A Buddhist monastery in Lachen

Siliguri, May 13: Warm home-stays, fantastic folk tradition and charming people, Lachen in North Sikkim has these and more to usher in a new trend of community-based rural tourism.

Following a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme and the Union ministry of tourism, the nondescript high-altitude village of the Lachenpas, located 110km from Gangtok, is now ready with facilities to welcome visitors and it is being featured in the top 15 destinations of Incredible !ndia’s Explore Rural India campaign.

“Lachen is one of the 36 places we had identified in India as pilot sites to develop and promote rural tourism,” said Mayura Balasubrahmanyam, project support officer, endogenous tourism, UNDP.

“In order to make a holistic approach to rural tourism, our activity was divided into two components — software and hardware. While software was related to services, skill development and capacity building of service providers, hardware dealt with the creation of necessary tourism infrastructure in terms of roads, sanitation and public health. A group of local people, who would provide tourism services, were taken to Leh for a first-hand experience of home-stays and rural tourism,” Balasubrahmanyam said.

By the end of this year, Lachen will have in place a “zero-waste management system”, Balasubrahmanyam said.

“Lachen is the only site in India which has been selected for a model waste management project. We are working out the modalities of the system after a detailed study of waste patterns in the place,” she added.

The hills apart, it was the people and colourful folk life and traditions that had helped Lachen bag the honour.

“The primarily pastoral Lachenpas are very rich in art and craft and have unique farming and agricultural practices. This added to the lure of exotic mountains, make Lachen an ideal rural tourism destination,” Sudhir Sahi, national consultant, rural tourism, UNDP, said. He added that six homes were already ready for visitors.

Rabzor Lachenpa, a former pipon (tribal head), said the villagers were not only able to build a pathway in some inaccessible places, but have also developed trek routes and created drainage system, which did not exist earlier.