One of the earliest memories I cherish is travelling along the endless national highway 31A from West Bengal till Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim along with my family. While the journey in itself will eat up a good 3 to 4 hours of your time, the scenic highway makes up for it as one travels through the winding, binding, snaking roadway crossing the omnipresent signs/quotes that dot the entire way.
I got this collage from Romong Karthak Lepcha’s website which was a delight in itself. As is in a diverse country like India, Sikkim used to have two main tribes eons ago - the Lepcha & the Bhutia. I had a Lepcha mother and a Bhutia father so the Lepcha tribe is something very close to my heart.
Since I stay an hour’s drive from Gangtok, this means I usually have to travel through these roads to reach it. Not so much a pleasure now than back when I was in college and used to be dying to travel uphill to reach home!
hey, was in gangtok recently and the ROADS ARE IN BAD SHAPE! in feb the roads were awesome! one monsoon and our lousy tarred roads bare it all! cnn ibn or ndtv is conducting a survey on cities with the worst roads, i have a good mind to vote for bombay and gangtok!
ALSO if u really want to enjoy your ride from slg to the hills- a must read is “inheritence of loss- kiran desai”
Yeah, I know. Its like all the maintenance they do is patch up one piece of road while the other one falls apart and by the time they get to that, its already a vicious circle. Last time the roads got repaired thanks to the President APJ Kalam who insisted on nixing the chopper & travelling 4 hrs by road. Repair work commenced immediately. Wonder who should we invite to Sikkim next
(And the worst road crown should definitely go to Gangtok. Maybe that’ll wake up the sleeping officials)
Fantastic blog post pertaining to Road to Gangtok! Thoroughly love your articles!