Let me tell you a story, a story of an extremely long, long-drive, on a road which will suck out romance from the most romantic souls. This story is about our drive from Sandakphu to Phalut and back to Sandakphu again. Yes, that's right back in 9 hours!
We had a delayed start with not so favourable weather conditions, but we were decided to try our luck and set foot on the second highest peak of West Bengal. Now, little did we know that the road that lay ahead wont let us sit straight in the car even for 30 seconds. Countless head bumps later we reached a point where I could not any longer see the road in front of us, but guess what the driver did!
No matter how much I wanted to walk the rest of the road and LIVE, the driver insisted that it’s selfish on our part to let him die on the road alone. So there we were grasping for breath at each and every turn which looked like a direct gateway to heaven (considering you cant make the sharp turn) and finally reached Phalut only to come back the same day. The driver let us know that the part that enables the car to drive in 4-wheeled mode has fallen off and with that piece of information we go order our maggie-s because my sister has to have maggi milestones all over the world!
Now for the return journey, I would say I had started trusting our driver a lot more than the first time and decided to be in the car itself and just go with the flow (sorry headbumps!) It was as if to make up for the Kanchenjunga view that we missed we were showered with hailstorms that made the roads so picturesque (and a little more dangerous). We had to stop for few minutes to take it all in, what we were feeling at that very moment!
A little help from a certain “Monk” and drags of some not so healthy stuff that killed Mukesh, it started to feel real. We made it back and how! Next day we even found our lost backpack (people here are the best) and to celebrate that there was of-course a sponsored 3-course meal lunch at Darjeeling.
Special thanks to PandimJi, I really doubt we could make it to Phalut and back without him on the steering wheel.
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