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Published: September 28th 2011
The View from Hut
Thats the view of South Sikkim HillsIt was around mid August and right into the middle of night,I woke up with sweats all around my forehead and a slight pain in the chest.Blame it on the dinner I had,but deep inside I was feeling the pressure of the work I was going thru for past 1.5 months and the various kind of thoughts travelling with the speed of light thru all the veins in my brain and to have a good night sleep was becoming next to impossible.This has been happening intermittently for past few days and I was getting upset with every passing day.My wife with her worried look told me "Why don't you go out for a small week end trip?It is almost 6 months now from Benares trip !!" Well she knew that if I have not gone out in lap of mother nature for 4 months at stretch,these "chemical locha" of brain is going to continue.
Next morning,I called up my friend(Sabuj Dutta)and down came the name of a place 'bang' which I have heard from Mr Sebastian Pradhan in my East Sikkim trip."Chota Mangawa" is where I would like to go for a small week-end retreat and rest of the planning
The Greenery and the Cottages in between
The excellent green tinge post monsoon added a new dimension. fell in place and Sept 22nd we boarded Darjeeling Mail for our next destination NJP. Here we come again !!
Getting a shared cab from NJP to Gangtok is not an issue but getting a seat reserved till the mid-way is a bit tough.But we agreed to pay the fare of 200/person in the front seat of a Mahindra Spacio and within the next hour we are heading towards our first halt "Teesta Bridge".The familiar trails of Mahananda Reserve forest,the roads accompanying Teesta from Sevok Coronation bridge onwards gave us enuf impetus to be wide awake.Heard the destructions from the cabbie pilot which was caused by the earthquake just 4 days before we arrived and also seen the signs of the rampage in certain sections of the road which was on reconstruction mode by ever trustworthy BRO,who gives the lifeline to all the persons@hill.
At Teesta Bridge,Nayan(a 21 year driver with 7 years of driving exp?? !!) was waiting with his Army jeep to take us to our next destination "Chota Mangawa".The road is in fact 'not a road'.It is basically a trail of 11 km with occasional mud holding the boulders sprayed across all sections from various
Lights from Hills
That's a view at late evening angles.Now we see the reason of having an Army Jeep with 4 Wheeler Drive facility.We had a small halt at "Bara Mangawa" when the demi God of the place Mr MK Pradhan came out of his house and after few introductory exchanges we headed towards Chota Mangawa.It is adviced for persons with back pain to travel the place from a separate route via Teesta
valley,Runglee,Tinchuley as that road is much better than this one.
Info: "Mangawa" in lepcha means Land of Finger Millet,which is used to prepare local beer(locally called 'Jhar'😉 and these are grown mainly in these part of the hills.They are served in wooden container called 'Tongba' .These have great healing powers from pain which I already had an experience during my trek at Sandakfu.
Chota Mangawa is a small village with around 30 odd families whose main source of income is through the small eco-tourism initiative taken by Mr Pradhan.He has built 4-5 cottages where his wife also lives and does all the necessary arrangements for tourists.They had local support from people of the nearby village like Peshok for
construction,building materials etc.Mr Pradhan has an efficient manager as "Chameli" who is merely a 12-13 years
Misty
Mist all around. girl whom Mr Pradhan and his wife adopted when her mother died and her father couldn't get rid of his drinking habits.She is smart little girl and works with innate maturity and takes care of the guest with such affection which is beyond any description.She doesn't go to school though but she is learning Nepali and Hindi in formal manner thru private tuition managed by Mr Pradhan.
Regarding the topology of the place,the cottages are built over a ridge and at a height of 4250 ft.The steep slopes across the ridges are just 10 feet beside the cottages in the eastern side where one can see the bright lights of Kalimpong and Dello hills@night.On the western part,the slopes are gradual to the valley and stretches to Southern part of Sikkim and one can see Sandruptsey and Namchi.From the edge of the ridge you can see the Teesta flowing far down below but the place being so quite and tranquill,you can still hear the humming of the raging river from the ridge,specially in monsoon season.
