In May 2024, my family (Mom, dad, Uncle, aunty, cousin ‘Nidhi’ and friend ‘Namit’) went to Sikkim from Delhi.
In Part 1, I have covered our journey from Delhi to Gangtok, Nathula pass and drive to Lachung. Read about that journey here: Sikkim Part 1
In Part 2, we visited Zero Point and Yumthang Valley and returned to Gangtok. Read about that journey here: Sikkim Part 2
Also, check out some amazingly useful roadtrip products on amazon:
Pepper Spray, Pee Safe, Peechute; car freshener, Car charger, Car charging cable, Car air pump , Car tissue holder, Car vacuum cleaner, Car door edge cover guard
Contents
Day 7: Stay in Gangtok (Second stint)
We stayed at the same hotel as before (Elements Boutique Hotel) since we got a good deal for the rooms at INR2K/day (we had initially paid around INR 5K/room during our first stint).
Actually on our second stint days, the main highway to Gangtok was closed for repair due to which tourists were not able to enter the city. Hence, the hotel was at very low occupancy and they gave the rooms to us at a throwaway price.
Cafe Hopping
Gangtok has some really nice cafes and we decided to go café hopping. Some of the ones I recommend are:
- Café Lhasa: This is opposite Chopsticks on MG road. The place has very Tibetan vibe and the food was delicious. We tried the momos and ‘Thenthuk’ here and both these were delicious
At Cafe Lhasa 
Thenthuk at Cafe Lhasa
- Sikkim Coffee house: This is a roastery and has a separate café too: ‘The local café’. We really liked the Coffee roastery though – the place was more spacious than their café.
- The Coffee shop: It’s a cute place and has nice seating in their balcony (if you can mage to get those seats) overlooking the MG marg. I loved having my coffee while checking out the touristy crowd on MG Marg.
- Tashi Delek: This seemed more like a hidden gem. This was next to ‘The coffee shop’. The entrance is actually quite deceiving as it looks more like an antique shop. Once you cross their passage, you come to a beautiful terrace. We were lucky with the weather and spent quite some time here having the local beer – ‘Dansberg’ – which is from Danny Denzongpa’s brewery. Food was decent.
Search for Third driver
While we kids were café hopping, the elders were busy trying to arrange a driver for the remaining days. There were a ton of Taxi shops; our only issue was that we needed the cab at a very short notice (next day) and this was also a weekend.
To make matters worse and further skew the situation towards increased demand than supply, the highway had just opened up which was going to lead to an influx of tourists.
After asking at about 7-8 shops, my mom finally found someone who had availability for the next day. This time we all decided to speak to the driver before finalising him. The guy seemed young and quite stylish – Black tee, blue jeans and some funky shades.
We all approved and we finalised him. This was going to be our third Innvoa crysta. Fingers crossed.
Day 8: Gangtok to Pelling via Temi tea gardens and Namchi
On this day, the plan was to go from Gangtok (East Sikkim) towards Namchi (South Sikkim) and then finally to Pelling (West Sikkim).
As with the previous drivers, we requested our third driver to start late from Gangtok as we wanted to have breakfast before leaving. We had now seen the dearth of restaurants on the highways of Sikkim and preferred to eat before leaving Gangtok.
We were all ready with our reasons for starting late, but all that our driver said was “Cool”.
What?? No “Nahi ho sakta”/ “Hum faass jayenge” / “Bahut late ho jayega, Pelling nahi pahunch payenge”
We were so not ready for the “Cool” bit. This driver had surely won brownie points from all the members of our family – and that is certainly not an easy feat!
Temi Tea Gardens
We finally started from Gangtok at 8:45 AM with a full and happy stomach.
We even managed to find a cafe that opened at 8 AM (probably the only one in Gangtok) and picked up some coffee and some freshly baked Tibetan bread.
Our first was the tea garden. This was an optional stop and had a diversion of about 7-8 km. Usually people combine Sikkim with Darjeeling and hence get their dose of tea gardens there.
Since we were not going to Darjeeling, we decided to go to these tea gardens. Our decision was rewarded with beautiful weather. It was quite hot when we left Darjeeling, but by the time we approached the tea gardens, it had become cloudy with slight sporadic drizzle.
We intended this to be a quick spot, however; due to the weather, we ended up spending much more time here than planned. We walked along the gardens, had some chai and snacks and also did some shopping of tea leaves to gift friends and family.
Namchi
To be honest, I had never heard of Namchi prior to this visit.
So obviously, it was not on our list. However, since it was on our way to Pelling, we decided to stop here – visit the place and have lunch.
Our driver educated us stating that Namchi was the capital of South Sikkim and had a football stadium named ‘Bhaichung Stadium’ built by the Sikkimese government to honour Bhaichung Bhutia.
In Sikkimese ‘Namchi’ means ‘Sky high’ and that it surely is as it is situated at an altitude of about 5500 ft.
