North Sikkim Ride - Day 1 - Gangtok to Lachen

The wind whistles through my helmet.
My collars flutter against the wind.
And on my face is a grin, courtesy the wide, paved road.

I am in the outskirts of Gangtok, on the North Sikkim Highway - the road that connects Gangtok to the North district headquarters of Mangan and beyond. The city traffic has thinned to only highway traffic. It is notorious and infamous for being a highway, with no asphalt.

I can see clouds on the mountains and their shadows in the valleys. There are flower beds on the road sides in all colours, red, pink and violet. Then there are shrubs and bushes, shadows of trees on the road and everywhere else. There are small hamlets, an odd grocery shop situated at the further end of the village. I can see people bent low carrying dry wooden sticks on their backs. Talk about harsh conditions of living! There are dark green forests, curved roads, snowy mountains, streams and waterfalls. The traffic is empty, with the occasional tourist vehicles that cross me - they seem to be in a hurry. Then there are farm lands, dotted with green and yellow colours.

Sometimes the wind picks up, sometimes it dies down.
Sometimes it feels a little warm, so I let the jacket zip lower to let in a little more of the air and then it feels a little cold and I move the zip up.
There are school children walking on the roads, possibly returning from their school. I give a cursory glance at them. Some smile back, some run after my moving cycle. Whereas I leave them behind and ride ahead.

At the noddles break, I hear
"Your noodles is ready"

I spring up to the counter and he serves it in a big bowl. The noodle is steaming hot. There are small pieces of tomatoes, green chillies, beans, carrot floating in it. The water vapour rises from it and I try to blow the noodles cold. But the temptation to eat is too high. I dip the spoon into the soup and try to fetch some of the noodles but what comes out is only the soup. I taste it, and it almost burns my tongue. I need to wait, I think to myself. Instead I focus on the tea and wait for the noodles to reach a soother temperature and chat up a conversation with Tashi, the driver of the support vehicle.

The taste of the noodles lingers as I ride through the switchbacks, leaning and revving. The green luxuriant forests grow thicker and the shadows grow colder. In the high altitudes, these forests would be gone. First there would be trees. Then conifers. Then shrubs. Then meadows. And finally beds of rock and ice. But that is a gradual transition. What is constant in all this is the beat of the running engine that seems to carry on and on.

The engine fires itself into a consistent periodic beat. And the motorcycle seems planted on the road. The motion is uniform. No brakes, no cutch and no gear alteration. And the speedometer reads the same 30 km/hr. There is only one act associated with the rider: that of steering the handle bar in the direction of the road. It is an absolute delight that I feel inside. It’s the typical wind in the head experience that goes hand in hand with riding a motorcycle.

We had an extremely late start and by the time we reach Chungthang, the sun has already started to go down. And the darkness brings with it, an unprecedented chill.

We break for tea at a small tea shop in Chungthang. The road branches its way across to Lachen. It is almost dark, but the road from Chungthang to Lachen,a distance of 33 kms is better than the horrendous condition of the last 40 kms.
There are not many photos due to the darkness, so I will reprise some of the photos from my opening post.

The distant scenery looks pristine. But the near scenery appears hostile. At one point, I come across a water fall that falls down from a great height. It starts from cavernous rock and keeps falling down for a couple of hundred feet. But I am not able to see its end. There are some larger rocks in the vicinity which blocks the sight. It does not have a name, but it looks lonely. The cascading fall appears in a stark contrast to the rocky walls of the mountain from which it has emerged. In the harsh winters, when the temperature dips low, it will be frozen into a vertical sheet of ice.


This was the last photo that I had taken that day.

That day after I had managed to reach the hotel, it was past 7.30 in the evening. And when I sat down to write the trip diary, I had the following to write.

