Namchi and Beyond
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| Aunties Shop |
Jigme came at around 8:10 in the morning. We were in a hurry so we packed up and left quickly at around 8:30 am. We took a different root today. We didn't cross the bridge today but took a road towards north keeping the Rangeet river on our left. As I was sitting on the left side so I was able to watch the river beneath me absolutely green in colour flowing towards the opposite direction of our journey. It was quite early in the morning so the air was quite chilled. We moved on towards a place called Namchi which is around one and half our from Jorthang. this route was quite inhabited as this route is quite a regular one with people going to work to Namchi from Jorthang and vice versa. There are small little settlements after every few minutes. The Rangeet river stayed with us for around 20 mins. Then we moved towards east to Namchi town. Soon enough at around 10 am. we reached Namchi Town.
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| Namchi Main Square |
Namchi is quite a big town specially compared to Jorthang. Its the district head for South Sikkim district. Its on top of a hill and looks more like a beautiful Hill station. It took my attention while we were crossing the town as there are quite a few nice places to visit there . Also Mr. Jigme told me about a few .There is Char Dham Temple, A Buddhist Temple, a newly developed rope way(opened 2 months before my visit) and a very nice Mountain garden on the top of a nearby hill. So I decided come back for a tour at this place. May be after the 3rd day. I will tell you about that next time.
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| On the way to first school |
We went on a little bit above, crossing a hill then went up a quite a bit. This was quite high and almost above the clouds. So of course the scenery became amazing and there were small wooden homes dotted across the climb. Almost all of them had beautifully decorated flower pots filled with colourful flowers. Whenever you watch them from a distance from a curve all those houses together looked absolutely stunning. Soon enough at around 11:30 am we reached our first school on top of a hill.
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| Namchi from above |
We were in of a bit hurry that day, so we finished up the work and said goodbye to them. I could see the entire Namchi Town from the top.
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| Way to the second school |
We went back down hill from there and after a few turns we went up towards north again. In the distance we could see the snow peeked mountains. The scenery was always great and that made the journey so blissful at list in the first two days. We covered different mountainous roads and crossed valleys and reached small locality to have lunch at around 1:30 pm.
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| Small stoppage for lunch |
The thing is, in the mountains it doesn't matter where you stop. It always gives you natural beauty. The more I was travelling I more I was realizing it in that trip. I had been to mountains before but mostly touristy places for vacation and did usual staffs. But this experience was different and quite refreshing. I was at work, supposedly but the workplace was the open nature with its absolute beauty. So these few days was absolutely amazing before going back to regular office schedules.
Anyway we finished up lunch and went on. We reached the school at around 2 pm . It was not far from the place we stopped for lunch. It was also above a hill but the road was good here so we didn't have much problem reaching it.
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| Returning back to Jorthang |
Once I was done with our work with the principal we started our return. It took us two and half hours to return to Jorthang.
Once we returned on the and Jigme left me for the day, I thought of exploring the town of Jorthang this night, which I couldn't do on the first two days. After freshening up I went out for walk in the town. I started walking through the town square and towards the riverbed. As X-mas was coming so people were decorating the area. Jorthang did't have huge shops or Mall or anything as such. But filled with small shops mostly concentrated in the town center area along the two main squares. There were not many restaurants but enough small food stalls to cover your basic requirement. I actually found some very nice small eateries with great himalayan food options (Specially thupka and a Momos )along with regular Indian options also. As I was going by the river I found some detour route back to the town from the back side where I found a huge play ground. That filled me up with joy. Lots of kids were playing there. Lights were coming out slowly as the evening was approaching. It made the place look surreal. The distant hills of darjeeling were also filling up with lights. The whole place suddenly just looked so magical. Slowly I walked on and more or less covered the main town area by foot.
As I said before the town was so clean that I started to really love staying here. There were nice sitting areas in the main squares with green divider through the middle. I sat on those chairs for quite some time that evening . It was so relaxing after all the travel during the day. Anyways that ends todays story.
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X-mas Decorations at the Town center
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| Preparation for sports event |
Till the second day our drive was easy. But from then on, they started to become more challenging as we had to take longer and more difficult paths, reaching more remote locations. But of course the reward was also amazing. But that's a story for a another day.
Please share your thoughts and comments and I will come back with the next part of the journey tomorrow.
Thanks
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