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| India4u News | |
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Business News
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by_emR3 SaVSaK.CoM
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Posted online: Monday, July 03, 2006 at 12:46:38 PM
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"You are under enemy observation now," read the signpost until the other day greeting tourists to Nathu La via a picturesque but precariously winding road from Sikkim's capital Gangtok.
But the scary signpost is no longer visible to tourists who now only witness an abundance of olive green Indian Army quarters camouflaged with the surrounding greenery. Here army convoys move like a nation in war. One can also hear the sound of firing practice by the troops.
But suspicion and words like "enemy" are now replaced with a new ambience of bonhomie.
Located on the rarefied heights of snow-capped Himalayan cleavages of the Line of Actual Control between India and China, this zealously guarded border post now waits for opening of border trade from July 6, turning more than four decades of distrust into economic gains between the two mighty Asian neighbours.
When the wind-swept mountains of the Nathu La pass atop 14,000 feet was opened to tourists on either side in September 1999, it marked the melting of decades of diplomatic ice, eventually paving the way for the historic Thursday opening when this land route becomes an alternative to sea route for bilateral trade between India and China.
Nathu La had turned into a live border when the first gun boomed during the 1962 border conflict between the countries.
A wanderlust's dream destination, Nathu La, meaning the pass of listening ear, is a convenient gateway to Tibetan capital Lhasa and a saddle pass of whistling winds blowing across into the Chumbi valley on the Tibet side, surrounded by magnificent mountains whose solid rocks rise up to meet the sky.
It is also a strategic border post where both Chinese and Indian bunkers face each other.
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