The short version
Every guest is asked to hold travel insurance covering cancellation, medical care and evacuation in the mountains. Here the nearest large hospital can be hours down a single road, and above the roads a helicopter is sometimes the only way down. Read the altitude limit before you buy: the days we plan can sit high, with Sandakphu at 3,636 m and Chele La at 3,988 m, a policy's limit is often lower, and trekking above a stated height is often excluded. We organise arrangements that hotels, transport companies and guides each provide, each responsible for its own service.
Why we ask
Why we ask you to be insured
It is the one thing we ask you to buy that we do not sell.
The reason is the geography. From most of the places you will sleep, the nearest large hospital is hours away down a single road, and that road can shut. Above Lachen, on the Singalila Ridge and on the way to Goecha La there is no road at all, and a helicopter is sometimes the only way down. Nobody holds up a rescue here while it is settled who pays, but somebody is billed afterwards, and that should not be you out of your own pocket.
Cancellation matters as much and guests think about it least. Charges follow each property's own policy, written into your quote before you pay, and our planning fee is not refundable once a journey is confirmed. Buy the policy in the week you pay the deposit rather than the week you fly. We do not sell insurance and nothing here is advice on which policy to choose.
The wording
What to read in your policy
Ten minutes before you pay the premium. The first line is the one people get wrong.
- The height your cover stops atPolicies usually set an altitude limit, often lower than the days we plan: Sandakphu stands at 3,636 m and Chele La at 3,988 m. Read the height in the wording rather than the summary page, and have the insurer confirm your highest day.
- Whether walking counts as trekkingAbove a stated height some insurers treat any walk as mountaineering and exclude it. If the Singalila Ridge or Goecha La is in your plan, name the trek and keep the answer by email. For a trek we ask for your policy number before the crew is booked in your name.
- Evacuation, and who the insurer paysMountain rescue, air evacuation and repatriation should be named separately with a figure against each, and check whether the insurer settles with the provider or reimburses you afterwards. Save that emergency number in your phone and on paper.
- Cancelling, and coming home earlyMatch the sum insured to what you have committed: the deposit, the balance and each house's own cancellation terms as your quote sets them out.
- Conditions you already haveDeclare every one. An undeclared condition is the commonest reason a mountain claim is refused. Ask your own doctor about the high days as well, and tell us the answer.
- Delays, and a flight taken for pleasureWeather delays are what happen in June and September, so read the excess. Light aircraft and helicopters are excluded by default in many policies. Check the oldest and youngest traveller too, not only the person who books.
Responsibility
What we do, and what we answer for
Said plainly here so you do not have to find it in the terms later.
We act as the organiser of arrangements that other people provide. The hotel provides the room, the transport company the car and driver, the guide the guiding, and in Bhutan a licensed operator there provides the guide and vehicle the law requires. Each of them is responsible for its own service.
In practice we choose those suppliers, brief them, pay them and deal with them. If a room is wrong, we telephone the manager. If a car does not arrive, we find the next one. Your quote names each house, drive, guide and permit with the date its rate was checked, so you can see whose service every part of the journey is. What we cannot do is stand behind another company's negligence as though it were our own, which is the second reason we ask you to be insured.
Closures and weather
When a road closes or the weather turns
Ordinary business in the hills rather than a disaster. On the road sets out how the same day feels from inside the car.
-
The evening before
A second way round is named
Every day of your plan carries its own written fallback, and your driver checks the route the night before and again at dawn.
-
At dawn
You hear it at breakfast, not at a barrier
If the highway is shut you are told over breakfast, with the way round and the new driving time.
-
Within the hour
Beds and drives are moved
Your designer speaks to tonight's house, tomorrow's house and the drivers. Where a night has to change, you are told that house's own terms before anything is agreed.
-
The same day
What it costs you
Our booking terms answer this. If a road, flight or permit fails for reasons beyond anyone's control, the journey is rearranged at no fee and only the difference in supplier costs is passed on, if there is any.
-
Afterwards
What you claim
Keep the receipt for anything you pay on the road and ask us for a written note of what changed and why. An insurer wants both.
In the moment
Who to call, and in what order
-
Your driver or guide
In the car or the lobby, speaking the language of the place. Start here for anything happening in the next hour.
-
Our number, at any hour
Phone and WhatsApp +91 86178 24110, 24x7 every day of a journey in progress, for anything that changes a night, a drive or a plan.
Your insurer's emergency line
For anything medical, and before you agree to a cost you mean to claim. Insurers commonly want to authorise treatment or transport first.
-
A doctor, and the right hospital
Before you travel covers health and altitude preparation, the medicines to bring and where the larger hospitals are.
The limits
The honest limits of a mountain journey
Two seasons will test any plan, and it is better read now than from a hotel window.
In the monsoon, from about June to September, the rain brings slides down onto the main road along the Teesta. A day can go the long way round, a flight can slip, and Kanchenjunga can stay behind cloud for a week. In winter, snow shuts the high passes and the North Sikkim road with little notice, old houses are cold until the fire is lit, and a sky clear at four in the morning can be grey by the time you reach the viewpoint.
So we will not tell you that you will see the mountain. If the month you have chosen is a gamble we say so before you pay, and we would rather lose the booking than have you arrive in July expecting November. If altitude, an old injury or a medical condition is part of the picture, tell us early and the days are built around it.
Once the policy is bought, send us the number and the insurer's emergency line. It costs you nothing and it saves an hour on the day it matters.
If anything here is unclear
Write to [email protected] or call +91 86178 24110 and ask. We would rather answer a question now than have you find the answer in a document later.
Ask us a question