The Brother State: 10-day ride through Sikkim

My fever was now well into the triple digits, and it was accompanied by enough other symptoms to prompt me to take a home test. As I sat there in my hotel room in Siliguri, sapped of energy, with a mercifully negative result in my hand, I contemplated the 10 days that lay ahead. Climbing to nearly 18,000ft, enduring sub-zero temperatures, rain and even snowfall along the way.

Some copious medication meant I was fit enough to jump aboard the motorcycle the following morning, but only just. Thankfully, the Dominar 400 made for a welcoming steed. As I trundled out of Siliguri with 10 Dominar owners for company, it seated me in reasonable comfort, and had just enough power on tap to prove entertaining, without becoming taxing or physical. The alikeness of our machines was down to this being the Dominar Northeast Tour, one of a number of expeditions that Bajaj organises for owners of its flagship motorcycle.

That old adage of cold kills cold held true, for once. Within 60km of leaving the hotel, we were up to 6,000 feet, and the crisp, cool mountain air was a much-needed boost to my energy levels. We hadn’t even crossed over from West Bengal to Sikkim when the first novel experience came our way. It’s not every day that you share the road with a train, let alone one being pulled by a 131-year-old steam locomotive. But that’s exactly what the journey up to Darjeeling is like, with the famous Darjeeling Himalayan Railway running alongside and often cutting across the highway. And with no barricades between the railroad and  the real road, you best have your wits about you. Thankfully, this is one of those trains that really does still go “choo-choo”.

The medication wore off as the day wore on, and I just about managed to drag myself across the state border to our overnight halt in Pelling. The first night on the road was spent getting to know my companions, but I had more than just my fellow riders for company. Spotting a chunky spider the size of my outstretched palm just a few feet away from me in the washroom reminded me that I was a long way away from my cosy, wildlife-free home in Mumbai. Needless to say, that shower was cut short.

Improving health meant spirits were high the following morning, and the incredibly picturesque town of Ravangla (the lunch stop on our route to Mangan) also did its bit to help. With smooth and serpentine roads leading in and out, it was easy to smile through the sniffles and sneezes. A delicious (and rather heavy) local lunch meant nobody was in any hurry to leave, so the afternoon was spent exploring Ravangla’s lovely Buddha Park. Dominated by a glistening 130-foot Buddha statue that towers over everything around, it provided a lovely, tranquil setting against which we waited for our stomachs to settle.

We departed Mangan the following morning knowing that we would have no fuel pumps for the next three days – we really were going to be up in the mountains now. Not far down the road, we encountered the Y-fork at Chungthang, where you’re faced with two routes up into north Sikkim. Fortunately for us, we’d be exploring both paths on our ride, and we started with the left, towards Lachen.

Progress on the trip up to Lachen was slow for a variety of reasons. For starters, the road developed a tendency to suddenly stop being one, often quickly disintegrating into a dirt path, before returning to smooth tarmac later. As we inched closer to the border, a stark Army presence also became a factor, and their heavy trucks lumbered along the steep and narrow climb up the mountainside. More than anything though, the going was slow because we couldn’t help ourselves from stopping and clicking photographs. Every time we thought the view couldn’t possibly get any better, we’d climb up another seemingly vertical hairpin bend, and everything would get taken to the next level all over again.

To the soundtrack of raindrops and shutter clicks, our convoy rolled into Lachen, and seemed to immediately double the tiny town’s population. With elevation now nearing 9,000 feet and temperatures well into the single digits, that evening was spent in search of warmth. And the method chosen was to cram people into a room (for external heat) and get some rum in them (for internal heat).

It was a motley crew for sure, with all parts of the country represented. These staunch Dominar owners had shipped their personal bikes into Siliguri from as far away as Kerala and Tamil Nadu, to be able to embark on this adventure. For many, it was their first long ride. Riding gear had been carefully bought and motorcycles had been painstakingly accessorised specifically for this trip. An elderly gentleman riding with us would leave it until much later to tell us that he had a stent in his heart.

With the sheer amount and diversity of riding that our job entails, us motoring journalists often pride ourselves on being the most hardcore bikers in most rooms we enter. On that evening, in that company, though, I couldn’t help but feel like a bit of a diva, having flown straight into Bagdogra with no strings attached, and handed a clean-running motorcycle on a platter.

Nevertheless, everyone had to find the hardcore motorcyclist within them the next morning, as we began our most arduous day of the journey. In the early hours, we doubled our altitude to well over 17,000 feet. With engines and riders both gasping for oxygen and nearly frozen solid, we rolled up to the impossibly scenic Gurudongmar Lake. Between the water and the sky, nearly every shade of blue on the palette is accounted for, and separating the two are rugged snow-capped peaks that just make your jaw drop. I don’t like the word awesome very much, I think it’s terribly overused (and often where inapplicable). But for this setting, it’s the most appropriate word I can come up with.

What followed after the descent was the other side of the Chungthang Y-fork, which threw up an equally mesmerising scene. The Yumthang Valley is often referred to as the Valley of Flowers, but you’ll see none on these pages. Unusual weather patterns meant that in place of brilliant flowering fields, we received an equally riveting monochrome winter wonderland – coniferous trees dusted with snow, and soft little flakes drizzling down as we rode through.

A rest day in the capital city of Gangtok was vital. Not only because it gave us a much-needed breather from riding, but also because it’s an incredibly charming little place, and deserves a day of exploration. For starters, it’s vertical. Set on the side of a mountain, every outing feels like an adventure, as you attack one hairpin bend after another on your way to go buy milk and eggs. Its centrepiece, MG Road (yes, Gangtok has one too), is a vibrant, buzzing promenade lined with all manner of shops and stalls, with no vehicles allowed.

Curios bought, stomachs filled and hearts happy, we departed for the famous NathuLa Pass. Here, you get so close to the border with Tibet that your phone automatically changes timezones. As you’d expect, there was an ubiquitous Army presence all throughout, and it was hard not to feel admiration, gratitude and respect for these folks posted here at 14,000 feet, in bitingly cold weather, protecting our borders. More often than not, though, they seemed to have warm smiles on their faces, as did most of the locals everywhere we went in Sikkim.

We rounded out our trip with a supremely delicious lunch at the quaint little ZaKhang restaurant in Kalimpong – an authentic Bhutanese restaurant run by a Bhutanese family that even procures the vast majority of its produce from across the border. Well worth a visit if you’re ever in town.

Now back in the hot, dusty chaos of Mumbai, I can’t help but think that Sikkim is a bit of a hidden gem. Not grouped with the seven sisters of the Northeast, nor mentioned along with the heights of Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh, it flies under most people’s radars (including mine, before this trip). But every step of the way, you have snow-capped mountains, glacial waterfalls, panoramic valleys and stunning little towns fighting for your attention. I returned with nothing more than a mountain of dirty laundry, a phone gallery bursting at the seams, and a deep, burning desire to go back.