Recently when I was going through Quora and came across this question about 7 Itinerary to North East part of India, I realised that I have done individual posts from various parts of Sikkim and West Bengal but there is no such Travel Guide which can be helpful for someone who is planning a week long vacation in North East. This would be first part of the series, wherein we will shared detailed travel Guide for one part of the Sikkim and gradually we will share more on North Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura etc.
Related Blogpost : Sikkim Fashion || An interesting mix of traditional and contemporary
Let's start with quick snapshot of the Itinerary and then understand why this makes lot of sense. Then we will talk about some of the best ways to commute in Sikkim State, Travel tips to make your vacation pocket friendly and some of the options to get luxury experiences in the state if you wish to. Along with that we will also share about weather conditions in Sikkim, seasonalities and it's impact on your travel budget, road conditions and other relevant details which are important for planning a trip to Sikkim from different parts of the world.
Related Blog-post : Sikkim - The Land of Flowers, Pets, and Glamour
How to Reach Gangtok in Sikkim from different parts of India?
1. Day-1 : Take flight to Bagdogra (nearest Airport for Gangtok), preferably the one which landed here in morning.
3. Day-2 : Do sightseeing around Gangtok. More details in the section below which talks about top places to visit and see in & around Gangtok town.
5. Day-4 : Take day tour around Pelling and Yuksom. This is beautiful part of Sikkim in the west and we felt like spending more time here walking and lazing around.
6. Day-5 : Take a ride from Pelling to Darjeeling and it's another interesting ride which would expose you to a new world altogether. More details in the sections below.
7. Day-6 : Take a day tour of some of the top things we picked to visit, see and explore in & around Darjeeling.
8. Day-7 : Head back to Bagdogra to catch the flight back & recall all the memories of the trip on your way back.
What are best ways to commute within Sikkim State when exploring nearby places or moving between different regions of the state?
Lets talk about different transportation options for Sikkim. So there are multiple modes. If you want to go there via flight, Bagdogra is nearest airport to Gangtok/Sikkim. In fact, if you intend to visit Darjeeling, thus airport is well connected with main cities of India and some of the international airports. And after landing at Bagdogra, you have following options - Private Taxi to Gangtok or shared cabs from Siliguri.
One needs to take cab/auto to Siliguri from where you can either go in a bus or shared jeeps. Personal taxi would cost you around 2500 rs (as of April'2017). The cheaper option is to take an auto-rickshaw to Siliguri and then board shared cab. Auto would cost you 250 rs and then shared taxi to Gangtok charges 250 rs per head. Seats are allocated on first come first serve basis. Each shared cab takes 10 people and the makes sense from economics point of view. 2 on the front seat and 4 each on middle & last seat. These cabs are either Tata Sumo, Mahindra Xylo or other bigger jeep, preferably a 4*4 vehicle.
Time to time, various startups try to solve thus commute problem from Bagdogra to some of these main cities like Gangtok, Darjeeling, Peeling etc. So it makes sense to just google other convenient options available. I tried a few but failed to get appropriate option available on time.
Things to do & See in and around Gangtok :
When we start talking about main places to explore around Gangtok, 2 main names come to our mind - Nathula Pass and Tsongo Lake. Vibha and I skipped both these places - Both of us don't really like the 'touristy' places and if cost of visiting is too much, the decision becomes easier. The permit thing in Sikkim makes things worse, if you don't plan in advance. Most of the folks charge random money and that too for shared cabs. I am always certain that I don't want to waste money on things where I don't even get enough flexibility or comfort. Compromising on comfort & flexibility at higher price makes the decision easy. So sorry that we can't really comment about the experience of Nathula Pass and Tsongo lake.
Initially we thought that we will walk around the town to explore some of it's much known places, but when looked at the map, these things were spread across the region and looking at the time in hand, we planned to hire a cab for whole day rather than walking. We didn't want to miss Rumtek Monastery, which is little far from the town. We got the cab for whole day and paid 2200 Rs. Apart from me and Vibha, there was another traveller whom we met on mall road. He was from Russia but has been working in India for last few years. If you don't intend to visit Rumtek Monastery, it's better to walk around and explore places within the town.
Rumtek Monastery :
Rumket Monastery is one of the biggest monastery in this region and located in a peaceful setting around Gangtok. Gangtok town is visible on the other hill from this monastery. There is an entry ticket of 10 rs per person and one needs to take off the shoes at the gate before entering the compound.
