The Stony-faced Sentinels

Some landscapes deserve praise - yet others demand poetry. For from their contours and shades flows forth a traveller's imagination, and in the symphony of the elements, parched eyes find their musical composition. North Sikkim for me hit all the right notes.

In November 2015, me and my friends had experienced the most popular hotspots in Sikkim and as a last hurrah, had decided to cover Lachung, Yumthang Valley and Zero Point in the remote highlands of North Sikkim. Yumthang is very popular in the summers, when the valley comes alive with flowers of every colour. But it was mid-November, way off-season and people we spoke to in Gangtok were surprised at our choice. As you can gather from my introduction, it did pay off.

The journey was only 100 odd kilometres, but took us a good 10 hours... a combination of virtually non-existent roads in some parts, and an even worse detour that we had to take due to a landslide meant that we barely crossed 10-15 on the speedometre. But Jangs, out driver was a complete pro and very good company. It was well past sundown when we reached Lachungl, and also unbelievably cold. Off-Season came with its own advantages - we were the only guests in our humble hotel and got upgraded to the largest rooms they had. I'll always remember the staff who pampered and fussed over us like we were children - making us sumptuous meals and wrapping us up in a cocoon of warm blankets and rajais (we were outright shaking, not shivering). That first night, exhaustion brought us sleep in no time.

The next morning, my friends in the room across the hall implored the rest of us to come see the view they had. It was dark the evening before and we hadn't really bothered looking outside, but right then, I could imagine my pupils dilating as I stepped out and took in what lay beyond. 

Straight ahead, a range of mountains filled the horizon – the nearer ones, wooded, and the ones behind – laden with snow. The sun emitted a brilliant glow as it rose behind the mountains, a glow that oozed through the gaps between them, making their peaks disappear in its shine, but also accentuating the outline of consecutive layers of slopes with rays of sunlight. In the valley below were a few scattered structures of Lachung while a stream meandered lazily in the foreground. I wish we had longer than this one day at Lachung just so that I could sit in this balcony and take it all in. But we already had a plan in place.

The road continued to be bad. In parts it had been completely washed away by land slides, but we didn't mind anymore. We kept Yumthang, which is closer, for our return journey and continued to Zero Point at 15,300 feet.

As I started writing this post, I mentioned poetry and music, and now we were witness to the music in the silence of these desolate mountains. You didn't hear a whisper, but looking at them is like listening to an old fable, raw of emotion, that narrates how through aeons, these sentinels guarded the subcontinent and shaped it. To them we owe the kiss of monsoon droplets, to them the cloak against inhospitable winds, to them the gush of our rivers, the crops in our field and most of all, our subcontinental identity - for what better geographical marker can you ask than these mountains, for discerning our northern boundaries. For us they stood unflinching under the piercing gaze of the sun, the battering ram of winds, and the back-breaking weight of winter snow. They are pock-marked, wrinkled and broken under the strain, but still steadfast.

Higher and higher the road took us, as if to meet the electric blue sky. The waters of a stream shone like diamonds in the flash of the sun. Zero Point is an attraction because it's where the road ends, the mountains beyond out of reach to us casual visitors. While it's a beautiful spot, it's not a 'point' in the conventional sense. There are plenty of photos to be clicked and snow to be enjoyed, but the most magic is simply the drive up here. As with Nathu-la, you need to be careful of the thin air. We lazed around for a quite a while here. The clear, sunny day tempered the low temperatures and made it enjoyable. Only when the winds started picking up and Jangs reckoned it unsafe to linger too long did we get back in and drive back down.

Yumthang was pristine in its own right. The innocuous stream uphill was a raging river down here and it was easy to fall in love with the green meadows and rich woods flanking the river. It was a soothing experience to walk endlessly, relishing the gurgling of the water and the fluttering of prayer flags - especially since once again, we were the lone visitors. I am told that the summer blossoms are a vision to behold and the place is a throng of tourists, but I wouldn't want to break the aura of serenity I've come to associate with Yumthang by coming here in the summers.

On the flipside, the thin air and biting cold gave me the most spectacular headache by the time we got back to our hotel. I had to resign myself to Saridon tablets and sleeping off the ache while my friends enjoyed the evening over some pakodas and hot masala tea :-(

North Sikkim remains etched in my memories as a superlative trip, I'm definitely going back someday! 

This post is the third in a series of posts about a trip to the North-East of India covering Darjeeling and Sikkim.

Further reading:

• Part 1: The Real Song of Ice and Fire
• Part 2: A Borderline Encounter