Chapter 12
Ride.
Sleep. Repeat.
The next
thirty minutes felt like an eternity. The three of us and an ounce of ‘hope’ in
a leaking bottle was all we had as we spiraled down the mountain. I was
shivering; not sure whether out of cold or anxiety. I could feel the rain water
gushing out of my shoes as I shifted gears. The road that we were traversing
looks like a spoon of maggi on Google Map; trust me, this is no exaggeration.
Light!
Light as a symbol of hope was best experienced that night. In what looked like
a small village, there was a tiny house, with an open door, and light coming
from within. To our relief, it was a shop. We went in, dripping wet. It was
clean little place, which in a matter of a couple of minutes, became dirty;
thanks to us. It was a house cum shop. Behind the counter, there was a bed on
which a girl of our age sat with a kid of two or three and watched a rhyme on
her mobile. A middle-aged woman, perhaps her mother, prepared tea for us, and a
man, perhaps her father, served it to us. Seeing a happy family, gives you a
sort of warmth; this family as well as the tea did give us that.
We got
to know that Gangtok was another 80 kilometers from there – there being ‘Padamchen’.
We enquired whether there would be any lodging options in Padamchen, and to our
surprise there was one right behind this house. However, it was quite likely that
the owner of that place would have slept already. We had to take our chances,
given that we had very little choice. And this was very evident when Khan
remarked, “every day has been a run for our lives, are we even on a leisure
trip!”
There
was no light in most of the houses. It was only 8 PM then; Sikkim went to bed
early and woke up early. “Coming…,” her voice came from upstairs. She was the
manager of the guest house - ‘Lamakhang’. There were plenty of rooms and none
of them were occupied. The rooms were small, but tidy. There were two beds and
plenty of blankets. “800 per head”, she said. After about five minutes of
negotiation, we brought it down to 550 per head, inclusive of dinner. The
verandah was lined with our gears and clothes, each one dripping wet.
Fortunately, water had not gone inside our bags, which were secured with rain
covers. We got into warm clothes and huddled on the bed, as we waited for
dinner.
If you
remember, we had one more guy in this trip, our Mahesham, whom we had left in a
hotel in Gangtok at the beginning of the last chapter. The last we heard from
him was when we had contacted him some time in the noon. None of our mobiles
could connect to network in Padamchen. As we did our avalokanam of the day, we hoped that he was fine.
There
were plenty of rotis, sabji and an omlette each to fill our stomachs. After
dinner, we made ourselves comfortable under the blankets. What a day it had
been! But for the last one hour, East Sikkim had given us a feast indeed! As I
tried to rewind the day once again in my head, slumber took charge.
We woke
up at around 4:30 AM and left Padamchen by 5:15. The sun was up already and we
had a long day ahead of us. We had to ride to Gangtok, which was around 80 kms
from Padamchen, get our permits for Lachung, pick up Mahesh and ride to
Lachung, another 100 or so kilometers from Gangtok. Needless to say, every
kilometer on the mountain roads equals many more on the highways, in terms of
the time required to cover the distance. The winding roads continued for many
more kilometers from Padamchen. Some of the sharp curves overlooking valleys
deep down proved that our decision to halt at Padamchen was indeed a wise one.
The roads weren’t bad, but there were rough patches and water crossings (small
streams crossing the road) once in a while.
Water crossing…
Soon the Rangpo river joined alongside
us. It played a game of hide and seek with us, appearing here and disappearing
there. At one point, it beckoned us with a side road descending towards it. We
paused, deliberated and decided to accept the invitation. There was no proper
road as such. The last 10 meters leading to the river was too risky and I
hesitated initially. However, on seeing Thorappan and Khan doing it
effortlessly, I couldn’t resist myself. We were on the river bank, with our
bikes, and it was such a sight to see the river gurgling past us. We had a
photoshoot there. I dipped my hands in the river, the water was ice-cold. I
washed my face and it felt so ‘I-don’t-know-how-to-describe-it’. I collected a
few pebbles from the river bank as souvenir. Getting back to the main road was
yet another adventure.
