I always wanted to drive to Sandakphu for a long time. Its a 4WD track, so taking the Etios was not an option. After buying the Duster, i planned for Sandakphu in March this year, but due to heavy snowfall road was closed, so had to cancel visiting Sandakphu. It turned out to be an awesome Darjeeling trip.
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...-snowfall.html (A road-trip to Darjeeling & some unexpected snowfall!)
This September few car enthusiasts from Kolkata planned to drive their 4wd's to Sandakphu. The plan was made by Bhpian Hikersoul. He has driven to Sandakphu 7 times. But sadly due to some last minute work he had to opt out from this drive.
Earlier their were 10 cars scheduled for this drive but later 5 cars opted out.
At the end five cars went for the trip-
Duster AWD (Bhpian Samba, Bhpian avrendu, Bhpian SouraC)
Scorpio 4Wd (Mr.Biswadeep Mitter, Mr.Iman Bhattacherjee, Mr.Jaydeep Bose & his wife)
Pajero Sport (Bhpian Blackpearl, Bhpian Teesta, Bhpian PapaBravo & Mr.Sashwata)
Pajero SFX (Bhpian Dip27in with his friends)
Gypsy (Mr.Soham Saha with his friend)
Everyone had different itinerary. Our plan was to meet at Manebhanjan on 16th November, 8 am and drive to Sandakphu. After a night stay we will come back to Manebhanjan the very next day.
Due to shortage of time our itinerary went like this-
15th November start at 5 pm and reach Sandakphu on 16th November.
Start from Sandakphu on 17th November at 7-30 am and drive straight to Kolkata.
Day 1, Kolkata to Sandakphu, 635 km, 20 hours
Bhpian SouraC & Bhpian avrendu reached our home at 4-30 pm. We started by 5 pm and our first break was at Azadhind dhaba to refuel my Duster & meet Bhpian 1100D. We chatted for 30 minutes and moved on.
Road was good, we took Sh7 after crossing Burdwan and reached Moregram Bp by 9 pm. Had our dinner and started for the next leg. Crossing Farakka and Malda was a breeze. From Malda, Bhpian SouraC took the wheel and he drove till Botolbari.
By morning 4 am we reached Bagdogra and again refueled our car. The Scorpio and the Gypsy started on 15th morning and they stayed at Siliguri for the night. Both the Pajero's were coming behind us. They started at around 7 pm from Kolkata. We were constantly in touch over the phone. From Bagdogra i called up Mr.Soham Saha that we reached Bagdogra, so they can get ready and reach Manebhanjan by 8 am.
By 5-30 am we reached Mirik & spent some good time over there.
After getting the updates from the other cars, we decided to move ahead and stop at Manebhanjan. Around 6-45 am we reached the check post at Manebhanjan.
Duster gathering some tips from his grandfather!
At the Singalila national park forest check post, we were asked to get permission from the LandRover association first. At the LandRover association they asked for Rs 500 per car & requested us to take a car from them as well, if we do not hire local cars, their drivers will be losing their business. So we obliged. Along with our 5 cars we took a car from them as well. So it was 6 cars. After this, we bought our entry tickets from the Singalila forest department.
By 8 am all the cars reached Manebhanjan and we started our journey towards Sandakphu.
Our first break was at Chitrey for breakfast.
Here the weather was a bit foggy but as soon as we started to climb up, the weather cleared up.
Few pics from Tonglu.
Bhpian Blackpearl with his wife Bhpian Teesta
Bhpian PapaBravo
From Tonglu, Tumling came up in no time.
It was a beautiful drive through Singalila national park till Gairibas. The road was good but narrow. Any 2wd car can be driven till here. If anyone wants to go further in a 2wd car, it's risky!
From here bad road starts. The road is no more smooth and have steep switchbacks. Sandakphu is 14 km from here. This 14 km, took us nearly 2 hours.
Kalipokhri lake
Between Kalipokhri to Bikeybhanjan, we found this beautiful meadow and decided to do some photo-session.
We! Left to right - Me, Bhpian SouraC, Bhpian avrendu
From Bikeybhanjan the road is steepest. That's the last 4 km to Sandakphu.
Duster was kept in auto mode and i was maintaining a rpm between 1900-2500 in 1st gear. The road was narrow and Duster just managed to take the switchbacks in one go. Just at the last turn before reaching our hotel a Mahindra Commander came from the opposite side and i had to take my foot off from the accelerator. The incline was very steep and we were three on board. It was difficult to build momentum from there, so i reversed for around 10 feet and engaged 4wd lock and gunned the Duster at 3000 rpm. It came up easily.
A video of the switchbacks -
Finally we reached our hotel (Sherpa Chalet) around 1 pm.
Few pics from our hotel campus.
When we were having our lunch, Bhpian Blackpearl told us, they have to go down as Bhpian PapaBravo was not feeling well. He was mostly affected by AMS. So without taking a chance they left Sandakphu and went straight to Darjeeling. It was indeed a super hectic drive for Blackpearl. Kolkata to Sandakphu to Darjeeling in 23 hours!
In the afternoon, we wanted to drive to Gote for viewing the sunset. It's on the way to Phalut and 2 km from Sandakphu. All the other team members were tired, so they decided to skip visiting Gote. So three of us went ahead in my Duster.
Here the incline was less but there were more boulders on the road.
We witnessed some of the best views of sunset in our life!
Bhpian SouraC at Gote view point
![A weekend road-trip from Kolkata to Sandakphu-img_0883.jpg](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/travelogues/1937244d1688449294t-weekend-road-trip-kolkata-sandakphu-img_0883.jpg)