A solo trip to Sikkim was when I had my first ever date with the Himalayas. Undulating mountainscapes, snow carpeted winding roads to the state's numerous alpine lakes and passes, temperamental mountain weather, and above all, the warm hospitality of the mountain people had all left me nursing a real bad hangover when I returned to the chaos of the plains. So much so that I called it the 'Great Himalayan Hangover'. A relentless conflict ensued in my mind between obligatory office work and recurring memories of the trip.
There was another unfinished job with the mountains that was constantly fleeting across my thoughts. A glimpse of the mighty Kanchenjunga. Kanchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world and is situated along the border of Sikkim and Nepal. Besides its notoriety as one of the toughest mountains to climb, it is also revered as one of the most sacred mountains by the locals. When I arrived in Sikkim, the mountain gods did not seem to be in the best of their moods. Kanchenjunga did not reveal itself on two of the occasions when I had most piqued my curiosity, thanks to an overcast sky.
Kanchenjunga had shown its ever invincible nature. As I read more about the mountain, I became all the more obsessed with it.
So when a Trekker friend asked me to join her on the Sandakphu trek, I lunged at the opportunity! Sandakphu is the highest point in West Bengal and a moderately difficult hike rewards trekkers with something which no other treks in India can. A view of four of the five highest peaks in the world - Everest, Lhotse, and Makalu huddled together in a congregation and the majestic Kanchenjunga standing out gloriously aloof. As much magnificent as Kanchenjunga already is, its family of mountains presents themselves in yet another astounding manner, the Sleeping Buddha, giving the trek a spiritual dimension. Armed with this research, I readied myself for the trek, waiting keenly in anticipation for my tryst with the big mountains.
In the early summer heat of March, three of us left Bangalore to Siliguri and landed in Bagdogra, a modest airport in the Himalayan foothills of Bengal. A huge signboard at the terminal entry read ‘Gateway to Darjeeling and Sikkim’. Arriving later in the afternoon, we had made prior arrangements to travel to and spend our last night in the civilizations of Darjeeling before the week-long trek. The queen of hills as it is called, Darjeeling is a demanding 3 hour uphill drive from Bagdogra. A mountaineering feels to the trek started right away as our driver turned out to be one named Tseten Sherpa, a native of the hill town. As we chatted up our Sherpa along the way, he turned out to be quite a spirited guy, telling us of controversies and stories around the first ascent of Everest, about how the mountain folk treat their guests with utmost dignity and how it made sense in the greater karmic cycle of life to be kind to everyone. The sweltering heat of the plains of Siliguri slowly started to give way to crisp, cold air as we ascended the hills and by the time we reached Kurseong, about an hour away from Darjeeling, we ended up disassembling our neatly packed rucksacks and layering up with whatever warm clothing we could lay our hands on.
Gentle drops of rain had started beating on the windows of the car when our Sherpa announced that we had reached Darjeeling. Thick fog greeted the vehicles entering the hill town, and visibility was poor. Cutting the car right through the fog, ’This is real Darjeeling weather sir!’’ our Sherpa exclaimed. As he dropped us at the hotel, he wished us a good trek and parted. We promised to look out for him the next time we were in Darjeeling.
Rains started to gain pace soon and by nightfall, we could hear heavy drops slamming down on the ceiling of our 6th-floor hotel room. Electricity took off for the night and we were stuck in our rooms, with the last of dying phone batteries and absolute darkness for company. The last straw came the next morning when all of my hopes of catching a glimpse of sun-kissed Kanchenjunga came tumbling down. Looking from the balcony of our hotel room, it looked as if the entire hill town had been consumed by clouds. Grayish fluffiness encompassed the entire landscape. Despite this was a view worth savoring. With clouds above us and below us, our hotel seemed to be gloriously sandwiched between two cloud layers. Relishing the view and the delicious puri bhaji for breakfast, I concluded that the Himalayas weren’t so hostile after all. The owner of the hotel told us that it was snowing in Sandakphu.
