Off to the Mountains - Part 1

March 2008.

Life was boring and work was disgusting. As usual. And then a sudden thought of making a trip to Gangtok and the Himalayan Range surfaced in the eyes of

Diwakar (he is a skinny fellow but got lots of energy..for extra curricular activities err..)

Mayur (a very decent kinda..but slowly waking up to the rage of the machine..I am assuming that if he changes at this rate then 5 yrs down the line he might as well be the rowdiest of the gang )

Kaushal (our own big baby..he has this bad habit of holding ur hand when he speaks to u..and that gives a gayish kind of impression..having said that he is one guy who gets in the fun n frolic mood no matter what)

And myself () ..

The foursome decided to kick off the trip on a lonely Thursday night. Took a couple of days leave from office and planned accordingly ( Plans were shattered in the most horrendous manner..You will know why..)

We booked an Indica to take us from Kolkata to Siliguri. It generally takes around 8-10 hours so we set out at around 8 PM hoping to reach siliguri by around 6 in the morning.

Time: 10 PM

Place: Still on the airport road stuck in a terrible traffic jam.

No wonder we were cursing each other on being late. The traffic was so badly snarled up that we barely moved 2 kms in almost 2 hrs. Murphy's law could not have been more appropriate. The small Indica crashed into some damn ditch and the gear box started behaving obnoxiously. That was around midnight. And to add the icing on the cake, at 3 AM in the morning we realized that we had a punctured tyre. Somewhere along the way by god's grace we found out some guy who helped our cause. 1 hr of frustating wait as he repaired the tyre and we sipped cups of tea at 4 AM in the morning.

The road trip went on and on but Siliguri seemed to go farther away and away. Finally after an agonisingly long and tiring trip ( It was damn hot and with all the dust and sand storms kinda blowing ), we reached Siliguri at 5 in the evening. (thought we'd put Indian trains to shame).
We did not want to waste any time there so we quickly went to a roadside restaurant and stuffed ourselves. And the next hour or so was spent trying to strike a deal with a travel agent for a 2 day package in Lachung and Yumthang. At the end of it all, the deal did not seem fair to us so we decided to go to Gangtok and then finalize our plans there itself. We went ahead and took a shared cab (Its like a jeep sort of thing which can accomodate around 15-16 ppl). Four of us cramped in one of the rows and with the twisty turny valley roads, everything seemed to go wrong. We were stuffed in there like 5 guys sitting in the backseat of a Maruti 800.

Finally reached Gangtok at around 9 PM. Checked into a hotel and booked a jeep for the next morning which would take us to Lachung and Yumthang the next day. It is not easy to visit both the places in a single day but we were already running so late that we had no other choice. All the plans made anyway and next morning the real trip would start.

The weather was awesome in Gangtok. It was chilly and windy and we were already shivering in our rooms. That was probably a sign of things to expect in the next couple of days. The chilly gusts made us feel amazing. Having said that, we were already very exhausted after a full night and then a hot and humid day on the road and it was not long before we had retired to our beds for the day.

Not at all the ideal start to the journey but hey...

The trip begins here..!!