After a refreshing bath,we are welcomed with a hot lunch consisting of all foods which are locally grown and cultivated.We came to know that
Runglee
A view of Runglee tea estate they only need to buy Kitchen salt,Potatoes from market while the rest food they prepare are cultivated locally.Post the lunch,it was the time to see the place around.At times we often land into the beauty of nature where no comments can justify how beautiful the place is.The amazing greenery all around,the breeze flowing across,the emptiness all around and chirping of birds.Well,for a moment I thought,"Gosh,can't I stay here for the rest of my life?" My wife's beautiful eyes though brought me back to reality 😊)
Though the current situation is a bit different as the earthquake has brought immense scepticism in their mind regarding the future bookings of this season.Their miserable life has already taken a beating with nature's fury and they are still shaken with the experience they had.This part of the hill though didn't have the facile fate of North Sikkim,but the incessant rains at night for past few days have made enough doubts in their livelihood.
I don't know how profound was the relationship of Rabindranath Tagore with Himalayas,but as many times I have visited the hills,I could not help singing any other songs than his creation.The late evening followed with some Tagore's classic and
the pitch dark environment with heavy air(due to rain) made the mood out of this world.The night came early and after a brief dinner session,me and my friend started discussing on many things,we laughed loud and occassional serious discussion was dampened by a heavy downpour.It seems as if the entire sky just broke down over Chota Mangawa and strong winds kind of unsettled us.The Rain God finally took his wrath away after nearly 3 hours and aroud 12 in the midnight we came out to see the ambience. Eerie and Heavy are the only two words I could remember.
5 am in the morning,I woke up to have a look at the big stretch of Kanchendzonga but my bad luck with the Mountain continues and I could see only layers of clouds slowly racing against each other to reach the summit.Next time,Chameli's voice woke us up around 6 am and along came tea and a heart warming smile from that little lady.
Day 2:
After gulping some 'Puri n Sabji',we had a brief discussion with Mr Pradhan and planned the day long trip to various parts of the hills.In the meantime I have taken enough photos of
the place and also asked Mr Pradhan,Mrs Pradhan to join the coup.While Nayan was warming up the Jeep,we walked through the canopies and landed in front of a church.What suprised us more is the year of built,it was 1882!!!!No wonder the Britisher's were such a profound nature lover and adventurer that they could built a church in such a place which is not known to many persons in this modern world.
This time around we planned to skip the bumpy ride of 2 km and trekked instead and then we traveled in the Jeep first to the nearest village called Peshok and then to
Takdah Orchid center.The center was closed due to some reason but came to know that Mr Pradhan is making some conscious effort to promote this place to increase the awareness of orchids amongst people.
Right time we can introduce the person himself Mr Pradhan to all the readers.He is a humanitarian and having successfully promoted Bara Mangawa as a tourist destination since year 2000,he is trying to promote the eco tourism facilities of Chota Mangawa from past 3 years.He has spent around 30 years in Darjeeling as a consultant of Medicinal Plant's culture and
plantation.With increasing crowd and pollution in Darjeeling,he could not help but returned to Bara Mangawa and helping the locals to stand in your own feet by increasing awareness of education,learning them the cultivation of crops,providing free schools "The New Horizon" where the current generation is going to
take education and the teachers are provided remuneration from the earnings of tourism,providing free medical check ups and medicines.The latest of his endeavours are setting up Bio Globules plant as an alternative to common LPG which will save cost and also can support more than 20 families in very low cost.He is presently looking for funding from various NGO's with the report he has created to have a set up of the plant.Person like him does need support from all quarters and in whatever means we can so that we all can see smile in their faces.I was amazed by dedication and also self motivation to do something big for the locals and these somehow made us also to think to
contribute in some means to aide his cause and at least feeling satisfied from our end that we are also doing our part in whatever small way we can.
