Tsongmo Lake: Sikkim Diaries

Having visited Gurudongmar Lake at 17100 feet, anyone would think Lake Tsongmo would be a piece of cake. At least, we did. And we were wrong.

Road to Tsongmo Lake. Piece of cake.

Tsongmo Lake is around 40 kms from Gangtok, and stands at a proud 12,400 feet above sea level. The road is treacherous, and that is if you can call that a road at all. Frequent mudslides in recent times have caused the road to be really bumpy, and if it rains even slightly, it gets muddier than a mud hill.

That said, almost all drivers there are experts at navigating this road; they know each nook and cranny, and they know each bump and turn. So fear not if you are not able to view the road because a huge cloud decided to make its presence known just then - the driver will just race into and past the cloud without blinking an eyelid.

Anyway, finally, we were there, we had our rubber boots on, and we were making the tricky little climb up the slope from the parking lot to the lake when, suddenly, our nostrils were assaulted with a strong, overwhelming smell of poop.

"I just pooped all over this place. Hope that's okay."

The next minute we were face to face with the yaks. The yaks are there duly earning their daily bread and studiously pooping it all back. For a few hundred rupees you can have a yak carry you around the lake and get you back to where you started. Unless you're a raging lazybones who is simply not bothered to make the 1km walk, I wouldn't recommend riding the yak - firstly, you won't be able to enjoy the view of the lake because you're holding on tightly to the yak and trying not to fall; secondly, the yak smells so bad that you frankly can't wait to get the ride over with.

Pictured: Heaven.

We stepped gingerly onto the snow; the first few yards the snow was completely brown in color, and by this point I am sure you know the reason why. I was reminded of Calvin somehow - maybe because brown snow is just the kind of thing he loves.

Slowly, slowly, as we made our way up towards the lake we could see the pristine landscape taking shape.Oh, it is beautiful! The stark black and white landscape, coupled with the crowd in their colorful sweaters screaming with excitement made for a really pretty setting.We spent a lot of time throwing snowballs at each other, sliding in the snow, and basically acting like children.

Everyone had this huge patch of wet on the back of their pants - the result of trying to slide down. Aw hell, we didn't mind! The only thing we minded were our wet gloves which we heedlessly used to make our snowballs - they didn't dry for several hours.

After a couple of hours of crazy time we came back, returned the rubber boots, and sat down for some yummy wai wai noodles. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

No wait, we then went to the Institute of Tibetology, and were looking at books at their in-house store when the lady in charge told us there was a huge snake loitering inside somewhere, and would we please keep an eye on our legs from time to time. But that's another story for another day.