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Published: December 5th 2019
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To Lachung
What comes to mind is the old saying "It's not only the destination but the journey is as important".
We (me and the girl from Malaysia, Khadija) were at the travel agents to discuss this group. The agent told us that he had another couple who would be interested in going with us. They turned up a bit later. The girl was friendly enough, but the boy only took one look at Khadija (in her head dress) and never looked at us again. They gave some lame excuse and left. Another pair would have halved our cost.
I left my luggage at the hotel and took only my back pack for the 2 day journey. We left Gangtok 0945. Our first stop was a view-point outside the city. Even though we climbed to the top of the tower it was again too misty to see anything clearly. Then we stopped at a beautiful waterfall. May be it is just after the Monsoon, there were waterfalls everywhere on the way and we snapped a few photos of the better ones.
The route which took headed us west and going up and down by at three hill
sides with umpteen hairpin bends. We were going up the side of one hill and coming down by the side of another. It was soon apparent that one had to do this to cross river Teste. After crossing the river we started to climb again beside the river. It was a beautiful river with aquamarine coloured water indicating its glacial origin.
The road to Chongmu lake on the previous day was curvy and was still under construction. But it had good bollards protecting vehicles from ending up at the bottom a hundreds of meters below. The road to Lachung was different. Overall gain in height was little. On this route we could not find a stretch more than 25m which was straight. In part it was just a dust track. I remember seeing some videos on U-tube showing the most dangerous roads in the world. It was just like that in places. Often we had to creep slowly as the road was almost non-existent. Then you have to turn abruptly around a massive stone. All the time in most areas there was no protection to the lower side with a drop of hundreds of meters. It was the time
you had to trust your driver. May be for our sake he was murmuring prayers whenever he passed a small shrine (there were quite a few en-route). Finally we joined a main route and I thought the condition will definitely improve.
I was a bit confused why the driver took this minor route as the major route appeared to be a better bet on google. He told me the major
route was worse than the minor one. It soon became apparent what he meant. Along with all the other problems so far road condition deteriorated further.
In spite of all these we were driving through a lush green forest area with varying flora. Apart from odd monkey families and rare birds
there were no animals in sight. The forest was too steep for elephant habitats. The Chungthang dam which is like many in Sikkim were for
hydro-electric power production. We stopped here to see the layout and the pristine waters of the dam. Took some photos and headed to Lachung; it was dusk when we got to Lachung. The accommodation provided was basic. There was no phone signal, no TV, no heating. But there was hot water
and we could hire a heater for the room for an extra 300Rs (~ €4) which was great. The house produced very
good dinner with rice and different curries of chicken, potato&cabbage and lentils. Also a salad of onions, cucumber and green chillies.
I have just finished writing this after a nice warm shower in a warm room. Tomorrow is an early start after breakfast
at 0600hrs.
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Amazing blog!! Great Information about Lachung in Assam. Thank you so much for sharing this fantastic post and photos are really amazing.