[Travelouge] Road trip to Lake Gurudongmar - One of da highest lake in da World

Trip log by Vivek (motorcycles we ride) & Santanu

Riding by the cliff, through the Holy wind, on the twisty, beside the rich flora; Sikkim has always been a favorite expedition for xkmph.com touring team. The real spirit of adventure lies there in exploring new places and Sikkim is our benefactor, its razzmatazz beauty, intricate topography and endless tract keeps luring every member of our team in every season, may it be rainy. We have never been disappointed by our venture, but ironically the more we plunge and peek into the unseen, new roads of excitement unroll facing us. Then, another day, unseen destination, new plan for travelers’ sake, and sometimes the same we journey with novel eyes.

This time fostering our green spirit, we set the wheels in action to venture into North Sikkim, to the Holy Gurudongmar lake at 17100ft. alt, yes the less explored by motorcyclists.

Trip Dates: 11th, 12th and 13th of June, 2010-06-21
Participants: Santanu Banerjee (Yamaha R15), Suman Gurung (Yamaha R15), Amit Dewan (Yamaha R15) and Vivek Lochan (Yamaha FZ 16).

We were scheduled to meet at the Indian Oil pump on the outskirts of Siliguri and 7.30 am on the 11th of June. However, due to weather conditions and other delays, we were able to leave from Siliguri only at 9 am. After filling up the fuel tanks of our bikes at the Indian Oil pump, we rode out to Sevoke. At Sevoke, we had a quick breakfast and proceeded towards Gangtok. The weather was quite hot and we were literally cooking underneath all that gear. The roads were quite good and we were travelling at a decent 50 kmph.

We reached Gangtok at round 12 pm and decided to stop for lunch. We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant just opposite to Tashi view point. We had lunch and rested there for about an hour before proceeding on towards Mangan. We had heard that the roads onwards were quite bad and we wanted to get it over with early. Mangan is about 60 kilometres from Gangtok.

Details

The roads out of Gangtok till Mangan were very bad for the first 15 kilometres. After that, the roads were quite good and we were able to travel quite fast. There was not much traffic on the road and the scenery was quite breathtaking. We went up and down the hill so many times, it was impossible to judge our current position and altitude. Everybody had their own opinion and estimates. We were able to reach Mangan quite fast and it has the last petrol pump in the region. We decided to refuel our bikes. The FZ turned out to be the thirstiest of the lot – it was already down to half a tank.

The petrol pump is on the outskirts of the town and we then proceeded into the main town. We were supposed to receive our passes in Mangan from a fellow club member, Santosh, but he had gone to Siliguri for some work. Instead, his friend handed over the passes. He did not realize that we were coming on bikes. We spent a tense 5 minutes as he confirmed with the authorities. Thankfully, they allowed us through.

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After completing the formalities for the passes, we decided to proceed towards Lachen which was still about 60 kms away. The person who handed over our passes said that the route was pretty bad and no cars were able to traverse on the road. We soon found that to be false as there were lots of cars on the road. The condition of the road itself was not very bad. Only one 14 kilometre section from Toong to Chungtang was very heavily damaged. Vivek had a lot of fun on this section – he was considerably faster than the others thanks to the FZ’s fatter tyres and his HID headlamp.

The road after Chungtang was pretty good even though it was not properly marked and there was absolutely no traffic on the road. We kept riding and the mile markers on the side of the road kept showing names that were not even mentioned on our map. Thinking that we might have taken a wrong turn somewhere, we decided to check our map again. Thankfully, a Scorpio was going to Lachen too and the driver said that we were on the correct route. The Scorpio was also going to Lachen so they asked us to follow them. By the time we had put on our gear and were back on our bikes, the Scorpio had already disappeared.

Amit and Vivek immediately set off in hot pursuit of the Scorpio while Santanu and Suman rode along behind at a more leisurely pace. Lachen was just a 15 minute ride from where we had stopped even though it was quite a steep climb. At Lachen, we were supposed to register ourselves at the police station but it was already closed for the night. We asked around and the people said it could be done tomorrow morning. We had not booked a hotel but thankfully Lachen is filled with hotels. We were able to find a cheap hotel – just Rs. 400 per double room. The rooms were neat and clean and the hotel boys even cooked us food. We went to sleep early as we wanted to leave early for Gurudongmar.

