Hi Himalaya Lovers. Here is a travelogue of my Sandakphu trek along with cinematic video of it. I am not a pro videographer but tried my best.
Sandakphu is a small hill station, situated on the India-Nepal border and provides spectacular view of Mt. Kanchenjunga in the form of Sleeping Buddha. Besides one can see Mt. Everest, Mt. Makalu, Mt. Lhotse, three sisters and many other remarkable snow clad world famous peaks.
To get to this place, you need to reach Manebhanjan, base camp to go to Sandakphu. From NJP or Bagdogra or Siliguri, you need to take a cab to Manebhanjan. You can either reserve a cab for 3500 - 4000 rupees or you can take a shared cab to Ghum for 250 rupees and from Ghum you can take another shared cab to Manebhanjan for 50 rupees. From here you have 2 options to proceed further :
1. You can do the complete trip on a Land Rover. For that you need to book Land Rover from the Land Rover Association in Manebhanjan.
2. You can challenge yourself to take the Sandakphu trek challenge.
As a Sandakphu travel guide, I provide you all details of the trek on a day by day basis.
You can always reach out to me for any questions or suggestion. I will be more than happy to help and accept constructive suggestions.
On Day 1
we reached NJP (New Jalpaiguri) by train and book a cab to Manebhanjan. 30 mins drive from NJP takes you to the mountains and we had our breakfast on a mountain side stall with some mountain delicacies. It takes about 4 hours to reach Manebhanjan and we were there by afternoon. The rest of the day was spend exploring Manebhanjan. There is a gompa just by the side of the main market. If you climb to the top, you can get a birds eye view of Manebhanjan.
Video link of Day 1: NJP to Manebhanjan
On Day 2
we booked our guide from the Gorkhaland association for 5 days and got the Singalila national park entry permit from the forrest offfice at Manebhanjan. We booked a cab till Chitrey, 3 km from Manebhanjan and its very stiff. We started our trek from Chitrey at around 10 am and reached Tumling at around 4 pm. There are couple of eating joints on the way where you can get almost every basic food. Some of them also provide accomodation. The trek route to Tumling is through open meadows and some forest areas. We were trekking through the clouds.
Video link of Day 2: Manebhanjan to Tumling
On day 3
we witnessed sunrise at 5 am after spending a comfortable cold night. From the sunrise point you will witness the spectacular sun rise and the changing color of Sleeping Buddha just in front of you.
Today we started our trek after breakfast at around 9 am. We took the Jaubari route to Gairias. Some parts are covered with Bamboo forest in this route. The route goes through Nepal and we verified our National park entry permit with the Nepal checkpost. Today was the longest day of the trek. We needed to cover 14 km uphill till Kalipokhari. We reached our destination at around 6pm after having lunch at Kaiyakata. Today we trekked through dense forest areas and it was a adventure by itself.
Video link of Day 3: Tumling to Kalipokhari
On Day 4
we rise up a bit late as one of our guy was not feeling well and had to descend down for treatment. We spend half the day in Kalipokhari and had lunch there. Last night was a experience in itself. it was around -6 degree and wind was blowing like hell. Sometime it was feeling like our log huts will get blown by it. The flag poles were swinging like logs. Today we spend lot of time exploring the region around frozen Kalipokhari lake. The lake has religious importance to the locals. Also it is said that it is a like of poison. ‘Kali’ means poison. In the afternoon we decided to take a Land Rover to Sandakphu. We were lucky, that Pandim Lodge had their own Land rover and drove us to Sandakphu at Rs. 2000. We witnessed sun set over the Kanchenjunga and got a clear view of Everest as well. It’s a panorama of great snow clad mountains, whose beauty can only be felt at that moment. We settled down for the day at Sandakphu.
Video link of Day 4: Sandakphu
On Day 5
We rise up early at 5 am for the sunrise. It was a awesome view from the Sunrise point of Sandakphu but the real charm can be felt if you view the same from All, 1km from Sandakphu. After returning from the sunrise point we had our breakfast in the hotel. Since we planed to leave early in the morning we had ordered breakfast last night and they agreed to prepare our breakfast early.
Today its a 13 km long descent through dense forest and gradually disappearing Sleeping Buddha to Gurdum. This is the day when your legs will feel the pressure :) We reached Gurdum at around 2pm and had our lunch there only. It was a awesome lunch at Mingma homestay.
Video link of Day 5: Sandakphu to Gurdum
On Day 6
we did the most leisurely trek. We rise up late and had a good brekfast at Gurdum. We spend lot of time chit chatting with the owner of the property about their life style and culture. We started or descend at around 12 noon and reached Shrikhola bridge at around 2pm. It was just 5 km from Gurdum. Shrikhola is a very beautiful place and Hotel Shovraj was just by the side of the river with a personal river bed. we liked the place soo much that we stayed for one more day here. The owner arranged free bonfire for us in the lawn. With roasted chicken and music, it was a great end of the trip. We booked our cab for the next day return via the property owner, who was a very generous man to help us out with almost every thing. Next morning we had our cab at 5 am and we set for the return.
Video link of Day 6: Gurdum to Shrikhola/Sreekhola