The love for all these mountain passes started when I used to see the images of bikers, adventurous travelers taking cool pics infront of those yellow boards like Nathu La officially built by ‘Border Road Organisation’ in memory of constructing roads at such terrible weathers, harsh conditions that too usually in the border and very remote areas. Usually it would be in Umling La (highest motorable pass of the world), Khardung La, Chang La, Tanglang La in Ladakh region mostly by the bikers. Being a 19 year old kid, I desperately needed to visit such a place, but without proper biking experience it’s not at all recommended to visit Ladakh at this age.
All about Sikkim
But that wish of mine came true when I happened to visit Sikkim on one of my long trips. I closely looked into such places as it’s a border locked state, luckily I was able to take out a few mountain passes close to Chinese territory. Few were hard to reach, but the one very popularly called as Nathu La was comparatively easy to reach and explore in a single day.
We reached Gangtok on the previous day and had a beautiful visit to MG Marg in the night while taking some medicines, snacks for the next day. So there are few places in India, where even Indians need a permit called Inner Line Permit to visit those places, Nathu La is one of them as it’s a gateway to trade with China and the pilgrims traveling to Kailash Yatra also enter China this way.
The Journey to NathuLa
This must be done in advance and I made it 15 days before the trip with the local tour operator in Gangtok. Our taxi was ready in the taxi stand early in the morning and departure was scheduled at 7. We got up at 6 and were prepared for one of the most expected and the best part of our current trip with complete enthusiasm.
Bright morning completely mounted in clouds, pleasant weather in Gangtok was an eye treat to watch and we hurried to the taxi stand in no time. So journey was of 60 kms and the challenging parts of the journey was the roads as it’s a mountain area and that too in monsoon season, landslides were a terrible issue and we would be gaining a lot of height at a very small time gap. For anyone who’s not familiar with visiting the mountains, this would be a very serious issue as Acute Mountain Sickness causes respiratory problems which can be fatal sometimes. We started the journey right at 7:30 AM in the taxi we hired and slowly started gaining height.
The Geography
Gangtok is at a height of 5,700ft and Nathu La is exactly 14,140ft which is nearly 2.5 times of the original height within 60 kms. So this was such a challenging journey for people not much familiar living in high altitude areas specially South Indians. The lush green mountains of Sikkim were extremely beautiful to watch out, but the dense clouds in the morning were blocking the entire view everywhere, but the pattern of thick white clouds itself was such an eye treat to watch. We could see the boards of BRO everywhere and actually BRO is extremely creative with the road signs, you can witness it anywhere you go.
We were most of the time in spiral motion almost the whole journey and ascending at a very high pace. The Buddhist cotton flags could be seen everywhere all around all the bridges, local shops and vehicles, it added extreme beauty to the journey.
Waitt!! How did I forget this, the journey around the Pahads is incomplete without tasting Maggi with hot chai. Our driver stopped at a local shop and the temperature had already dipped below 5 from 9(in Gangtok). We could feel the cold even after being completely packed, though we were finding hard to take in oxygen (as we go onto higher altitudes, the level of oxygen decreases making hard to inhale thus causing respiratory problems) we were kind of fine with the weather, thanks to our adventurous experiences which makes us very easy to adapt to any conditions in no time.
We had delicious maggi in a bowl with the hot chai, honestly that’s the best maggi chai I ever had till date in such lovely chilling weather. After clicking a few pics we resumed our journey, where we had already reached half of it. We could notice the Army trucks, jeeps all around the way which were actually posted in various posts around the border. At one point of time during the journey, I came across one board which was not placed by BRO, but by someone else, which read something like this.
I was actually kind of shocked seeing this and when I opened Google Maps, I was shocked to see Nathu La pass 20 kms and even Chinese territory is 20 kms too. Then the journey continued and we could see much more Army establishments, Army camps, security checks as we were closer to the borders. 
NathuLa Pass: The Gateway to China
Finally after a few security checks, we were finally in my dream destination of 2022, Nathu La Pass , the gateway to China at a height of 14,140ft above the sea level. The yellow board I was referring to was just in front of me, I was just waiting to smash it with as many photos as possible. The temperature was 0 to -1 at that time, we were experiencing such low temperatures for the very first time. But the chilling weather was making us much more excited.
The Chinese Timezone
Our driver just informed us that the mobile would set to Chinese timing, so refer your watches to check the timings and actually he was right when we checked it. This was such a lovely place as you get the experience of such high altitude, the snowfall if you visit in winters, a chance to meet Indian and Chinese soldiers and some intense feeling of patriotism. So we clicked a few pictures in front of the yellow board and felt so satisfied, kind of a dream come true moment. It was so crowded that we had to wait for our turn. After that, we headed to the main gate between India and China.
On the way we could see everywhere so many people were collapsing due to AMS and the Indian Army was present to take care of each and everyone there. Immense respect for their selfless service to the nation.
Inches away from China
We climbed the stairs, had a meet with our brave Jawans from various parts of our country posted on the border for our safety. We felt so proud of them for their dedication, determination and their motive to defend our Nation. Once we headed further now actually we were right in front of the Chinese gate. We stepped inside the Chinese territory(marking it as our first and very small international trip without visa or passport xD). This is the gate heading to some state in China and the Chinese soldiers were guarding their borders. We greeted them and had a small talk with them for a few minutes.
They were very humble and friendly with us. Though we were fine, we had to walk slowly and take deep breaths for proper respiration or else we would feel numb and exhausted within no time. After this visit we again headed to the yellow board again and as I specially took the Karnataka flag to take pictures there, took some very special pictures which I would never ever forget in my life. We didn’t even come to know so many things happened in 2 hours and our driver signed us to come back but we were in no mood at all to go back.
But still every good thing should come to an end, with a heavy heart once again taking a proper sight of the Indian Flag flying high, the long parallel lush green mountain range covered with thick clouds, the Army camps and the Jawans we headed back to the taxi.
Beyond NathuLa Pass in Sikkim
Actually our taxi was just planned to visit only Nathu La and our driver came up with a twist( a new offer ) and all of us agreed to it in no time without a second thought for the return journey with entirely different routes. These are the remote and special areas landlocked with multiple borders of different countries and getting such a chance to explore is really a wonderful thing. So we moved to experience another unforgettable episode, which I would post as the second part of the Sikkim series very soon. To be continued… (Make sure you check more about Sikkim here)
Nice work brother 👏