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Travel industry's new hotspot is icy Nathula post on Indo-Tibet border

Come September 15 and domestic tourists will be able to pose for a souvenir picture with the People's Liberation Army personnel of China and the lofty Himalayan peaks forming the backdrop at the windswept Nathula pass on the Indo-Tibetan border.

Situated at an altitude of 4290 metres, the border post provides a rare panoramic view of the snow-clad peaks and breath-taking beauty of the Himalayas, making it a top-of-the-chart destination for tourist operators in the region.

It assumed greater significance following the 1967 war between India and China.

Earlier, only a handful of visitors with special permits from the Sikkim home department and the army authorities could go up to the Tsomgo lake en route to Nathula. However, with a notification released here by Sikkim government last week, tourists would be now permitted to visit the famous mountain pass five days a week, of course under strict army supervision.

Nathula pass formed the gateway to Tibet before it went under Chinese control, being the shortest route to Tibetan capital Lhasa. The silk trade between Kalimpong in Darjeeling district and Lhasa also used to be carried out through this route.

Sikkim Tourism Secretary Tashi Sensapa, addressing a one-day orientation course for travel and tour operators early this week, said upto 200 tourists, in groups of eight to ten, would be allowed to spend about half-an-hour between 0800 hours and 1200 hours five days a week. The specific timing was in view of the fact that the weather at the pass deteriorated every afternoon, he said.

The decision to open the post for domestic tourists came following growing demand to do so in order to promote tourism in the Himalayan border state.

The commanding officer at the border post told visiting media persons and tour guides that visitors would be advised to wear sufficient warm and wind-proof clothes as the wind velocity at the pass was over 110 km per hour, with the average day temperature hovering between five degree Celsius to the freezing point.

Tour guides and tourists would be required to adhere to some regulations while at the pass. They would have to strictly follow the army's instructions on the manner they conduct themselves at the pass, he said, adding that care must be taken not to litter the area or make any rude remarks at the Chinese military personnel posted across the border. Visitors must take pains to protect the area's fragile ecology, he said.

Anyone with high blood pressure and heart ailments and children below ten years would not be permitted to visit the mountain pass. While the army would offer basic amenities for visitors, the state tourism department would take care of the infrastructure as well as the requisite passes for visits.

The department was also planning to set up a public call office for visitors, many of whom might like to inform their near and dear ones that they were at the rarefied reaches of the pass.

The border post being of strategic location, an army liaison officer would escort the tourist groups, who might be amused by signpost on the winding Nathula road warning them of being ''under enemy (Chinese) observation,'' the commanding officer said.

The ''visit Nathula'' tours would be solely operated by the Travel Agents Association of Sikkim in collaboration with the Sikkim Tourism Department and the army authorities based in Gangtok.

''We expect a good number of holiday-makers to visit the border pass during the coming tourist season in the state. We intend to package the 'visit Nathula' along with visit Himalayas 2000, informed the tourism secretary.

Official sources said that the state tourism department would also like to showcase the ''bi-weekly'' mail exchange programe between Indian and Chinese sides every Sunday and Thursday for the tourists.

On these two days every week, a diminutive Bhumraj Gurung, an Indian Post and Telegraph Department employee in postman's uniform, arrives at the Nathula post, to deliver mail for friends and relatives living across the border. This has full sanctions of both Indian and Chinese governments.

At exactly 8.30 am, he crosses a strand of barbed wire, which makes the international border, and makes his way to a shed on the Chinese side. Gurung hands over the mailbag to his Chinese counterpart, an army postman like himself and collects the bagful of letters ment for people on the Indian side. The entire procedure takes precisely three minutes, the sources said.

The new destination comes as a big boon to the Eastern Himalaya Tourist Association, a body of travel and tour operators from Sikkim, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Siliguri. They have joined hands to promote the exotic eastern Himalayas in a big way, as part of its Visit Himalaya 2000 programme planned in the millennium year.

The post's strategic importance will not allow tourist to carry cameras, but the army has consented to keep instant Polaroid cameras there so that visitors can carry back memories. The army's newly built ''conference hall'' at the post, which has an interior that can put some corporate boardrooms to shame, is another attraction at the post.

UNI

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