and
culture. We were delighted to make some connections of what we saw, felt and
experienced from some of the stories. From story of “ The Race between Teesta
and Rangeet” that gives a mythical side to the confluence of the rivers of
Rangeet and Teesta river that we came across on our way from Bagdogra to
Gangtok to “A tale of two trees” being the story of Lali Guras, Sikkim’s
Rhododendron that we saw aplenty at the Yumthang valley, or the “The Cave of Occult
Fairies”, the story of Guru Padmasambhava or Guru Rimpoche who subjugated the
demons and saved his devotees from evil, that reminded us of giant statues of Guru
Padmasambhava at Sandrupse hill and at Pelling
skywalk, and the fact that Mount Khangchendzonga is a constant presence in all
the stories just as the view of the mountain Khangchendzonga was our constant quest throughout our trip! While
we are set to get back to pavilion from now on, this book serves as a wonderful
parting shot for our minds and hearts still hung over the land of Lepchas!