Back to
Chameli
The Charming Little Lady who is managing all the activities in the resort the roads where we are now driving downhill towards Runglee Tea Estate,which is managed by Duncan
(http://www.duncans-tea.com/brands/index.htm).The place and the topology is awesome with lush green plantation all around and tea gardens sprawling across acres and acres with no boundaries.There we found some tea leaves plucking going on and sent to the tea factory for further processing.We had a quite walk in the entire tea garden and really got lost in the beauty of the place.May be this is the next best tea garden
I saw after my three visits to Munnar,Kerala.
Post that we went into a village called Pubung and walked the entire stretch and came to know that their are many Orange factories* around which are functional from November season.We came across many natural falls in our way and also the greenery in monsoon made the place out of the world.
*Info: Chota Mangawa and BaraMangawa is also known for Orange Plantation and from Nov to Feb,the entire place turns it color into Golden Orange.This gave us enough impetus to come back once again to visit in winters and to taste the Oranges here.
Along the way back,came the Tinchuley Monastery which is quite
old and definitely a must visit.The monk showed us the devastation of earthquake has not given any respite to God's abode also and there are visible cracks across the walls.We prayed there for the life lost in the quake and left the calm atmosphere with a heavy heart.
Along our way back to resort we met with few people at the market and who are upbeat to see us there as they have lost hope of any tourism post earthquake and we
assured them that there will be more in coming months also.We met a sweet kid and her uncle told us regarding the devastating effect of the earthquake still lingering in their mind and every one of them are having sleepless nights.The media also not playing their part properly and on the contrary they are told that like Japan,the quake will againhit back and will bring devastation.We tried to assure them that the authorities are now keeping a regular vigil in the entire area and definitely there would be alarm much before the "thing", if at all it strikes back.
During the evening the clouds started to pour in from all directions and the light across the
Mr MK Pradhan
Loved his dedication. hills were turned on much before its original schedule and the it was wonderful to look at those startling lights across the hills in the growing darkness.Along came thunder storm and heavy downpour around 7 pm and the power in our hut got cut and instead of lighting the emergency solar bulb,we preferred to stay in the abyss of the darkness all around.This gave us much time to discuss a pertinant issue and that's how we can give back a little back oh happiness to the people which they deserve.We formulated many plans like sending clothes,sending medicine,sending books/pencils/erasers,we could promote this place in our blog and social media to all the friends who love to travel and also we can approach some NGO's for any sort of help to reach out to this people.We shared our thoughts with Mr Pradhan and needless to say he was very pleased and requested if we can really such things which we are planning,then it would be real help for him as he is fighting a lone battle for the people of the place.
The next day also there was no respite from the Rain God and around 6.30 am,I went to Mr MK Pradhan and asked if any news had in the road condition.He contacted the BRO office and assured us that's the road is still open and there are no news of landslide as of now in spite of incessant rain since last night.He also managed an Innova,which will drop us to NGP via a different and safe route.He then showed us the magazine which he has prepared for "Darjeeling Blossom Eco Tourism",his initiative for eco-friendly tourism in the hills and provided us a Siliguri address where we can send the parcels from our end as promised.
Post completing the billing formalities,I looked back again at the direction Mt. Kanchendzonga and murmured that this time also I was deprived of any sight and I don't know when again I will have an eye contact with the great wall standing straight in a clear day.With loads of promises and expectations and excellent memories,we left for NGP and bidding adieu to Mr Pradhan and family and assuring them "We will be back again"
Well,this is just a begining.I wish with all my friends support,we can achieve much for these people and we can really do little things to make them happy.Until my next post on another place,I wish every body a Happy Durga Puja,2011.
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Sayantan
non-member comment
Enviable trip ... Liked the flow of thoughts and the pictures here and there ... keep it up !! .. Want to hear more of such locations.