Some times we travel to explore the journey like Ladakh or Spiti. But some journey's are made to visit the popular destination. This was one of those short trips where I wanted to just explore the frozen lake "Gurudongmar Lake" in the Lachen region of Sikkhim. It is located at an altitude of 5,425 meters above sea level and was named after 'Guru Padmasambhava', founder of Tibetan Buddhism. The beauty of the lake is that it is frozen for the most part of the year. However, there is a small portion of the lake which never freezes. Spooky? No, the legend is that due to the frozen state of the lake, local people were starved of drinking water and appealed to the Guru to help. The Guru accepted and placed his hand on a small portion of the lake which stopped freezing. Thus, the lake is considered very sacred.
To get here, one can hire a bike or a car. We hired a car and the driver was very kind. I am usually a kind of person who would interact with the driver to understand their lifestlye and millions of stories. It was fun. During the conversation, he told us about a new tourist place which was discovered very recently.
The location is known as 'Kala Pathar'.
Ps. Not to be confused with the Kala Pathar of the Everest Expedition.
This location is not found on Google Maps as well. The driver offered to take us to this place for an additional charge of 2K and I agreed immediately. I would be the last person who would want to miss out something new for some extra bucks. The ride to the secret location was about an hour long. The journey on the way was beautiful. As time went by, brown mountains were replaced by snowy peaks and we were just in a middle of snowy trails. The destination may not be something which would be in the bucket list to visit, but coming this far was worth the money. We were in a isolated place with few people and lots of snow to enjoy.
To put icing on the cake, I even experienced my first snowfall. The moment was magical. 2k well spend? Hell yeah!!!
In any normal day, I would have guided my fellow readers the exact location. However, that day I was suffering from Altitude Sickness and thus, was not at my 100%.
Nevertheless, the journey outgrew the destination once again. Beautiful and surreal.