"The visibility started to shrink rapidly and I put on the parking lights first. They were not meant for visibility, but to make my motorcycle visible to the oncoming vehicles. My senses were alarmed and I knew that the rest of the journey was to be completed under the cloud of darkness. Beside the road were pine trees and conifers, which no more appeared beautiful. And then there was the river that kept company all along. Sometimes the road ran so high that the river appeared to be speck. But there were times when it almost touched the river bed.

And then as I eagerly rode on, waiting for Lachen to arrive, I was elated when I first saw the "Welcome to Lachen" gate. In the cold, I sensed some beauty because I had felt that the hardship was over. Visibility was poor, but the moon light shone on brilliantly and the stars glittered in the sky. It was straight dipping road that cut through the valley. And the valley was surrounded by huge snow covered mountains on either side that shone in the moonlight. It was a small village and there were agricultural fields, small thatched huts, wooden fences, grasses swaying in the wind bathed in the moon light that looked magical. I could see the lights of the support vehicle in the rear view mirror and signaled the vehicle to stop. The ask was simple: Which is the way to the hotel?

When the vehicle stopped, to my dismay, I saw that it was not my support vehicle, but a fully loaded tourist vehicle. He rolled down the foggy windows of the passenger side that was blocking the conversation, and found out that I had lost my support vehicle. But he assured me that I was on the correct path.

And then as I felt, I was running out of options, a Mahindra Bolero appeared and I could not thank God more when I saw it was my support vehicle. The driver engaged the high beam and I rode in front of him and the sighting of any collection of lights seemed to be Lachen to me. But it was not and the journey was not yet over.

“Bas thodi hi dur aur”, was the reply that he gave me everytime I stopped to ask him how far was the hotel. "

"Out of the several things during the last one and a half hours that I remember is a suspension bridge.As I entered the bridge, its iron sheets creaked under the load and the metallic sound made me go off balance. There were prayer flags that draped the bridge and the way they fluttered in the wind, made me shiver. Everything seemed vastly different from the world of the morning, when I sat enjoying the hot bowl of noodles.

The buff that I was wearing initially from Gangtok to save myself from the dust and the sun, I had to use it to protect myself from the cold wind. I was riding as mechanically as I could possibly. The jeans never really protected the legs and the leather gloves did not pass the grades. The cold cut through the leather gloves that offered little protection. At times it got unbearably cold that I needed to slow down the motorcycle to escape the wind chill but it was a futile effort which only hampered the progress. I rubbed my hands over the jeans for a little comfort but it didn’t work. Initially I had presumed that I would be reaching Lachen within an hour with the remaining twilight, but when the last light faded from the top most snow covered peaks I could foresee the unforgiving chill. So, I rode fast, and my legs felt even more freezing temperatures, and my fingers grew number by the minute, as I waited for Lachen to arrive, but to no luck. The cold appeared to needle through the denims that I was wearing. The legs had reached a state of suspended animation. At some point I remember, I was not feeling the cold anymore. It felt like the skin had worn off and was exposed directly to the fierce cold wind. It felt sizzling hot that the veins were throbbing with blood. Much like you would feel, if you expose a gaping wound to a box of fiery chilies - the cold ate into the fingers and it turned insensitive after sometime.

There were numerous water crossings that came in the way. There were stars that lit up the sky and there was the moonlight which was so brilliant that I could see a shadowy, flickering reflection over the cascading waters. At one such long water crossing, I had to dip my shoes that resulted in wet socks. The wetness added to the discomfort and the chill. It further aggravated the difficulty of riding the motorcycle. "

As I finish up writing the diary I hear a knock on the door. It must be the bowl of soup and the second cup of tea which I had ordered. The bed feels warm, over which I sit cross legged, with a blanket spread over me. The soup acts as the much needed energizer.

I have an invaluable lesson at the back of me. There cannot be bad weather, only bad clothes. And if I am to conquer Gurudongmar, I need to conquer the cold. I need to put on my full suit of armour and fight out what comes in the way. And as I rummage thru the belongings, there are quite a few interesting and versatile items that I bring out.

I call it a day soon after dinner, but that night I dont get much sleep.