The local story
The last night halt before Jelep La
For most of the Raj era, the busiest road between India and Tibet did not run through Gangtok. It ran from Kalimpong to Pedong, Rhenock and Rongli, then climbed through the forest to Zuluk, over Jelep La at 4,390 m and down into the Chumbi valley. The Bengal District Gazetteer explained Jelep La as the lovely level pass. Wool came down it on the backs of mules, bound for Kalimpong's warehouses; cloth, salt, tools and tea went up. Zuluk, at about 2,900 m, was a night halt on that route: the place where muleteers rested animals and men before the long, cold pull to the pass.
The road was also a road of war. In 1888 British troops pushed Tibetan forces back from Lingtu on this ridge, and on 22 May 1888 the two sides clashed at Gnathang, a short drive above Zuluk. Trade went on for decades after. It thinned with the events in Tibet in 1959, and when the border was sealed after 1962 the mule trains stopped for good. Zuluk became what it still is: an army camp with a village around it, cut off by 1–1.5 m of snow in a hard winter.
What brought outsiders back was the road itself. The army highway, now NH717B, climbs above Zuluk in tier after tier of hairpin bends, and once photographs of those loops travelled, families here began to open their homes to guests. Today Zuluk's homestays feed travellers the way the halt once fed muleteers: simply, early to bed, and up before dawn for the climb to Lungthung.
