Food on the Sandakphu Trek: Dal-bhat to Tongba

How eating works on the ridge

There are no restaurants on the Singalila Ridge, only lodge kitchens. Every lodge at Tumling, Tonglu, Gairibas, Kalipokhri, Sandakphu and beyond is a family house with a dining room, usually built around a wood or yak-dung stove, and a kitchen beside it where the mother or daughter of the house cooks. You eat where you sleep, order in the evening for the morning, and pay at checkout.

The menus are short and similar from lodge to lodge, because every ingredient comes up by Land Rover or on someone's back. Rice, lentils, potatoes, flour, eggs, instant noodles, cabbage and onions keep well; anything fresh beyond that is a bonus. Prices rise as you climb, so a plate of dal-bhat that costs ₹200 at Tumling may cost ₹350 at Sandakphu. That is not a markup for trekkers; it is the price of carrying a gas cylinder up a 31 km stone track.

The government trekkers' huts at Tonglu, Gairibas and Sandakphu have not always run kitchens, and their operation changes from season to season, so check current status before you travel; your guide will steer you to a family lodge for meals if a hut kitchen is closed.

The plates you will eat most

Most trekkers settle into the same rhythm within a day: tea and porridge or eggs at dawn, noodle soup or a packed lunch on the trail, dal-bhat at night. These are the dishes you will see on every board.

Why dal-bhat is the trekker's meal

Dal-bhat, rice with lentils, is what the families who run the lodges eat every day, and it is what we order every night. It comes with a vegetable curry, usually potato, cabbage or squash, a sharp pickle of radish or tomato, and sometimes a spoonful of saag, the local greens. Most lodges refill rice and dal at no extra cost, which makes it the best value meal on the trail and the best fuel for a day of climbing.

Order dal-bhat early, and order for the whole group at once. A lodge kitchen with one stove can feed fifteen people the same dish faster than it can make six different ones. Your guide will usually take your orders and pass them on, and guides and porters often eat after the trekkers, in the kitchen with the family.

Hill flavours worth trying

Beyond the trail staples, the kitchens of the ridge carry the food of the Nepali-speaking hills, and some of it is worth asking for. Lodges at Tumling and Kalipokhri, and the homestays on the descent at Gorkhey, Samanden and Rammam, are the most likely to cook something local if you ask a day ahead.

• Chhurpi: hard cheese made from cow or yak milk, sold in small blocks or on a string, chewed slowly for an hour on the trail; a soft fresh version goes into curries and soup.
• Gundruk: fermented and dried leafy greens, cooked into a sour soup that hill families swear by on cold evenings.
• Kinema: fermented soybean with a strong smell and a nutty taste, fried with onion and chilli, more common in homes than on lodge menus.
• Sel roti: a ring-shaped, slightly sweet rice-flour bread, fried at festivals and sometimes in the morning for guests.
• Aloo dum and local potatoes: the ridge villages grow potatoes, and a plate of spicy boiled potatoes is a common snack.
• Dalle khursani: the small round red chilli of the Darjeeling and Sikkim hills, very hot, often served as a pickle.

Tongba and chhang, told straight

Tongba and chhang are the traditional fermented drinks of the eastern hills, and you will hear about them on the trek. Tongba is associated above all with the Limbu people of eastern Nepal. It is made from millet that is cooked, mixed with a dry starter called marcha and left to ferment for days or weeks. The fermented grain is packed into a tall wooden or bamboo vessel, also called a tongba, hot water is poured over it, and you sip the warm, mildly sour liquid through a bamboo straw with a closed end and side slits that keep the grain out. The vessel is topped up with hot water two or three times. In the Darjeeling hills the fermented millet itself is often called jaanr.

Chhang is the wider Himalayan word, used by Sherpa, Tibetan and other Buddhist communities, for a cloudy, lightly alcoholic drink made from fermented barley, millet or rice, drunk cold or warm. Raksi is something else: a clear spirit distilled from fermented grain, and much stronger.

Some lodges and homes on the ridge, particularly on the Nepal side, will serve tongba or chhang, and a few do not at all; nothing about it is guaranteed. Our honest advice is to wait until the descent. Alcohol dehydrates you, disturbs sleep and can mask the early signs of altitude sickness, so the nights at Kalipokhri and Sandakphu are the wrong place for it. A shared tongba at Rimbik or Srikhola on the last evening, with your guide, is a far better way to end the trek.

A day of eating on the trail

To give a sense of rhythm, here is a typical day between Tumling and Kalipokhri, the second day of the classic trek, as we usually eat it.

Tea arrives at the door or in the dining room around 5.30 am, in time for the sunrise over Kanchenjunga. Breakfast at 7 is porridge with honey, two eggs and a Tibetan bread, ordered the night before so the kitchen can start early. Your guide fills water bottles with boiled water while you pack.

By mid-morning you reach Jaubari or Gairibas, where a tea shop sells noodle soup, biscuits and more tea, and where most groups take a long break before the steep climb toward Kaiyakatta and Kalipokhri. Lunch is either a bowl of noodle soup at Gairibas or the packed boiled potatoes and eggs you carried from Tumling.

At Kalipokhri, tea and biscuits by the stove come first, then a hot water bucket if you want one. Dinner is at 6.30 or 7 pm, dal-bhat for everyone, with a second helping of rice and dal, and most trekkers are in their quilts by 8.30. The day's food costs roughly ₹800–1,000 per person.

Water, hygiene and dietary needs

Water is the one thing to be careful with. Lodges collect spring water, but do not drink it untreated. Carry a filter bottle, purification tablets or a UV pen, or ask for boiled water, which most lodges sell by the litre for a small fee. Bottled water costs ₹40–80 a litre on the ridge, and every empty bottle has to be carried down or burned, so we avoid it.

Vegetarians eat well on this trek, since dal-bhat, noodle soup, porridge and vegetable momos are on every menu. Strict vegans should check about ghee and milk tea. Meat is limited and less fresh higher up; we stick to vegetarian food above Tumling. Jain and gluten-free diets are harder, so tell your guide in advance and carry some food of your own.

Carry snacks for the long days: dry fruit, nuts, chocolate, glucose biscuits and energy bars bought in Darjeeling cost much less than on the ridge, and they keep you going between Gairibas and Kalipokhri, the steepest stretch of the trek.