Safety Tips in State of Sikkim

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The roads of North Sikkim are in real bad shape! It requires immediate and regular care. Though these roads are maintained by BRO ( Border Road Organisation) an Indian Army outfit, responsible for construction of roads at at all border areas at high altitude. These roads are all landslide prone, the major cause of bad road in high altitude besides heavy rainfall. The light snowfall make it very slippery at times( see picture). One has to be careful but need not worry much as all thedrivers are very good and expert in the hills in these condition. Remember we are in the safe hands.

The tourists should avoid travelling to North Sikkim especially Gurudongmar area during monsoon season ( June to September). Please remember monsoon sets early in the hills, sometimes in late May the monsoon sets in and in high altitude it is always with heavy snowfall that sometime roads are blocked for several days.

We returned to Gangtok on 19th March and we came back with heavy rain and snowfall from 1.00PM to 6.00PM. It was total dark from 3.00PM roads were not visible. It took us 6hrs to cover 70kms. The snowfall continued till we entered Gangtok town at 7.00PM.
We learnt later next day that the snowfall was so heavy in the hills that all trips to North Sikkim destinations were cancelled for next three days from 19th March. We too had to cancell our trip to Nathu La pass, TSomgo Lake and Bab Mandir due to heavy snowfall, we were not given clearance by Army.

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due to the constant melting of ice the road conditions are bad,as soon as we started the journey we faced a road block due to a huge chunk of the rock fell on the road,you can see few pics of the roads as well.

There are various parts of Sikkim you can travel to. It lies at the foot of the Himalayas... but this little state used to be a seperate kingdom before and one can still visit the old ruins of the First and second capital.
Being very close to Tibet, China one has to get a special permit for the visit.
trekking permits are to be made at the necessary points. One gets a maximum of 15 days permit for this State but i can be increased for another 15 with special causes for being there.
Although this state has immense monastries and the Nature at its best to be seen there are some parts where one is prohibited to visit.
The month between mid June to mid August and December to last Feburary is not the right time to visit.