Apart from the monastery compound there is a huge building on the backside, where monks stay and study. We took a quick tour of the place and talked to few of the monks.
MG Road :
MG road is like mall roads of Shimla & Mussourie, but much better in terms of maintenance and cleanness. This is traffic free area and there are 2 very well maintained roads for people walking in both the directions. All of the main restaurants, showrooms and shopping options are available around the MG road. That's the happening place in the town. We spent every evening in Gangtok at Mg road and on the last day, we sat their for good 2 hours observing interesting fashion of Sikkim.
Banjhakari Waterfalls and Park :
Banjhakari falls come of the way, when you come back from Rumtek Monsatery to Gangtok city. There is a right cut on the way and hardly 5-6 kms of detour. If you are planning to visit West Sikkim or have seen good waterfalls, it's a skippable option. More than a waterfall, it's converted into a theme park which is always crowded. We went inside, spent around 5 minutes near the waterfall and came out. Kids will certainly love this place.
Namgyal Institute of Tibetology :
Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Do Drul Chroten Stupa and Ropeway are nearby. If you plan to visit these, you don't even need to book a cab. Either walk to ropeway station to take bus, cab. All these 3 places can be explored on foot.
It's a Tibet museum in Gangtok, which is surrounded by trees and prayer flags. Located at a very peaceful place. Foundation of Namgyal Institute of Tibetology was set by 14th Dalai Lama in 1957 and then it was inaugurated by first prime minster of independent India in 1958. Photography is not allowed inside the museum and if you really want to explore this place well, keep at least 2 hrs for this place. Vibha really enjoyed going through some of the stuff showcased here.
This stupa is near Namgyal museum only and at a walkable distance.
Gangtok Ropeway :
Gangtok ropeway is rated quite high by lot of the folks who visit Gangtok, but when we were visiting the town the weather was not favorable. I couldn't have clicked photographs in the gloomy weather and the ride would have taken at least 1.5 hrs, including waiting time in queues. Photograph you see below is clicked from restaurant at Ropeway station. Food here was good and reasonably priced. We had our lunch here.
Ganesh Tok :
When I heard about Ganesh Tok, I was not very interested but since we had booked the car for whole day, it made sense to take a look at places on the other hill of Gangtok ;) . And after reaching the place, I loved it. It offers great views of Gangtok town and other hills around the place.
Tashi View Point :
By the time we reached Tashi view point, it started raining and there was fog all around. All these places like Ganesh Tok, Tashi View Point, waterfalls and Enche Monastery are on one road which is towards north of the Gangtok town. It seems mountains look beautiful from Tashi View point but because of fog it was disappointing for us.
Flower Exhibition Centre (we skipped it) :
When you move towards Ganesh Tok from MG road, there is a road which goes up from the back side and you see one flower exhibition centre on your right. It's also considered as one of the popular tourist places in Gangtok. We skipped it because of time constraint.
Sikkim's state assembly is also located on this road and near to Flower Exhibition centre. Above photograph shows Sikkim Assembly building and was clicking from moving car.
Seven Sisters Waterfall :
As we moved from Tashi view point, our driver told us that Seven Sisters waterfalls have dried so there is no point stopping there. The photograph below shows the waterfalls and it seems in monsoons, these waterfall gets at least 10 times water in comparison to what you see in the photograph below.
And I don't think there is any point mentioning waterfalls as things to explore in Sikkim, as there are plenty of them. And if you plan to visit West Sikkim or North Sikkim, you will get bored of these :). When we drove from Gangtok to Peling, we saw plenty of waterfalls on our way.
Enchey Monastery :
There are plenty of Monasteries in Sikkim and Enchey comes of the way when you want to go down to Gangtok town from Ganesh Tok. Beautifully built but if you have recently seen Rumtek, it may not really enjoy being here. And all that depends what exactly is happening in Monastery at that point. We were lucky to witness prayers at Enchey and that was certainly a good experience.
There are plenty of Monasteries in Sikkim and Enchey comes of the way when you want to go down to Gangtok town from Ganesh Tok. Beautifully built but if you have recently seen Rumtek, it may not really enjoy being here. And all that depends what exactly is happening in Monastery at that point. We were lucky to witness prayers at Enchey and that was certainly a good experience.
