Day 1: Mirik | Day 2: Darjeeling | Day 3: Tiger Hill, Tonglu & Tumling
Day 4: Takdah, Tinchuley & Lamahttah | Day 5: Kalimpong | Day 6: Lava
Day 3: Tiger Hill and Journey to Tumling and Tonglu
Whenever I have to get up early, I have a restless night, not to mention after seeing Kanchenjunga in all its majesty, I was excited as to what tomorrow might hold. So I was wide awake by 3 am, rearing to go, watching the clock tick, waiting for Anand to pick me up. By 4:30 am I was on Tiger Hill gradually being joined by a thousand other and maybe another couple thousand more. Not what you would consider a serene a sunrise. But who cares, it is easy to forget the crowd cause what I was seeing was Kanchenjunga shimmering in the light of the full moon. A sight I will never forget.
The mist rises and falls, the moon was clear and bright and Kanchenjunga adorned the moonlight to dazzle the crowd. The light in the sky slowly changes, the backdrop goes from dark to light as dawn arrives.
In the two images above you can see how the faces of Kanchenjunga that are lit have changed. The Moon is now very low on the horizon and is no longer lighting up the west face like in the first image. The Sun is not yet above the horizon but is beginning to light up the South East face.
Even before it pops up over the horizon, the Sun lights up Kanchenjunga as a match lights a candle and the sight of the golden flame warmed up my soul even amidst the freezing January dawn. What an experience this was.
I lingered for a while, the crowds faded away and silence returned to the site. This was a moment to cherish. It was a beautiful day, so on the way back to the hotel I set a paln with Anand to go as far as possible on the road to Sandakphu. Tiger Hill was already included in the price for Darjeeling sight seeing, we negotiated a price of Rs 3000 to get to Manebhanjan and from there I will have to rent a Land Rover for the ascent towards Tumling.
By the time I got to the hotel Darjeeling had been lit up. Had a sumptuous breakfast looking out towards Kanchenjunga, this was not a bad view either and I thought to myself I have another sunrise, maybe this will be the view to photograph tomorrow, perhaps I might try a time lapse.
Soon Anand was back and we headed off towards Manbhanjan. It is a small mountain township from where the popular Sandakphu Trek begins. It is located about 26kms from Darjeeling. Regular jeep safaris take place from here to the nearby areas including Sandakphu and the Singalila National Park. This is the place where one still finds the old 4-wheel drive Land Rovers that were once used during the British era. On arrival the jeep safari operators reiterated what I already knew about the road being closed to Sandakphu. However, they were taking people up to Tumling and if possible to Tonglu. For a price of Rs 2200 I was given a 4 by 4 and an 18 year old driver.
The ascent is steep and 20 minutes in, when I stopped to take a picture, I noticed the tires, they hardly had any tread, my heart skipped a beat. Oh well, I thought, they are doing this every single day. Upward and onward.
The 4X4 ascends the narrow windy road with innumerable switch backs, penetrating the silence of the mountains. We go past Chitra with its thousand prayer flags and the monastery at Meghma. As the sun was shining I decided that it would make sense to go up to Tumling and then see the wayside stops on the road back. As we keep ascending the roads turn icy and snowy and the heart rate picks up, around the same time views of Kanchenjunga open up and the nerves disappear in the amazement of the panoramic views the road offers.
From Meghma it is a 2 km steep ascent to Tonglu, a small mountain hamlet. Trekkers on the way to Sandakphu would often break here for their first night. Tonglu is one of the peaks of Singalila range and located at an altitude of 10,130ft. Earlier in 1800s this place was part of Sikkim and known as Mount Tonglo.
There was plenty of snow at Tonglu and my young driver was a bit reluctant driving up to Tumling. He kept saying that there is a lot of danger, but me being me convinced him that it will be fine. The worst decision I ever made…
The snow got thicker and thicker, but we were going down from Tonglu to Tumling, little did I know how treacherous this will be on the return journey. On the way back the we had to climb back up to Tonglu, unfortunately this time we did not have gravity on our side. We came up to a bend in the road where the driver had to slow down to navigate the bend, but then the wheel kept spinning and we were not moving an inch forward. All that the driver could do was allow the 4X4 to roll back, pick up some speed and try to take the bend at some speed. But the snow was thick and every single time we got stuck. After six attempts he said that one last attempt, if we cant we might have to think of an alternative. My heart was pounding through my chest as he did pick up reasonable speed on a mountain road heading towards the bed with as 3000 metre drop., this time he pulled through. I don’t think I have ever felt this scared followed by the exhilaration of getting through the bend. Of course the journey was far from over and a there were 3 more places we got stuck but it was not as bad as the first one. Once we got back to Tumling, the road starts going down hill towards Meghma and the worst of the drive was over.
Meghma is another mountain hamlet with a monastery at the entrance of the village. I spent some time in Meghma, the experience I just had is enough to turn an atheist into a believer, so hanging about a place of worship seemed like the right thing to do:) From here it was onward to Chitra, another beautiful monastery surrounded by amazing array of Buddhist prayer flags.
On reaching Manebhanjan, I gave a handsome tip to the driver to show my appreciation for bringing me back in one piece and linked up with Anand again to get back to Darjeeling. On the way back we stopped at the Ghoom Monastery as well as the Batsia Loop.
Samten Choling Buddhist Ghum Monastery houses the huge 26-ft model of Lord Buddha. This has been built to honor of the renowned scholar Lama Anagarika Govinda. His book on Buddhism has received great acclaims all across the Buddhist community in the world.
The final stop was Batasia Loop. It is a beautiful spot with manicured gardens and panoramic views. It was created by the British to counter a sharp descent of 140ft. The toy train completes a loop through a large circular area and on a gentle slope and then crosses its own track near the beginning of the loop through a tunnel below. It is considered as one of the greatest engineering feats.
Snowy Drive to Tumling
Looking back at the day, it had been one of my most memorable as well as scary. The day started when it was night and I got to see Kanchenjunga shimmer under the moonlight which was followed by a golden sunrise, moment to cherish forever. Then I saw some amazing mountain vistas from the road to Tonglu and Tumling and Chitra’s prayer flags were extremely photogenic, however without a doubt the most memorable for all the wrong reasons will be the return back from Tumling to Tonglu, when my young driver whose name escapes me, had to take a snowy bend at a reasonably high speed on the 7th attempt in the face of a 3000 metre drop!!!
Day 1: Mirik | Day 2: Darjeeling | Day 3: Tiger Hill, Tonglu & Tumling
Day 4: Takdah, Tinchuley & Lamahttah | Day 5: Kalimpong | Day 6: Lava
