Placid Pelling – West Sikkim – Day One
Placid Pelling(West Sikkim)
At an altitude of 7200 Ft, Pelling was where our odyssey of
After a tiring day of travel, we were looking forward to the glimpse of the mountains, next morning from the balcony! But the weather gods decided to play games with us.
All that we saw next morning was White Vacuum in all directions. The guessing game started and all of us started guessing which direction the mountains would be visible.
The morning was a disappointment for me (coz I was really looking forward to viewing the gigantic mountain).
Apparently Pelling is as close as u can get to the Khanchendzonga without leaving the material comforts of good accommodation.
Driving on narrow hanging bridges, through small gurgling streams, we got the first taste of
We then headed towards Khanchendzonga Waterfalls and then towards this lake called Khecheopalri(Kanji Pinji lake in Kiran’s words) .This is supposedly a sacred lake and myths have it that the birds do not permit even a single leaf to float on the lake surface.
The lake is really calm and the surroundings are an epitome of calm and serenity
! I had started having my mood swing (not so much a frequent visitor lately) by then and Chinki hibernation set in for a while! In the meantime, Sid’s latest obsession had set in – “SimplyMarry.Com”. For some reason the whole bunch of people (Sid, JK, and Kiran etc etc) started taking snaps of me with the purpose of publishing it in on SimplyMarry.com. They were trying to achieve the impossible – Help me get hooked on ;-)))!
We had a nice lunch back in Pelling after driving through a stream – Am not kidding when I say that Durga (our hunky driver) drove the Max through the stream. No points for guessing that this is a very convenient way of cleaning vehicles in Pelling ;-)
Post-Lunch we drove through the hills to this awfully long bridge called Singshore Bridge.This hanging bridge looks very nice from the road and the photography bonanza began! The theme of photography this time was – “Pictures through Holes”.Dont ask me what that was! The name says it all!
The last stop for the day was Pemayangtse Monastery, supposedly one of the oldest and most important monasteries in Sikkim .Its located on a small hillock and completely surrounded by Prayer Flags which look heavenly when fluttering in the breeze.Inspite of restrictions on photography , we could find tourists violating the law and taking pictures. I wonder when we ll learn to respect and obey rules atleast in a religious abode like monasteries and temples.
We also encountered a traffic hazard where our Max and a Truck (oposite direction) had a separation of few centimetres . The guys pushed the Max away from the Truck and got it going. One had to witness this scene to believe what was being done to move the vehicles :-) !
We had some nice momos in a small bar in the evening and savored the early sunset in
Thus ended Day One – A nice breath of
Some useful links for Pelling
http://www.sikkiminfo.net/pelling.htm
http://www.east-himalaya.com/sikkim/pelling.htm
2 comments:
your trip sounds like it was absolutely beautiful. thanks for the details for others who want to tread in your path. Looks very interesting...a few qs, though: how tough is it to get ...er... edible food ? and how cold does it get? the pics show you in mountain gear - assuming you went not more than 3 months ago, was it still that cold then? Do let me know...and keep up the awesome travelogues.
Great pics... luv the way u create the collage(hope its spelled rite ;) )
U gotta teach me how to do tht.
Where are the rest of the posts? Dont tell me u were done with just day 1 ;)
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