The people who call themselves Rongkup
The Lepcha are generally considered the earliest inhabitants of Sikkim. They call themselves Rongkup, or in fuller form Mutanchi Rongkup Rumkup, which the Wikipedia article on the Lepcha people renders as beloved children of the Rong and of God. The name Lepcha came later, from their Nepali-speaking neighbours. The 2011 census counted about 80,000 Lepcha people across India, Nepal and Bhutan, most of them in Sikkim and the Darjeeling hills.
The Lepcha language is Tibeto-Burman, and it has its own script, which the same article says was developed in the 17th or 18th century, possibly by a scholar named Thikúng Munsulóng, in the time of the third Chogyal. Most Lepcha today are Buddhist, some Christian, and many still keep the older Mun faith alongside, with its priests known as Mun and Bongthing. Mountains, rivers, lakes and hot springs are sacred, and Kangchenjunga stands above them all.
Lepcha writers call their homeland Mayel Lyang. Nowhere is that idea held more closely than in Dzongu.
Why Dzongu is reserved
Dzongu is a block of steep, forested valleys on the west bank of the Teesta, opposite Mangan, running up the Rongyong river towards the Kangchenjunga massif. In 1958, when Sikkim was still a kingdom ruled by the Chogyal, a royal notification reserved land in Dzongu for the Lepcha of Dzongu. Under it, no outsider, and not even a Lepcha from elsewhere, can buy land there. About 7,000 Lepcha live in the reserve, according to Live History India.
That protection is why Dzongu still feels different from the rest of the North Sikkim highway. There are no big hotels, no resort strip and no taxi stands, only villages strung along a single road with cardamom under the trees, terraced paddy, bamboo and a few homestays. It is also why visitors need a permit, issued by the district administration in Mangan, which your host usually arranges with a copy of your ID. Check current status before you travel.
For travellers, the reserve also means slower, simpler days. The single road through Dzongu is narrow and often under repair after the monsoon, so a 20 km hop between villages can take an hour. Plan to stay put, walk and talk rather than tick off sights from a car window.
The hunger strike that stopped four dams
In the mid-2000s the state government planned a chain of hydropower projects on the Teesta and its tributaries, including six inside or affecting Dzongu. Many Lepcha saw the tunnels, roads and outside labour as a threat to the reserve itself. In 2004 a volunteer group formed called Affected Citizens of Teesta, or ACT.
On 20 June 2007, ACT members began a hunger strike in Gangtok against the Dzongu projects. Live History India puts the first phase at 93 days, and the protest, with relay fasts and road blockades, continued for much longer. Within about three years the state dropped four of the six Dzongu projects. Two continued on the Rongyong. It remains one of the best known indigenous protests in the Eastern Himalaya, and you will still hear it discussed in Dzongu kitchens.
Some of the same young people turned next to tourism. From around 2008, a few Dzongu graduates started homestays as a way to earn from the land without selling it, according to the Peaceful Societies project at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
We turn this into a priced, day-by-day plan for your dates.
Tholung and its relics
High in upper Dzongu, inside the buffer zone of Khangchendzonga National Park at about 2,400 m, stands Tholung Monastery. According to its Wikipedia article, the site was revealed as sacred by the fourth Lhatsun, Kunzang Jigmed Gyatso, in 1760, and a monastery was built in 1789. During the Gorkha invasions of the late 18th century, precious manuscripts, masks and relics from other Sikkimese monasteries were carried here for safety.
Those treasures are kept sealed in boxes under the eye of the Sikkim government and shown to the public only once every three years, in the spring Kamsil ceremony. The current building dates from a 1980 reconstruction. Reaching Tholung means a long drive to the road-head beyond Lingthem and then a walk of a few hours; ask us about current access and permits.
Dzongu at a glance
Indicative figures for 2026.
| Detail | |
|---|---|
| Altitude | ≈ 700 m by the Teesta to ≈ 2,400 m at Tholung; most homestays 1,000–1,500 m |
| From Gangtok | ≈ 70–80 km · 3–4 h via Mangan |
| Permit | Special permit for non-residents from the district administration, Mangan |
| Homestay | ≈ ₹1,500–2,500 per person a night with all meals |
| Best months | October–May; June–September is wet and leech-heavy |
| Known for | Lepcha homestays, large cardamom, hot springs, Tholung Monastery |
Staying in a Lepcha homestay
Homestays in Dzongu are family homes, not hotels. You sleep in a simple room, eat what the family eats and are welcome in the kitchen. Expect rice, dal, seasonal greens such as fern shoots or nettle, local chicken or pork, and perhaps chi, the millet beer that is part of Lepcha hospitality. Days go on walks to waterfalls and hot springs, visits to cardamom groves and paddy terraces, and evenings by the fire hearing about the village.
Be a good guest. Ask before you photograph people, shrines or the inside of homes. Dress modestly in villages and monasteries. Do not swim in rivers or springs your hosts consider sacred without asking. Pay fairly and directly; the money stays in the village, which is the whole point.
- Two nights is the right stay; one feels rushed after a 3–4 hour drive.
- Bring cash; ATMs are in Mangan, not in the reserve.
- Mobile signal is patchy; tell family you may be out of reach.
- Dzongu at about 1,200 m is a good first night before Lachen.
Cardamom, festivals and the Lepcha year
The cash crop of Dzongu is large cardamom, grown in the shade of alder and other trees on the steep slopes above the villages. Sikkim has long been one of the world's main producers of large cardamom, and in Dzongu the harvest falls in late autumn, roughly September to November, when pods are picked, dried over wood-fired kilns and sold to traders in Mangan and Singtam. If you come then, your host may let you see a kiln at work; the smell carries across the valley. Disease and falling prices have hit many growers in recent decades, which is one reason homestay income matters.
Two Lepcha festivals are worth knowing. Namsoong, the Lepcha new year, falls around December and January and is marked with food, dance and gatherings in Gangtok and in Lepcha villages. Tendong Lho Rum Faat, in August, honours Tendong Hill in Namchi district, which in Lepcha tradition saved their ancestors from a great flood. Dates follow the Lepcha calendar each year, so ask your host. Being invited to a village celebration is a privilege: follow your host's lead and ask before taking photographs.
Read before you go
For more on the Lepcha and Dzongu, start with the Wikipedia article on the Lepcha people and the one on Tholung Monastery. Live History India's 2017 piece on the Dzongu protests and the Peaceful Societies project's notes on Dzongu cover the recent history, and the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology in Gangtok publishes research on Sikkim's communities. Ask your host for their own version too, and if a story is told as local tradition, enjoy it as that.
Rules, fees, fares and road status change often. Check current status before you travel.