This town is fast becoming popular as pilgrimage site as it has a replica of the char dhams: Badrinath, Rameshwaram, Dwarka and Puri. In the temple complex, there is also a large statue of Lord Shiva.
I am not really a religious person, but at the time of our visit, this area was particularly serene and calm. There were hardly any tourists and it had also started to drizzle.
We spent about 2 hours here and also had lunch at a thali restaurant.
Pelling
By the time we reached Pelling, it was nearly 5 PM.
Pelling does have quite a few touristy things to see but we were here for relaxing and enjoying the mountains.
Because of this, we booked our stay in ‘Magpie Chestnut Resort’ which had rooms with the Kanchenjunga view. However; whether you do get to see Kanchenjunga or not depends on the clouds and supposedly sighting this majestic peak was not a very common sight.
After entering Pelling, we could see quite a few mountain ranges. At one point, we saw these beautiful snow covered ranges and asked our driver. He looked in the direction we pointed and was quite excited to tell us that this was Kanchenjunga.
We were extremely lucky to spot it as soon as we entered Pelling. We stopped the car and just took in the view, lest the clouds cover it by the time we reach our resort.
And it is a good thing that we did. Our resort was only 5 mins further, but by the time we reached, the clouds had covered the mountains.
Day 9: Stay at Pelling
Our resort was beautiful. The plan was to keep the best stay for the end as we had assumed we would be extremely tired by the end and would need some luxury.
We had booked the mountain view cottages and had no complains.
We had dinner and the hotel guys mentioned that the best time to sight Kanchenjunga was in the morning.
As I had still not had my fill of the mountains, I decided to wake up at 5 AM. When I asked the others in our group, I heard a very bleak “Dekthe hain” which basically meant ‘No’.
Although I was exhausted, I woke up at 5 AM but could not see anything. It was cloudy.
Since I had woken up, I sat in the balcony having my chai. About half an hour later, the weather started clearing up revealing Kanchenjunga in all its majesty.
I quickly messaged the group and one-by-one people emerged to witness the breathtaking range.
However, despite the awe-inspiring sight, they were all still so drowsy and went back in.
For me, by drowsiness and tiredness had all vanished. I don’t like the cold and hence have very rarely seen snow capped mountains
Actually this much distance between me and snow is perfect!
I clicked quite a few photos and then had another chai with the Kanchenjuga view. The viewing window was for about half an hour.
Around 6:30, I decided to go back to sleep, knowing it was going to be a long day and that I could use a bit more rest
Today was going to be our Pelling darshan day with quite a few sights lined up for us to explore. Whether we’d manage to visit them all was another matter entirely.
We had breakfast and started from our hotel at around 9:30
Rabdentse ruins and Bird Park
This was quite close to the main Pelling town and hence a short drive from our hotel. We started with the bird park.
Luckily for us, the weather on this day was splendid. The bird park was actually quite nice with many colourful birds in the aviary.
The aviary was an enormous structure that allowed visitors to enter and observe the birds up close.
We spent more than 1 hour here and then headed towards the ruins which is in the same campus as the bird park. However, there is a hike to get to the ruins. The hike is actually quite beautiful and as I said, we were lucky with the weather.
It took us about half an hour to reach the top.
It was a nice spot; however we were running out of time as we had spent way too much time in the bird park. The weather was so good here that I just wanted to site here for a while.
However; there are a few cons of travelling in a big group! There is nothing as “I want”!
The elders in our group had decided to move to the next spot and hence we got some frantic calls from them to hurry up and come back to the car.
Pelling Sky walk
This spot was actually not included in out itinerary and if we wanted to go to this spot, we had to pay an additional 1000 INR.
We decided to take a vote.
This was advertised as the first glass skywalk in India. I had seen a few posts on Instagram and was excited to see this spot.
However; while researching and seeing non Instagram photos, I realised that the skywalk did not really have anything spectacular underneath. I had assumed that I would be able to see the valley below me or a gorge or something. And the photos I saw showed a very dusty skywalk with rusty railings.
I was not excited to go here and voted for a strong ‘No’. Infact all the youngsters voted against it while the elders were in favor.
So after a very steep drive with some really scary turns, we reached the skywalk.
The spot is supposed to be great for viewing Kanchenjunga mountain range; however at the time of our visit, it was too cloudy and hence we could not see any range. As expected, we were not too impressed and I for one could not look past the rusty railings.
There is a huge statue of Chenrezig which gives this spot a spiritual touch.
After this spot, we had a few other spots like Rimbi waterfalls and some lake. However all these were at a drive of about 1.5 hours. And since we had been on the road for so many days, we decided to skip those spots and enjoy our resort instead.
So we had lunch in the town and then went back to the resort for a nice relaxing evening.
Return to Delhi
The next morning, we had a good breakfast and at around 10AM, we got into our car for a long drive to the Bagdogra airport.
The drive was uneventful and peaceful. Our last driver turned out to be the best one. He not only stopped at some good restaurants and view points, but also vibed to our music!
All in all it was an action packed trip – the kind where you need at least 2 days to recover from!