Some of the other places to explore around Gangtok can be Bakthang waterfalls, Hanuman Tok, Thakurbari Temple, Sikkim Zoological Park (which is close to Ganesh Tok), Pemayangtse Monastery, Phodong Monastery, Lingdum Monastery, Saramsa Garden etc.
While driving around Gangtok, we came across various waterfalls. If you have a week to spend around Gantok, you can easily walk around these places by finding various regions one by one.
After spending whole day around the town, MG road welcomes you with cheerful environment and plenty of food options. We loved this place called Yummy Tummy restaurant on MG road. They serve amazing sizzlers and some of the local beer brands. We loved Danceberg which is only available in Sikkim.
We stayed in a homestay at Gangtok, although didn't get a chance to try local cuisine there. We tried various Sikkimese food-options in west-sikkim. So watch out this space for more on Sikkim, main places to explore, food options and how to commute.
Do share your inputs, suggestions or questions through comments below. We promise to act fast.
Main places to visit and Explore around Pelling :
Related Blogpost - Best of Sikkim through Ankit Sood's Travelling-Camera
How to Reach Darjeeling from different parts of India?
Lets talk about different transportation options for Darjeeling. So there are multiple modes. If you want to go there via flight, Bagdogra is nearest airport to Darjeeling. In fact, if you intend to visit Sikkim, thus airport is well connected with main cities of India and some of the international airports. And after landing at Bagdogra, you have following options - Private Taxi to Dajeeling or shared cabs.
I couldn't gather much details about buses available on this route and in fact the road is not very friendly for heavy vehicles. Personal taxi would cost you around 2000 rs (as of April'2017). The cheaper option is to take an auto-rickshaw to Siliguri and then board shared cab. Auto would cost you 250 rs and then shared taxi to Darjeeling charges 130 rs per head. Seats are allocated on first come first serve basis. Each shared cab takes 10 people and the makes sense from economics point of view. 2 on the front seat and 4 each on middle & last seat. These cabs are either Tata Sumo, Mahindra Xylo or other bigger jeep, preferably a 4*4 vehicle.
Time to time, various startups try to solve thus commute problem from Bagdogra to some of these main cities like Gangtok, Darjeeling, Peeling etc. So it makes sense to just google other convenient options available. I tried a few but failed to get appropriate option available on time.
How to reach Darjeeling and main things to do around Darjeeling Hills
If you like exploring the place on foot, prefer a place around Mall road of Darjeeling. There are variety of options available with wide set of budgets and service levels. Do you prefer booking a place to stay in advance or prefer backpacking & decide a hotel when you the destination? Either ways, the basic criterion remain the same unless you have different preferences. For example - you may want to skip staying in the city and chose a homestay around one of the beautiful tea gardens in Darjeeling.
Things to do and see in Darjeeing :
It becomes tricky to book hotels online when you have preference in terms of locality. This is a problem which is not solved well. Some sites show you the map but not very helpful when you are not familiar with the place. Anyways, my job is not to complicate your life but to make it a little simple. So as suggested Mall road makes a good choice as it leads to various walks you can take during mornings and evening. We got a good room at 1200 rs in a homestay ( technically it was not a homestay) near mall and that brought a big difference to our experience. Every morning we used to walk around the mall road, raj bhawan and saw lot of birds on our way. Every evening was very eventful and a little crowded with tourists. If you like shopping, Mall road and markets around it are interesting. Some of the cool restaurants, cafes and tea boutiques are also on and around mall road.
Above is govt college of Darjeeling which comes on your left when you walk down from Mall road towards Zoo & Mountaineering institute.
Above is my lucky shot of Red Panda at Darjeeling Zoo. This Panda got up for few seconds and slept again. Nobody at that point could click the face of this Red Panda. You can find them sleeping most of the times.
Darjeeling Zoo and its Exotic Animals
Sherpa Tenzing Norgay's Inspiring Tale at Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling
Another added advantage is that you can easily walk down to Zoo, Himalayan Institute of Mountaineering, Srubbery Park, Cable car station and Museum of natural history. We explored all these places on foot from Mall road. It's a 3-4 hours affair. If you look at the map of Darjeeling, Mall road is in the middle and all these places are on north of the city.
Here is the cute girl who gave us the tickets to enter Shruberry Park at Darjeeling. She was there at the counter with her mom and was enjoying the process of taking money and giving the tickets to visitors.
