April 5th - Day 1 - Land and Bond

Bagdogra to Sombarey
Pickup from Bagdogra airport and drive to Soreng .
O/n at a guesthouse in Soreng
5 Hours Drive



Ready to Head out from Ahmedabad

After an uneventful flight from Ahmedabad to Delhi, we meet up with Nagesh, Kavita, Minoti, Mrinal, Ron and Anuja at Delhi Airport and fly to Bagdogra. Meet with Venky, Viji, and Usha Uthup in Bagdogra (30 min delay for photographs and autographs at Bagdogra airport).


We all meet up @ Bagdogra Airport

Yup - Usha Uthup (with Mona in the Background)

Meet with Piran (Bawa colony, Bombay) drive to lunch @ Marina. Sumptuous lunch and drinks (Piran thought we hadn’t seen food before and would rather eat than trek; the latter is true I think). Buy last minute supplies and get on the long drive to Sombarey… more like an F1 race between the two drivers Promod and Bikki.
Saw a bunch of people and cops standing by the side of the ridge looking down, “What happened” Promod asks a bystander in Nepali – “Car went down the ridge” he replies casually – F*&# !! Didn’t look like they were calling 911.

Lunch @ Marina Restaurant, Siliguri

Stop for awesome tea, get past the “Checkpoint” into Sikkim – “No need for ILP” Piran proclaims in the other car, which became the biggest joke for the rest of the turbulent (with a capital T) drive that I tried to and Venky succeeded in sleeping in. Reach the Guest house finally – ‘Forest Rest House, Aden’. Get the bags down and settle into the waiting lounge. “That ILP thing I said down there, I lied” Piran announced, as the lights went out for the night. “The lights will be back soon” – another lie. “I need your passports for two days” Piran says, “My colleague Ganesh will get your ILPs for you and meet you in two days”. “Can I give one of my kidneys instead ?” Anuja asks, while Mona squashed all plans of us being in the wild without passports, with an authorative tone that I am more than accustomed to. “OK, we’ll give them to you, but either one of us comes down with you to get the ILPs or we all wait here”. I prayed I didn’t get picked to go down and up that drive, while we all agreed to delay the trip by a couple of hrs the next morning and let Ganesh (not me, the other Ganesh, the one that Ron kept calling Nagesh) go down to get the ILPs.
Next, we finished dinner (we better stop eating and start walking soon), filled out the forms in candlelight with Venky providing torch light support with his crank thing. Passports, photographs, photocopies, forms all handed over to the very trustworthy Piran (Anuja looked like Jaya Bhadhuri in the last scene of Sholay as she handed her passport over, touching and feeling its cover and running her hands over its spine).

Forest Guest House - Aden, before the lights went out

Found our rooms in the dark of the night, got Venky & Viji over for a last chat before sleeping. Had another laugh over ILP and hit the bed with Ron’s cigarette smoke wafting in and Mona’s final words “I am so glad we will get to spend an extra couple of hours in the guest house tomorrow”. Drift into dreamless sleep in a comfortable bed for the last time now “Why the #$%^ are we going to do this trek now and sleep outdoors”. Yup - did wake once to strong wind and “Ganu, turn the non-existent fan off, will you” lightning and thunder…. Just what we will need in the wild.