Goecha La is beautiful lake situated in the north part of Himalaya,and is at height of 5000m.
WE left from bangalore on friday morning thinking to reach Yuksom same day, but mountain roads made us to stay in jorthang (one of the major junction in Sikkim). Next day morning we have to leave yuksom early but hotel owner locked the staircase and was sleeping. Almost 45-60 mins were spent making that guy open the door.
AT bus stand , we came to know public trasport for yuksom is very rarely avalible and normall starts 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We reserved a car and travellled for about 3 hours to reach yuksom about 10:30AM.
Our plan was to start the trek same day, nobody was ready to go for the trek and we have to cancel our plan. Evening was spent arranging trek stuff and a portar cum guide (will be refered as gudie throughout the blog) who can help us on the way.
WE bought plenty of rice,milk,dal,onion,potatoes and wai-wai as we are in north east India. Plenty of foreginers were there at the place, Gupta restaurent provides good food.
We need to get our medical certificate which was sold at Rs.50 (i guess money will be shared between all the relevant person) , sister signed as doctor was not there and the same form was submitted to police station next day.
Day 1 - Got ready by 7:30 and our guide came with his carry bucket. submitted the documents at police station and took our permit from the entry point of kanchendzonga national park.
Our guide took stove and cooker on the way, trek was steep in the start and within 2 hours I was huffing like anything.
We reached Sachen around 1:00 PM and planne to cook our lunch.I cut my finger while chopping onions and almost 2 hours were spent there for prepartion and eating. I was thinking we will go to Bakhim today and will stay.
I took us 2 hours to reach Bakhim as there is steep high after the bridge and all the huts were occupied by HMI group and we have to leave for Tshoka same day.
One more hour and we set up the tent in dark and took small room to cook the food. Our guide discussion with local proved out to be fruitful and we got some place inside the dining room. We had our sleeping bags and mats which helped us to spend the night warm.
Day2 - early morning we took the last night food with tea and left the place around 7:30. It was another hard day, it was getting steeper and higher and it took us almost 2:30 hours to reach Phedang.
Robin and group caught us here ( I came in contact with robin from my blog - http://www.treksinhimalaya.com/), water was almost 15 mins away. Our guide hellped us and after refueling ourselves with water we left the place.
Phedang to Dzongri is again one difficult path, first 1:30 hour is steep climb and we reach deowali, Dzongri is visible from here and next part took 30mins and life was good.
I spent rest of the evening drying cloths, moving around. I was feeling a bit of mountain sicknesss and took garlic soup.
Day 3 - We left around 5:30 for the view points, kanchendzonga was very clear in the morning and we spent almost one hour there ( Phone netwrok here sometimes).
We planned to leave back to tshoka as we did not had required stuff for thansing and Goecha La Trek.
Geocha La - It is advisable to camp at Lamune and then go for Goecha La early morning.
Thangsing - It has small kitchen, staying here in night is easy but difficult to make Goecha La third view point from here in the morning.
We reached Tshoka in the afternoon since all room were booked we decided to leave for Bakhim. we cooked Dal,Rice,Sabji and had evening with Phurshing (our side) singing songs and telling jokes.
Day 4- Left early evening to reach yuksom, it took almost 5 hours and reached yuksom by 1 PM.
Fisrst thing i did there was to have parantha and butter at Gupta Restaurent. then arranged my stuff a bit as i have to spend three more days around. In the evening we been to Dubdi Monastery, oldest monastery of Sikkim.
Day 5 - Plan was to go Kechopari lake by car, but we came to know about homestay at the top of the mountian, so we left on ourselves. It is 17 km by road and about 10km by Jungle.It took us almost 4 hours and we directly reached the top of the mountain.
Next full day was gone in travellig to reach Siliguri since we came by darjeeling which was close due to fire in the market.
Had a nice stay at Siliguri with Sadhu and left for Kolkata where i met Abhijeet sir to relive my memories of Kalindhi Khal Trek.
