- jn marg opened, visitors relish nathu-la & chhangu lake The trinity of Sikkim tourism — Nathu-la, Chhangu Lake and Baba Mandir in the East district — was declared open for visitors coming through the Jawaharlal Nehru Marg for the first time today after the September 18 earthquake. The high altitude spots with Nathu-la at 14,400ft were closed to tourists following multiple slides along the JN Marg triggered by the quake. “Eighty vehicles carrying tourists went to Chhangu Lake, Nathu-la and Baba Mandir today though the road condition is as vulnerable as before. We will brief the tourists every morning at the 3rd Mile check post on the road and weather conditions and urge them to return early,” said Chiley Tshering Bhutia, the officer-in-charge of Sherathang police station. Chhangu Lake, 35km from Gangtok, is situated at 12,400ft and close to Sherathang. The 52km-long JN Marg connecting Gangtok with the Nathu-la border had been blocked by boulders brought down from the hillside by 22 slides of various degree. Three stretches of JN Marg had also been damaged in the quake and the strategic road was restored by Project Swastik of Border Roads Organisation (BRO) on September 29. Some of the Thai tourists in Gangtok upon their return from Chhangu Lake. Picture by Prabin Khaling But the Sikkim tourism department decided not to allow tourist vehicles to pass through JN Marg until the road conditions were found safe enough. “We started issuing permits to tourists to visit Nathu-la and Chhangu Lake from today. As the road is narrow at some points, the police will be escorting the vehicles to avoid traffic disruption,” said tourism permit officer Sonam Rinchen. Rinchen said the department had issued permits to visit Nathu-la and Chhangu Lake through the Rongli-Nathu La road in the past few days. He said there were very few takers for this route as one had to travel some 180km to reach Nathu-la from Gangtok via Rongli. According to the Sherathang police station in-charge, the visitors are asked to leave the tourist spots early because of the bad weather in the high altitude areas. “The weather is bad in the afternoon and we are advising tourists not to delay their return to Gangtok from Nathu-la or Chhangu Lake as rainfall or snowfall could block the road. There was snowfall in Sherathang and the areas above it today. The tourist vehicles started the return trips at 2pm today,” he said. A Thai tourist team managed to reach back Gangtok by 2pm after visiting Chhangu Lake. “The rocky road was a problem. But we enjoyed the trip to Chhangu Lake. The lake is very beautiful,” said Sai Aneknamwong, who was part of the 13-member tourist group from Bangkok. They had come to Gangtok yesterday after touring Lachung and Yumesamdong in North Sikkim. The Thai tourists were the first group to visit North Sikkim after the earthquake which had snapped the roads in the district. “We had planned our trip to Sikkim last year. We had seen photographs of the beautiful mountains in North Sikkim taken by our friend during his visit and we wanted to come. Our tour of North Sikkim and Chhangu Lake has been worth it,” said Aneknamwong. The Thai tourists were given permits to North Sikkim on a ‘trial run’ by the Sikkim tourism department. “North Sikkim is still closed for tourists. The Thai group had been sent on a trial basis. We will take a decision on allowing tourists to North Sikkim in a couple of days,” said a tourism official. The closure of destinations in North and East districts has hit the tourist inflow to Sikkim during the festive season of Puja and Diwali. Last year, some 1.5 lakh domestic tourists had visited Sikkim during the months of September-October-November according to tourism department records. However, this season, the tourist flow is hardly 10 per cent of the last year’s figure and most of the visitors are going to West and South Sikkim, said tourism officials and tour operators. The tour operators said Nathu-la, Chhangu Lake and Baba Mandir axis was the ‘bread and butter’ of Sikkim tourism as snow covered mountains could be seen within a two-hour journey from Gangtok. During the peak seasons of April-May and September-October, more than 300 vehicles carrying tourists are taken to these tourist spots daily.