On The Lap Of The Silky Way, Part - 6

On The Lap Of The Silky Way, Part - 6

(The Sikkim Old Silk Route Tour)

Silk Route Tour Plan

We enjoyed this evening with tea, pakoras, songs, stories and chats. The three small members of this house filled us with a lot of time by performing songs and dances in their own language. In dinner, the menu was rice, bread, pulses, vegetables, chicken broth, papar and pickles; it was a real tasty food tonight.  At the dinner table we decided that we would get up at 3 am tomorrow and will go to Mankhim View Point again in anticipation of sunrise. Only a few people agreed, the rest are not willing to leave such a comfortable bed on this severe winter night and fall into a desperate ordeal.

Silk Route Tour Plan

I put the alarm on the clock. At exactly three-thirty I got up, washed my hands, eyes and mouth and went out. It was pitching dark. It is like a very pure sanctity in very cold and windy weather. The call of a couple of birds at night and the continuous chirping of crickets from the jungle by the edge of the ditch and now the sound of our shoes is added to it. I have never seen such a wonderful drunken dawn before. With every breath, only the indescribable purity seems to be spreading from pore to pore.

Silk Route Tour Plan

There were Small and big torches in everyone's hands. Slowly climbing and breaking the stairs, we appeared at the very top of the view point. In this impeccable dense darkness, not even the faces of the people beside you can be seen, only the vast sky filled with deep stars above our head, suddenly seems to have reached within absolute reach by magic. Look, that is The Orion, including the waistband, is perfectly glowing. Is that The Ursa Major, known as Saptarshi Mandal in India? Well, where is The Mars, the red planet? For a long time, we took a little lesson in recognizing the sky from one of our most respected elder brother who is a professor. The remorse remained in my mind. In the midst of such a sweet dawn, in the midst of such a quiet immersed nature, why don't we ever get back to such unearthly moments with the people we love forever?

Silk Route Tour Plan

On the far distance from the top, the villages and the cities of the hills are shining in the innumerable dotted lights. It is as if millions of lamps have been lit inside the boundless chest of darkness and this world is waiting to receive the great luminous daylight at this moment. Gradually a reddish tinge appeared in the eastern sky. Its lite glittering red color began to spread all over the sky. Singing with folded hands, we invoked this infallible good morning sun.

Silk Route Tour Plan

Suddenly, the sound of conch shells and bells came from the temple. Mangalarati, the morning worship and prayer of the deity has started in the adjacent Shiva temple. I went and saw a girl worshiping with flowers and incense sticks and performing the puja with great devotion. After finishing her worship, she offered us Prasad. A wonderful morning brought pure joy to all our consciousness. By that time, Kanchenjunga is appearing little by little in the western sky, he is only aware of the fact that he is awake, but he cannot be caught in full form, he is still elusive like the newly married bride in the veil of accumulated clouds. We spent some more time there. Just for a moment he allowed the sunlight to catch his white crown, but in the blink of an eye he hid again. One or two persons amongst us were lucky enough to capture that beautiful scenery with their foreign cameras but I am the poorest one and that scene remained elusive on my camera.

Silk Route Tour Plan

At six in the morning, we all went down a little and had tea in the tea shop on the steps of the stairs. We came back to the house floating in a tune of joy. Once again after drinking tea, taking a bath, having breakfast, at half past eight in the morning we started our today’s Journey. Today we are going to Padmachen.

On the way out of Aritar, we will cross the Kalikhola waterfall and the bridge and visit another mind-blowing waterfall on the road. The length of the road is only 45 km, about two and a half hours if you go directly, but we will have to stand in Rangli for about an hour today. There, at the army check post, all the members of the team will submit their valid Identity papers and pictures, show the proof of the vehicle and then get the clearance. This is a must to visit this part of Sikkim.

Silk Route Tour Plan

A lot of pictures were taken at the Kalikhola fountain. This road is extraordinarily beautiful. In particular, the eerie mountain range rising from the top of the Kalikhola Bridge seemed to absorb all the fatigue in a moment and aroused an air of boundless joy in the mind. After spending some time here, the journey started again.

Silk Route Tour Plan

The car came and stopped in a very crowded place. Many shops, markets, schools, colleges, bank ATMs, shouting of passengers, car drivers laughing at each other, quarrels, everything seems to be a big commotion. The name of this place is Rangli. From here the permission for Silk Route Tour is issued. After showing and depositing the voter ID card and the passport size photo of the passenger, the government official is issuing the permission letter. Same way the driver will have to submit all the valid papers for the car and will have to collect the permission letter for Car.   It took us about an hour to get here, which was basically done by the drivers, we had a nice cup of tea, and some of us spent some time eating hot Momo, Thukpa to regain energies once more.

Silk Route Tour Plan

Our next stoppage is at Keukhola Falls. It came crashing down from a great height and crashed on the road. The waterfall flows down the pitch road and flows very strongly down the culvert towards the ditch below. It was a wonderful view. The Picture hunters will definitely like this place. There have been several small shops here as well. A large food store is very crowded. We ate tea biscuits here. Large pipes have been installed on the side of the road to wash the car with shower water. Many people can wash the car together. I also saw our drivers wash the car completely free of cost.

Silk Route Tour Plan

After the photo shoot and tea episode, we start our journey again. Just a little ahed, there is Nimachen village. Now it is a complete ascent path. The car is running upwards. There is deep valley on one side and the clean village with rich calm environment on the other side.  Many houses are at the foot of the hill. Almost all the houses are decorated with various flowers.  After Nimachen there is Padmachen village. This is a very prosperous village. Just before entering the village, there is the check post of the forest department. Here they have allowed us to travel again after depositing the forest department's fees along with a copy of the clearance letter which we have collected from Rangli Check post. An employee of this office was probably brought a basket of freshly picked raw cardamom bunches from his cardamom field near the office and was picking fruits one by one from that bunches in his leisure time. Seeing my curiosity, he handed me a bunch of trees to show to everyone in the group. A few of them we tore even. Fascinated by the fragrance of fresh cardamom, we started the journey again. Now here is the gentle nature with the glittering sun, a slight chill in the air.  After a while we reached our today's residence.

To be continued..........................................