Overview of the destination
It was a great trip, i loved every bit of it. There is a lot of travelling to do, so hiring taxi is a compulsory thing, and there are different types of taxi's available for all budget passengers, the locals seem to converse in nepalese, but they are very nice, innocent and friendly people.Food, sight-seeing and shopping
South indian food is not so freely available, but then we got to eat at some beautiful north indian restaurants. The locals also do have their own restaurants which even cook maggi. but chinese non veg items, i didnt like. The rates of handicrafts in the shops are ok, but they can do with a bit of bargaining. Buy some thermal wear if u plan to travel north sikkim, lachen, gurudongmar, etc... Lachung is also good. But there is a lack of good food items after u cross places like laching and lachen, so watch out, try to buy your own ready made food from your cities,. We carried our electric cooker which helped. The drivers are good, an occasional rash driver irritates us, and the tour operators charge quite a bit, so find out properly with other tourists before agreeing to a rate offered to you. Activities & things to do
Go to guru dongmar lake in north sikkim its nice, but the road is SICK. lot of pot holes make it a tiring journey and not at all recommended for people with back aches and slip disks.
The mountain SAMDRUPTSE, is cool, with a huge statue of padmasambhava, its awesome, we stayed in hotel samdruptse, where food was also good. and try to get up early in the morning, when u can have a chance to see the mighty kanchen junga mountain range. carry woolen clothes . People are nice in sikkim, they are very friendly and warm. In gangtok we stayed in cherry guest house which had a beautiful view of the kanchen dzonga range in the early morning, the staff were also very friendly. The rates are also very economical compared to the superb range of rooms, but the only problem is food is not prepared there, we will have to eat outside, or wait for an hour till one of the hotel staff gets down to cooking. Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc.
we went o kolkata, then proceeded by train from there to 'new jalpaiguri' where we caught a taxi and went to gangtok, we paid 2000 for it as it was an a/c scorpio. Otherwise people who share can go in 150 per person rates also.
Poeple who have asthma, watch out in lachung, gurudongmar lake etc... its difficult for normal people it self. No need to worry about theft as the local people are very nice, there are no beggars in sikkim, we haven't seen any, even old people were working. thats really great.
We went in September, no snow was there but December onwards we can find a lot of snow, especially at tsomgo lake which is a must see place, the place is also home to the golden mandarin duck which u can see if u are lucky, and the yak ride in tsomgo lake is cool. There are thousands of water falls lining up the place....my favourite was the mandakini water falls, guess why ? |
