When planning for a trip to a hill or a mountain, people often choose Himachal, Uttarakhand or Jammu & Kashmir. Where as the raw beauty of the nature and the warmth of the people is a little more in the Eastern & North Eastern part of India as compared to the other hilly areas of India. Again that is our point of view, after visiting all of these places !! So next time when you plan for mountains, don’t forget to add a Gangtok trip on your agenda.
While we will be covering the lesser-visited states of the North eastern part of our country in another article, in this particular post we would want to talk about the beautiful town of Gangtok.
Gangtok, the capital city of the Sikkim can also give you a spectacular view of Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain peak in the world. It is one of the most beautiful hill stations in India. The sheer beauty and the beautiful winding hill roads are breathtaking if seen from a bird’s eye view in a cable car.
The first thing which comes to anyone’s mind when we hear the name of Gangtok, is the famous MG Marg, lets look into a small video before we proceed :
How you can reach Gangtok :
By Air
The airport nearest to Gangtok is about 124 kilometres away in Bagdogra, West Bengal. From the airport, you can hire a shared taxi or a private vehicle that will get you to Gangtok in a matter of two hours. The drive from Bagdogra to Gangtok is absolutely stunning with gorgeous mountains and River Teesta as your backdrop.
By Train
The nearest railway station to Gangtok is about 148 kilometres away in New Jalpaiguri in Siliguri. The station is well-connected to major cities like Kolkata and New Delhi. From New Jalpaiguri you can take a taxi to Gangtok or go to Siliguri Bus Station and catch a state-run bus to Gangtok, which will take you about 5-6 hours.
Road/Self Drive
Tourists rolling in from nearby places like Siliguri, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kolkata prefer to drive to Gangtok. The roads are well-maintained, except in a few places.
We went to Dooars first for the famous Jeep safari and spent 2 nights there. From there we went to Siliguri and took a shared cab to reach Gangtok .We booked the entire middle row of the cab which costed us Rs 1000 (Rs 250 per person *4 however we were only 3 people). The road from Siliguri to Gangtok is worth mentioning. Through out the journey you will be accompanied with the beautiful Teesta river gushing downhill with its pristine green color, is something we don’t get to see quite often.
Trip Itinerary
Day 1 – Check in & local market visit
Day 2 – Gangtok trip local sight seeing
Day 3 – Tsomgo Lake full day tour
Day 4 – Check out
Day 1 – Siliguri to Gangtok
After reaching Gangtok, we checked in to our hotel Tashi Thendup. Again it is a budget hotel near the mall road which costed us around Rs 1000-1200 per night for 3 occupancy. Immediately after checking in , we went out to have our dinner and we dozed off quite early.
Tips – Do not smoke in public places, there are specific smoking zones. Also do not litter or throw plastic waste randomly, that is a punishable offence.
Day 2 – Gangtok Trip Local Sightseeing
Our day 2 started off with a full day local sight seeing program. We hired the same cab which dropped us near the hotel. Total cost was around Rs 1200 for a full day sight seeing.
Places we covered :
Tashi View point
Ganesh Tok
Hanuman Tok
Flower Exhibition Center
Bakthang Waterfall
Rumtek Monastery
Rope way (Cable Car)
Tip: Do not skip the rope way ride & have the famous local Hit beer during your Gangtok trip
Day 3 – Tsomgo Lake
Today we were double excited. Guess what ?? We were going to the Tsomgo Lake and what the driver told us was that it would be covered with snow and the lake will be frozen. Well how does that sound ?? We never witnessed something like this earlier.
So we woke up early in the morning and went to the spot where our driver was waiting for us. Once again we had planned to take a shared cab to reach the lake.
The road was beautiful, as we went higher we could see snow capped mountains from far distance. The entire area is maintained by the Indian army. As Sikkim is a little prone to landslides, we saw many roads were being repaired by the army personnel. The entire stretch was narrow and many a times the driver took blind turns, but that was like an adrenaline rush for us. We especially enjoyed it thoroughly sitting just beside the driver.
And then the moment came where we witnessed the famous lake. We have never seen a frozen lake in between snow capped mountains, so that was more exciting for us. We took our gears, an additional boot & a pair of gloves from the local shops on rent which costed us around Rs 150.
The blue sky, the frozen lake, snow capped mountain & people playing with the snow created a magical moment for us.
We also went to the famous Baba Mandir from there.
There was this small cafe in the MG Marg , where we had our lunch. We had the best cheese noodles and also tried sushi for the first time.
After a full day of sight seeing we went back to our hotel to take some rest. We ordered food from the hotel itself and we dozed off.
Day 4 – Back to Kolkata
Next day we checked out and returned to NJP to catch the train back to Kolkata. We did some shopping from the local Lal Bajar as it was cheaper than the shops in MG Marg.
Few things to be noted :
1) As i said earlier Sikkim is a very clean state & their rules are very strict, so please dont smoke, dont spit on roads and use bins to deposit plastics.
2) Use shared cabs if possible if situation in our country improves, although not recommended in the current corona situation.
3) Alcohol is cheaper in Sikkim,specially rum.
4) Do not do shopping from the shops in MG Marg, instead go to the Lal market during your Gangtok trip
5) Have their local food like churpi, thukpa its delicious.
6) Bargain with the cab drivers.
7) If there are elderly people with you, would not recommend the hotel we stayed in as it had steep roads to climb up and down.
We will surely come back to Sikkim once again. We have heard that the northern part of Sikkim is heavenly specially Lachung, Lachen, Zero Point, Gurudongmar Lake, so would like to explore that part of the country along with a Gangtok trip
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