The Rangpo River
The
route was a very scenic one, passing through small villages and with greenery all
around. We stopped for tea in a small town. The next big town was Rangpo, the
entrance to Sikkim on the Siliguri-Gangtok route. We were back on the highway,
which we had taken from Siliguri to Gangtok. We covered the remaining 40
kilometers in a flash and reached Gangtok at around 9:30 AM. We collected our
passes for Lachung from the agent and went to the hotel.
On the banks of Rangpo…
Mahesh
had had a peaceful day on bed, with a room heater adding to his comfort. He had
spent the whole day (yesterday) in bed, with even food being provided in the
room. He was in a mood to spent the rest of the Sikkim days on bed as well.
However, we persuaded him to join us to Lachung. We wanted him to enjoy the
mountain route along with us. We suggested that he could take rest in Lachung
and skip the Lachung outing, depending on the weather conditions, and most
importantly his health condition there. After some back and forth, he agreed to
join us. Thorappan almost lost his cool, as time ticked away. We had to leave
Gangtok latest by 11:30 AM. The 100 odd kilometers would require a minimum of 4
hours on road.
After
filling our tanks, we left Gangtok at around 11:30 AM. There were two route
options, the shorter one being suggested by Google Ammachi. We took a chance
again. Fortunately, she favoured us this one time. The route was indeed a
shorter one and a scenic one. The first ten kilometers had a well-tarred road
carving itself through dense green. Though the road was narrow, there was not
much traffic, apart from the jeeps ferrying from town to town. Thorappan
planted the Gopro (camera) at the tail end of his bike to capture wide angle
views of the rest of us on road.
A Gopro click from Thorappan’s tail…
The
narrow road later joined another one and the ride became adventurous from there
on. We had quite a few off roads and water crossings to negotiate. It felt good
to move ahead as a pack. We had lunch at a hotel in a valley town. The three of
us had thukpa (spicy and soupy noodles), while Thorappan had momos the size of
orange.
Thukpa and momos for breakfast…
We got
into a casual conversation with a random guy at the hotel, who too had done
quite a few rides, including one to Nepal. He then told us that Gurudongmar
Lake would definitely be a life-time experience and it was sad that we would be
missing it. Yes, Gurudongmar Lake, at an altitude of 18,000 feet, is definitely
a must-visit spot in Sikkim and it had been there on our itinerary as well.
However, the road to the lake had been closed due to harsh weather conditions.
The guy gave us a bit of hope when he said that bikers may get a special
consideration. We had to enquire at the police station in Mangan, which was the
next town on our way.
As we
left the hotel, a girl in the neighborhood came up to us to enquire about the
Dominar. Mahesh had his typical ‘attitude’ on his face and we had a good time
pulling his leg. We crossed Mangan in a while. There were two things that we
could have done in Mangan – fill up petrol and enquire about Gurudongmar. We
didn’t do either of them, for no particular reason. The petrol bunk in Mangan
was the last one on this route. We had 60 kilometers more to Lachung and
another 70 kilometers of offroading there the next day. It would then take us
another 60 kilometers to get back to Mangan to refuel again. Therefore, it
would have been a safe (and wise) decision, had we filled our tanks there then.
However, having filled our tanks to the brim and stocking some fuel in
Thorappan’s jerry cans in Gangtok, we didn’t bother to do so. (You will have to
wait till chapter 14 to know whether this ignorance cost us anything.)
Mountain roads…
We rode
through the newly constructed Theng tunnel and reached Chungthang Hydroelectric
power plant. The huge dam on the Teesta river was a sight to behold. We had tea
at a small roadside shop there. There were a dozen tourists there at that time.
We enquired about the route ahead, to another gang of riders who were returning
from Lachung. Apparently there wasn’t much to worry about. These riders had
initially rented a cab to explore Sikkim, but soon realized that motorcycles
were a more adventurous option. Thus there then.
Chungthang Hydroelectric Plant
We soon
reached the Chungthang checkpost. A jawan came to us, smiled, and said that he
had been waiting for us. He then told us that a reception had been arranged for
us a little ahead.
“Reception?
For us?!”
(to be continued…)
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