Lachung & Yumthang Valley

The road north from Gangtok follows the Teesta for six hours, past Chungthang where the Lachen and Lachung rivers meet, before climbing to Lachung, a village of wooden houses and apple orchards at about 2,700 metres. Lachung and Lachen are governed by the Dzumsa, a village council headed by an elected Pipon that still settles disputes, fixes grazing rights and rations tourist vehicles, a system found nowhere else in India. Above the houses, Lachung Monastery, built in 1880, keeps a small Nyingma community and a courtyard of prayer flags over the river noise.

Twenty-four kilometres further, at 3,564 metres, the valley opens into Yumthang, a flat green floor between snow walls with the Lachung Chu braiding across it and yaks grazing through July. From late March to mid-May the Shingba Rhododendron Sanctuary on the approach turns crimson and cream with two dozen species, and a footbridge crosses to a sulphur hot spring where villagers soak in a wooden shed. Another twenty-three kilometres up, the tarmac ends at Yume Samdong, or Zero Point, at 4,724 metres, where three streams meet and snow lies into June.

A day here is early and simple: leave Lachung at six, reach Yumthang while the light is still low, drink instant noodles and sweet tea at a roadside stall, and be back down before the afternoon cloud shuts the valley.