So you walk down to Shrubbery Park first. Its a green place with variety of flowers. There is an entry ticket of 20 rs per person and no ticket for camera. Then head down to Himalayan Zoological Park. Entry ticket for Zoo, Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and Natural History Museum is 60 rs per person and there is common entry gate for all these 3 options. They are very close. There is also a ticket for camera and i am forgetting the exact amount for that. Don't miss Red Panda at Darjeeling Zoo.
After exploring these 3 places in one go, take the beautiful walk to Passenger Ropeway station which will take 15 minutes to reach from entry/exit gate of Darjeeling Zoo. We were aware that usually there is huge queue at ropeway and in my opinion thats because of very old infrastructure there. Its extremely slow and hence time between each trolley is significant. When we went there, the queue was huge and we had to wait for 1hr at least, so we skipped. Weather was also not very encouraging as I was not expecting good aerial shots from the trolley.
Other places of interest in north of Darjeeling hill are - Tanzig Rock, Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre and Happy Valley Tea Estate. We skipped all these 3 and planned to take taxi to go to the south of the Darjeeling town.
South part is not very good for walking so we booked the cab for visiting Japanese Peace Pagoda which is located at one of the higher peaks of Darjeeling town. We walked down from ropeway and hired a taxi. We agreed to pay 700 rs for a tour of Japanese Peace pagoda, Dali monastery , Batasia toy train loop, war memorial and Samten choling Monastery. We wer not keen to visit Rock Garden and Chunnu falls, but many folks include this place when hiring taxi. If you also want to skip the walk from mall road to other places in North, taxi would charge you around 1200 rs for the whole day.
After visiting the beautiful Japanese Peace Pagoda, we headed towards Batasia Toy Train Loop. Dali Monastery comes on the way but we planned to visit it on our return journey. Dali Monastery, Batasia Loop and Samten Choling Monastery are on the road which connects Darjeeling with Siliguri. Most of the times people come to these places in early morning after a visit to Tiger Hill. Supposedly Tiger hill offers great views of Kanchanjunga mountains during sunrise. We skipped tiger hill as we enjoyed such views from Pelling a day back.
So lets come back to the place we explored next - Batasia Toy Train Loop. There is an entry ticket of 20 rs per person here and you enter into a beautiful park with colourful flowers and lush green landscapes. This places has a loop of railway track. If you have ever seen beautiful photographs if toy trains, those must be shot at this place with beautiful backgrounds on a clear day. At most of these places you would find local dresses on rent to get clicked. Thats a common thing and you would find people enjoying in Nepali dresses as well. During our drive 2 coal engine trains crossed us but there was no train for next 45 minutes, when we were at Batasia Toy Train loop.
What you read above is what we did in a day at Darjeeling and now I am sharing information on the basis of discussions I had with local folks including my host, taxi driver, tourism info centre and the cafe guy.
Related Blogpost - Sikkim - The Land of Lakes, Rivers, and Waterfalls
Above photograph shows how the rail track is used during the free time. I loved the way these rail-tracks are part of everybody's life in Darjeeling and you can't ignore them :)
Places to eat and things to try near Mall Road in Darjeeling -
Tea at Nathmull's on mall road best experience for me. They offer variety of green and black tea options. We chose Nathmull's Limited Edition first flush green tea, which is called as Ruby. It was unbelievably awesome. Two cups costed us 410 rs and the tea itself costs 12000 rs per kg. I dont know much about tea but this was the beat green tea I ever had. They make you smell the leaves after brewing the tea and that aroma was brilliant.
Glennary's for breakfast. We had breakfast at this place and again its very different from experience you get in other places at Darjeeling. It little expensive but not if you compare it with good cafes in main cities like Delhi. They serve variety of darjeeling tea and a huge spread of english breakfast. One has to try it once at least.
Golgappas at Darjeeling are pretty different. I think its not a big change for folks from West Bengal but certainly a lot of change for Delhites and people from other parts of the world.
Cafe at Dali Monastery. Just try and you would know why I say this.
If you are interested in birds, don't miss the walk on back side of the mall road which connects you to Raj Bhawan on right side and mall road of left. Early morning and evening time is best to spot these colourful wild wings around Darjeeling. And now it's your time. If you have ever visited Darjeeling, please share your comments with places you would recommend or want to skip something from this list. If you are planning, please do write back your inputs after experiencing the place.
Budget Tips ( Money Saving Tips) : Coming soon...
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