Sikkim Sojourm Part 8 - Glimpses from Thangu

Settled in a Green Valley with wooden houses having slanted roofs and a stream flowing besides it, 

Thangu looks just like the drawing of a simple village which we all used to make in Kindergarten when we were children

Thangu is a tiny village while on the way to Guru Dongmar Lake. It is nestled at a height of 14000 ft. It is the last settlement before the Indo China border. An ideal place to stopover and acclimatize for the journey (in high altitude terrain) ahead this village has a mountain stream which passes by right next to it. The village is dotted with prayer flags and in the picture you can see the temple of the village as well. Small shops selling chocolates (very good in helping you to deal with altitude related problems) and biscuits abound. 

 The village temple perched over the line of houses. Notice the row of white colored prayer flags 

on hill slopes

While we stopped at Thangu for breakfast I slipped out of the room to take some snaps of the last village before India's international border with China. The Guru Dongmar Lake for your information is just 5 kms or 3.1 miles from the border.

Thangu is a small picturesque village predominantly agricultural in nature. The people are from the Lepcha tribe who are considerd to be the original inhabitants of Sikkim. A stream flows from the village and looks not only beautiful but also provides the village with water. As always I will let my photographs do the explaning :-

Inside a usual Lepcha household having breakfast. Notice the wood fired cooking stove which is also doubling up as a heater for the little one.

Another view of the house this time without the people. Notice the wooden interiors and the white sheet with religious inscriptions printed over it hanging besides the wall. Apparently the people of Thangu take their religious beliefs seriously.

The following pictures will give you a glimpse of what I saw around Thangu:-

From here(Thangu) onward we saw less of trees and more of rocks

A view of a snow capped mountain from the village. The mountain is at least 6000 meters high 

An old village structure obstructed my view of the mountain while I was taking its snap. On close inspection I realized that this might have been a religious structure built according to traditional Sikkimese architecture(notice the bamboo poles between the walls). 

A structure which would have seen Thangu in its older days and must have been in use during then. 

It would have been great to have been able to talk to it. 

You can understand the enormity of this mountain feature by taking a look at a road at the lower end of the picture which resembles more like a snake

These were the pictures I took from Thangu. Once we left Thangu the green cover of the land began to melt away giving way to a barren landscape. Despite being all brown in color this will be my most favorite segment as I enjoyed the thin air, clear skies and a quiet ambiance. Read all about it in my next blog Road to Guru Dongmar.... 

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Sikkim Sojourn Part 7 - To Thangu and Beyond.....

After a gap of a month and a half I am returning to my series 'Sikkim Sojourn'. The unfortunate earthquake in Sikkim was a prominent factor for the gap but now I have decided to bring the series to a culmination. I clicked quite a few pictures which I feel you and the world might want to take a look at. I am sure some of them will leave you pleasantly surprised. The places I found on my journey to Thangu and beyond is something you will rarely find on a map or anywhere else. This was the inspiration for me to name my blog as the 'Path Rarely Taken' because very few people know about these places and even fewer visit them. 

During my journey to Guru Dongmar Lake we had a stopover in Lachen (2750mts/9022 ft). We had to start early morning around 7 am in order to get to the Guru Dongmar Lake. We needed to do so because after 1 pm the Tibetan Plateau ( a part of North Sikkim) witnesses extreme windy conditions and also because it is a condition imposed by the Army. According to my guide the gales of wind are strong enough to make dust and fist sized rocks fly in the air and therefore it is not safe to move at that point of time. The pictures follow - 

Prayer flags dot the landscape of Sikkim (Notice the settlement on the side of the hill)

Green Green Green everywhere....

Observe another settlement between the rolling hills

 From Lachen to Thangu(4267mts/14000ft) on our way to Guru Dongmat Lake lie 2 Army Posts where our permits are checked before allowing us to travel further. One check point is before Thangu and one after it. The check point after Thangu is also an Army run cafe. 

Perched at approximately 4572 meters or 15000 ft it has been certified as the highest cafe in the world. The army men re check your permit, ask you to sit for 10 minutes in the cafe(it is compulsory) while you are served coffee and chocolates (you pay for them of course ! ) and observe you for any symptoms of altitude sickness in which case they ask you to turn back. 

And yes, please do not expect hospitality over here. Naam kya hain tera ?(Your name ?) and Idhar khadaa ho ja ! (Stand at a side) are the common verbiages used gruffly in the cafe... Refer to them as 'Sirji'(Hindi for Respected Sir) as I did and chances are that they will ignore you. Photography is glared upon and as I did not want to take a chance I did not take any pictures. But that said the Army men do a good job and they have tremendous goodwill amongst locals in Sikkim. Some more pictures -

 

One of the first snow-capped crags I set my eyes upon

 Sneak peak of the first army check post (Our guide is in the picture)

Clouds settle on the peaks which overlook the Army Post

Thangu

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(to be continued..... Glimpses from Thangu)

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