Silk Route Sikkim

The Silk Route in East Sikkim that is open for the tourists to explore is actually a part of the ancient Silk Road. The Ancient Silk Road was actually a huge network of ancient trade routes that stretched from Asia to the Mediterranean traversing China, India, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, Greece and Italy.The Sikkim Silk Route as we see today was only an offshoot of the Ancient Silk Road. Infact, it is only a small part of the ancient silk route that connected Lhasa in Tibet to Tamralipta in WestBengal. Lhasa was once the hotspot of ancient trade and commerce. The nearest sea port to Lhasa was at Tamralipta, or present day Tamluk in West Bengal.The Sikkim Silk Route tour can be started from either New Jalpaiguri (NJP) in West Bengal or Gangtok in Sikkim. This entire Silk Route covered a distance of 900 km from Lhasa to Tamralipta starting from Chumbi Valley in Tibet, going across Nathu La and then through the hills of East Sikkim before finally entering into the plains of Bengal. The Chumbi Valley is connected to Sikkim to the southwest via the mountain passes of Nathu La and Jelep La.