In the morning, Amit and Suman went down to the police station to register us while Santanu and Vivek packed their bags and got ready. Unfortunately, we were in for some delays. It turns out that we need to submit photocopies of the passes at Lachen, Thangu and an army post. We did not know this earlier and we did not carry any photocopies.
Vivek and Santanu set out to find a photocopier but there was bad news again – the only photocopier was at the local school but the computer operator was out of town and he had taken the keys along with him. Not knowing what to do, we went down to the police station again and asked the inspector on duty if he could help us. At first, he told us to ask at the nearby army camp or ride down to Mangan again. We were just about to leave for the Army camp when Vivek mentioned that all he needed was a computer. Luckily, the police inspector heard this and said that he had a computer in his office and we could use it.

Vivek immediately went to work on the computer and in no time we had 4 photocopies of the passes in our hands. We thanked the police inspector profusely and proceeded on our way to Gurudongmar. There was some mention earlier of a gate at Thangu that closed at 11:30 am. We took our chances and rode towards Thangu.

The terrain was quite bad. There was some tarmac for about 10 kilometres out of Lachen but that soon disappeared and was replaced by loose gravel and small stones. The going was quite slow and the FZ was having acceleration problems. Vivek just thought it was a cold engine and kept pushing on. Soon, Vivek was lagging behind the others and having trouble freely revving the engine. We stopped for a short break and Vivek mentioned this problem to the others. They were just as confused as Vivek and we decided to ride on and see if the problem would clear itself.

Soon enough, we reached the army outpost at 12,700 feet and the FZ just did not want to climb after this. It took Vivek 30 minutes to cross just 300 feet. The rest of the group had already gone on ahead and Vivek was struggling to climb. Finally Vivek was able to catch up with the others and we decided to check and see what the problem was. We retuned the carburettor as best we could and the problem seemed to have been addressed. Vivek tested the bike and found that it was pulling along just fine.

Details

We decided to push on ahead and the R 15’s quickly took the lead. Unfortunately for Vivek, his FZ was still having problems. Within a few minutes, it was again unable to accelerate freely. We had some photo session at that place and returned back to Thangu to spend the night there and proceed further next day early morning.

Next day we woke up at 4 AM and was bit sad to see that it was raining but by 5:30 the sky was clear and we started our ride towards Gurudongmar at 6 AM. The road was at terrible mess with no existent road. We reached the last Army Check post Gaigaon at 7 AM where the Army check our Permits and also offered us Tea which was very essential at that point of time.

Finally after riding for 32 kms of broken road we reached Gurudongmar. The region and the roads were exact like Ladakh. There is a Gurudwara there as the lake is blessed by Guru Nanak and is also one of the pilgrimage place of the Sikhs. The Gurudwara is maintained by the Punjab Regiment division of ARMY. Since the place is just 5 kms away from the China Border the area is under Army Security and the permits are difficult to get. We were advised not to go round the lake as it takes 2 hours and more we stay at such an altitude of 17200 ft we may suffer with Acute Mountain Sickness.

After 1 hour we started back our return journey and stopped at the Army Check post to collect our permits back and also to stop by the World's Highest Cafeteria maintained by the Indian Army. We reached Thangu at 11:30 AM and packed our bags from the Hotel & continued our return trip after having some food. We reached Gangtok some 200 kms at 7 PM as the roads were bad due to the land slide with average speed of 30 kmph. Had tea and decided to spend the night in Gangtok as were really stressed since we were riding from 6 AM morning.

Next day we stared from Gangtok at 8 AM to reach Siliguri at 12:30 noon.

Over all the trip was very adventurous and we enjoyed every single kilometer we rode. The R15s did work smoothly and we did find the Fuel ignition worth while.

Details

There are more pictures. To see them goto the Galley and search for "gurudongmar" using the search system.

Small video: