Saturday, March 25, 2006
My trip to Arunachal Pradesh
Manjula akka and Praveen bhava had alwayz asked us to visit them at Arunachal Pradesh. So, when I decided to go with friends to Kolkata to attend my engineering classmate Deborshi Dutt's marriage, I took this opprtunity to visit Arunachal Pradesh. Any mention of the north-eastern part of India sounds exotic for the simple reason it is hardly explored, hardly visited and hardly talked-about. Although some of my friends were in awe of a visit to Arunachal Pradesh, none could make it beyond Kolkata because of holiday constraints. I decided to go with the visit nevertheless.
From Kolkata, I took the Saraighat Express (considered a super-fast train, but then the criteria Indian Railways has to brand a train super-fast is that the average speed needs to be more than 55kmph!). My coach was filled with young archers from Manipur who were returning from Kolkata. It was amusing to see 5 or 6 of them in the 3-person seats of the second-class sleeping coaches. Even in the night, 2 of them were sleeping in the single sleeping berth - in what can be best described as a 69 position ;-) The flip side in the huge group was the stink of feet whenever some of them removed their shoes! Nevertheless, I enjoyed the train jounrney the way I cherish, by standing at the doors :) The train was supposed to reach Guwahati by 10am, but was a full 2 hrs late and reached just before noon.
My next destination was Tezpur, the last major town before Arunachal Pradesh. The Guwahati inter-city bus-stand is right next to the railway station - a la Bangalore. There are frequent buses to Tezpur run by both private and Assam Govt. It takes 4 hrs to reach Tezpur. The guy sitting next to me in the bus was an elctronics engineer doing his Master's at Tezpur University.
The bus reached Tezpur around 4:30pm. This was when I encountered a twist in the travel! My next destination was Dirang in Arunachal Pradesh, where Manjulakka lives. Tezpur is about 40kms from the Arunachal Pradesh border. Dirang is about 160 kms from Tezpur and the journey will take about 6 hrs by taxi, thanks to the treacherous ghat roads all along. Dirang is connected to Tezpur twice a day by private taxi service and once a day by Arunachal Pradesh Government bus service. The bus service is quite fickle and there will be lot of days when the bus may never turn up. The taxi runs at 5:30am and 2pm daily, which means I had to stay overnite at Tezpur. There was a taxi booking counter at the Tezpur bus stand. The taxi is a Tata Spacio (a variant of Tata's Sumo model) and I was told the taxi takes upto 10 passengers - that is not including the driver. It has 3 rows of seats and the seating arrangement is 3+4+4!!! I was already getting jitters of sitting in this cramped vehicle for 6 hrs! Anywayz, I was told that I can take a cycle-rickshaw to any hotel close to the bus-stand, let the rickshaw driver know my hotel room and I will be picked from my hotel room next day at 5am. Statisfied with this room-service, I thanked the guy at the Sumo-counter, and checked into a cheap hotel nearby.
Next day I woke up at 4:30am, got ready by 5am and was waiting for the taxi to pick me up. Even at 6am, there was no sign of the taxi! I got anxious and hired a cycle-rickshaw and made my way to the Sumo-counter. The guy at the counter tells me that the Sumo driver has not turned up since morning, and even the taxi owner does not know his whereabouts! I was now wondering what other means I have to reach Dirang. I was told that there'z another taxi service till Bomdila at 10am. Now, Bomdila is about 100kms from Tezpur and I was told there would be no bus/shared-taxi service from Bomdila to Dirang, a distance of 50kms. The only option I would have would be to hire a private taxi, which would cost me about Rs.500! The other option was to wait till 2pm for the next Sumo service to Dirang. As I was evaluating my options, another twist to the story was in store.
Bhalukpong is the first town you get once you cross into Arunachal Pradesh from Assam. Balipara is the last town on the Assam side and it is about 20kms from Tezpur. However, about 5kms after Balipara, there'z a military campus at a place called Char Dwara. Between Char Dwara and Bhalukpong is a forest area inhabited by Bodo tribes. The Bodo people, I'm told, are quite prone to calling a bandh at a drop of a leaf. As it turned out, that day the Bodo folks decided to call for a flash bandh - for reasons I could not figure out. The news from people who came back from the Bodo area was that the bandh will last 24hrs, although I was told their bandhs typically get over by evening. However, even that evening scenario would mean I could only get the Sumo taxi the next morning, and that would tear-up the plans made by Manjulakka for us all to go to Tawang early next day morning.
I decided to try the option of taking a private taxi. I went to the private taxi area and after some hard bargaining I hired a Indica for Rs.2300 to drop me at Dirang - a distance of 160kms. After we crossed Balipara, the road was completely deserted. Near Char Dwara, our taxi driver met a friend who was coming in another taxi from the Bodo area. He warned him that the Bodo people have blocked the road and are catching hold of people who travel by the way and making them kneel down holding ears! This scared the hell out of our driver and he got more skeptical of going ahead. At Char Dwara, we decided to wait some time to see if we get some company to move ahead.
Meanwhile a car belonging to NEEPCO - who were executing some power project in a different part of Arunachal Pradesh - was passing by and it stopped on seeing us. I talked to the chief engineer in the car. He turned out to be a native of Karnataka and hence we hit off immediately. Since our driver was appehensive of going ahead, Mr.Suhash Lodge - the chief engineer - offered to drop me across the Arunachal Pradesh border, from where I would be safe to go on my own. I had to pay the driver Rs.500 for briging me for these 30-dd kms!
Mr.Lodge initially said we will move a further and see the situation. However after we moved about a kilometer and not seeing any other vehicle in either direction, we decided to stay out for some more time. Just then we saw another car coming in our direction. The car did not stop for us, but the sight of the car going in that direction was enough for us to venture ahead. We could then see stones pelted on the roads, which told the story that happened earlier.
Finally we crossed the Assam border and entered Arunachal Pradesh. We decided to stop at Bhalukpong for lunch. There was a Rajasthani restaurant which was the only exclusive vegetarian place there. Although I'm not finicky about veg-only restaurants, I decided to go to that place. Mr.Lodge urged the owner of the restaurant to help me reach Dirang. The taxi that left Tezpur at 2pm reached Bhalukpong around 2:45pm, but that was fully occupied. Now my options were limited, and the best way was to take a private taxi from Bhalukpong. Unfortunately, all the taxis available at Bhalukpong were petrol-run vehicles and hence would work out quite costly. Finally, I got a Maruti Omni hired for Rs.2100!
The advantage of hiring a private taxi is that you can stop wherever you feel like and better enjoy the scenic drive. So was this case. The route reminded me of western ghats - maginified 10 times! My taxi driver turned out to be a teenaged tribal belonging to Bomdila, married to a 13 year old lady (girl?) for the last 2 years and having a 1 year old kid!
Anywayz, on my way I got a taste of Arunachal Pradesh's telecom infrastrucure. My cell connection of course never caught signal. (I suppose BSNL is the only service provider in the whole of Arunachal Pradesh, and they too provide service in highly limited areas.) All my attempts to reach Manulakka from a telephone booth went in futile, even after I was close enough for it to be a local call. Finally, when I was able to reach her, Manjulakka was not just relieved to know that I have escaped the wrath of the Bodos and on my way, she also said that Praveen Bhava had already left to Bomdila by bike to lookout for me, since he did not hear from me since morning. At Bomdila, I did meet bhava. By then it was about 7:30pm, and temperature hovered around 3-4 degrees celsius. Bhava had to come back to Dirang by bike in that biting cold :-(
The highway is maintained by Border Roads Organization (BRO), which is a wing of the army. The sensitive nature of the area means that army needs to maintain the roads in motorable condition throughout the year. Although BRO is doing a decent job in maintaining the roads, I was told that the roads on the other side of the border are better! The road till Bomdila was pretty good. After Bomdila, the roads are quite bad, hence restricting your speed.
I finally reached Dirang around 9pm. Met some of Manjulakka's neighbours, had bath, dinner and then retired for the day. Their house is in the teacher's quarters of Dirang. The quarters is located in a valley area, with hills on both sides and a river flowing along the valley. You cannot ask for a more scenic location for a house, although living in cold and remote areas has itz own challenges and frustrations.
The next day we started quite early in the morning for Tawang. Tawang is about 150kms from Dirang and is the last major town before China and Bhutan border. The highway passes through Se La Pass, which - at 4200 meters above sea level - I was told is the second highest roadway in India. Next you get JaswantGarh, a memorial dedicated to Param Vir Chakra awardee Jaswanth Singh in memory of his preventing the Chinese intrusion at that place during the 1962 war. At JaswantGarh, there is a military canteen manned by some south Indians where you get fresh hot Masala Dosas, coffee/tea, etc. It is an experience eating steaming hot Masala Dosa on the road-side at a temperature of about minus 8 degrees celsius!
We reached Tawang around 2pm. Tawang is the district head-quarters and quite a popular tourist place. You will be hard-pressed to find a couple of meters of flat land in Tawang. The whole town is made along a hill and once you reach a high altitude area, you can get a wonderful view of the whole town.
That evening we visited the Tawang Monastery, the largest Buddhist monastery in India. Buddhist monasteries are very colorful places, with painted walls and roofs. There is a museum inside the monastery, but me not a big fan of visiting museums that house boring memoirs.
That nite we stayed at the Inspection Bunglow at Tawang. Next day was Republic Day. In Bangalore, people would have probably woken up late enjoying the holiday and some kids would be all decked up for a parade at the school. However, at Tawang, it was an abolute festive atmosphere, and if you stood at the bazaar, it felt as if the whole town was moving in one direction - towards the ground where the Republic Day programs were organized. I reasoned to myself that probably occassions like these are the only times when people here feel part of mainland India. After breakfast, we made a visit to what is now called the "Madhuri Lake", a lake where the shooting of the Hindi movie Koyla took place, and hence the name since! The lake is about 40kms from Tawang towards the China border, and the road gets more treacherous. Since my visit was in peak of winter, we were greeted all over by frozen water falls, frozen rivers and finally even the "Madhuri Lake" was frozen. I guess this just enhanced the beauty of the place.
The same day we returned back to Dirang. The next day, I visited two manasteries at Dirang, spent some time with the neighbors of Manjulakka and that evening, I would depart to Tezpur, leaving behind a very different kind of vacation - at a place as different from mainland India as chalk and cheese.
Tips for people travelling to this part (north-western part) of Arunachal Pradesh:
1. The most important one! If you are an Indian citizen, you need an inner-line permit to enter Arunachal Pradesh! Get it at Guwahati....I dont know where, since for me Majulakka had arranged for one :)
2. Fly as much as possible! Although frequent train service is available till Guwahati, it is still a single-track, and hence susceptible to frequent delays. The nearest airport to Arunachal Pradesh is Tezpur, although I'm told only Indian Airlines (or Indian as it is called now) flies there. However, Guwahati is well connected by most of the airlines.
3. While scheduling your travel, keep in mind that Tezpur-Dirang service (or for that matter Tezpur-Tawang) service is only available twice a day - at 5am and 2pm.
4. If you need to stay at Tezpur, I'm told Hotel Luit is the best place. I forget the name of the place where I stayed, but is was pretty bad. However, Tezpur has a lot of hotels and you have a wide range of choices.
5. The Sumo-counter at the Tezpur bus stand is a big cheat! Even Majulakka told me this later. There is one more Sumo-counter about 5 mins from Tezpur bus-stand near Hotel Durba. This is supposed to be a better place.
6. If you are in a bigger group or if you want to travel fast or if you dont mind spending a bit more, take a private taxi from Tezpur. It may cost you upwards of Rs.12 per km depending on the car you hire. You get all kinds of car models - from Indicas to Sumos to Qualises. Also, you can then stop enroute whenever you feel like, and you can take lot more snaps of the amazingly picturesque routes of Arunachal Pradesh.
Manjula akka and Praveen bhava had alwayz asked us to visit them at Arunachal Pradesh. So, when I decided to go with friends to Kolkata to attend my engineering classmate Deborshi Dutt's marriage, I took this opprtunity to visit Arunachal Pradesh. Any mention of the north-eastern part of India sounds exotic for the simple reason it is hardly explored, hardly visited and hardly talked-about. Although some of my friends were in awe of a visit to Arunachal Pradesh, none could make it beyond Kolkata because of holiday constraints. I decided to go with the visit nevertheless.
From Kolkata, I took the Saraighat Express (considered a super-fast train, but then the criteria Indian Railways has to brand a train super-fast is that the average speed needs to be more than 55kmph!). My coach was filled with young archers from Manipur who were returning from Kolkata. It was amusing to see 5 or 6 of them in the 3-person seats of the second-class sleeping coaches. Even in the night, 2 of them were sleeping in the single sleeping berth - in what can be best described as a 69 position ;-) The flip side in the huge group was the stink of feet whenever some of them removed their shoes! Nevertheless, I enjoyed the train jounrney the way I cherish, by standing at the doors :) The train was supposed to reach Guwahati by 10am, but was a full 2 hrs late and reached just before noon.
My next destination was Tezpur, the last major town before Arunachal Pradesh. The Guwahati inter-city bus-stand is right next to the railway station - a la Bangalore. There are frequent buses to Tezpur run by both private and Assam Govt. It takes 4 hrs to reach Tezpur. The guy sitting next to me in the bus was an elctronics engineer doing his Master's at Tezpur University.
The bus reached Tezpur around 4:30pm. This was when I encountered a twist in the travel! My next destination was Dirang in Arunachal Pradesh, where Manjulakka lives. Tezpur is about 40kms from the Arunachal Pradesh border. Dirang is about 160 kms from Tezpur and the journey will take about 6 hrs by taxi, thanks to the treacherous ghat roads all along. Dirang is connected to Tezpur twice a day by private taxi service and once a day by Arunachal Pradesh Government bus service. The bus service is quite fickle and there will be lot of days when the bus may never turn up. The taxi runs at 5:30am and 2pm daily, which means I had to stay overnite at Tezpur. There was a taxi booking counter at the Tezpur bus stand. The taxi is a Tata Spacio (a variant of Tata's Sumo model) and I was told the taxi takes upto 10 passengers - that is not including the driver. It has 3 rows of seats and the seating arrangement is 3+4+4!!! I was already getting jitters of sitting in this cramped vehicle for 6 hrs! Anywayz, I was told that I can take a cycle-rickshaw to any hotel close to the bus-stand, let the rickshaw driver know my hotel room and I will be picked from my hotel room next day at 5am. Statisfied with this room-service, I thanked the guy at the Sumo-counter, and checked into a cheap hotel nearby.
Next day I woke up at 4:30am, got ready by 5am and was waiting for the taxi to pick me up. Even at 6am, there was no sign of the taxi! I got anxious and hired a cycle-rickshaw and made my way to the Sumo-counter. The guy at the counter tells me that the Sumo driver has not turned up since morning, and even the taxi owner does not know his whereabouts! I was now wondering what other means I have to reach Dirang. I was told that there'z another taxi service till Bomdila at 10am. Now, Bomdila is about 100kms from Tezpur and I was told there would be no bus/shared-taxi service from Bomdila to Dirang, a distance of 50kms. The only option I would have would be to hire a private taxi, which would cost me about Rs.500! The other option was to wait till 2pm for the next Sumo service to Dirang. As I was evaluating my options, another twist to the story was in store.
Bhalukpong is the first town you get once you cross into Arunachal Pradesh from Assam. Balipara is the last town on the Assam side and it is about 20kms from Tezpur. However, about 5kms after Balipara, there'z a military campus at a place called Char Dwara. Between Char Dwara and Bhalukpong is a forest area inhabited by Bodo tribes. The Bodo people, I'm told, are quite prone to calling a bandh at a drop of a leaf. As it turned out, that day the Bodo folks decided to call for a flash bandh - for reasons I could not figure out. The news from people who came back from the Bodo area was that the bandh will last 24hrs, although I was told their bandhs typically get over by evening. However, even that evening scenario would mean I could only get the Sumo taxi the next morning, and that would tear-up the plans made by Manjulakka for us all to go to Tawang early next day morning.
I decided to try the option of taking a private taxi. I went to the private taxi area and after some hard bargaining I hired a Indica for Rs.2300 to drop me at Dirang - a distance of 160kms. After we crossed Balipara, the road was completely deserted. Near Char Dwara, our taxi driver met a friend who was coming in another taxi from the Bodo area. He warned him that the Bodo people have blocked the road and are catching hold of people who travel by the way and making them kneel down holding ears! This scared the hell out of our driver and he got more skeptical of going ahead. At Char Dwara, we decided to wait some time to see if we get some company to move ahead.
Meanwhile a car belonging to NEEPCO - who were executing some power project in a different part of Arunachal Pradesh - was passing by and it stopped on seeing us. I talked to the chief engineer in the car. He turned out to be a native of Karnataka and hence we hit off immediately. Since our driver was appehensive of going ahead, Mr.Suhash Lodge - the chief engineer - offered to drop me across the Arunachal Pradesh border, from where I would be safe to go on my own. I had to pay the driver Rs.500 for briging me for these 30-dd kms!
Mr.Lodge initially said we will move a further and see the situation. However after we moved about a kilometer and not seeing any other vehicle in either direction, we decided to stay out for some more time. Just then we saw another car coming in our direction. The car did not stop for us, but the sight of the car going in that direction was enough for us to venture ahead. We could then see stones pelted on the roads, which told the story that happened earlier.
Finally we crossed the Assam border and entered Arunachal Pradesh. We decided to stop at Bhalukpong for lunch. There was a Rajasthani restaurant which was the only exclusive vegetarian place there. Although I'm not finicky about veg-only restaurants, I decided to go to that place. Mr.Lodge urged the owner of the restaurant to help me reach Dirang. The taxi that left Tezpur at 2pm reached Bhalukpong around 2:45pm, but that was fully occupied. Now my options were limited, and the best way was to take a private taxi from Bhalukpong. Unfortunately, all the taxis available at Bhalukpong were petrol-run vehicles and hence would work out quite costly. Finally, I got a Maruti Omni hired for Rs.2100!
The advantage of hiring a private taxi is that you can stop wherever you feel like and better enjoy the scenic drive. So was this case. The route reminded me of western ghats - maginified 10 times! My taxi driver turned out to be a teenaged tribal belonging to Bomdila, married to a 13 year old lady (girl?) for the last 2 years and having a 1 year old kid!
Anywayz, on my way I got a taste of Arunachal Pradesh's telecom infrastrucure. My cell connection of course never caught signal. (I suppose BSNL is the only service provider in the whole of Arunachal Pradesh, and they too provide service in highly limited areas.) All my attempts to reach Manulakka from a telephone booth went in futile, even after I was close enough for it to be a local call. Finally, when I was able to reach her, Manjulakka was not just relieved to know that I have escaped the wrath of the Bodos and on my way, she also said that Praveen Bhava had already left to Bomdila by bike to lookout for me, since he did not hear from me since morning. At Bomdila, I did meet bhava. By then it was about 7:30pm, and temperature hovered around 3-4 degrees celsius. Bhava had to come back to Dirang by bike in that biting cold :-(
The highway is maintained by Border Roads Organization (BRO), which is a wing of the army. The sensitive nature of the area means that army needs to maintain the roads in motorable condition throughout the year. Although BRO is doing a decent job in maintaining the roads, I was told that the roads on the other side of the border are better! The road till Bomdila was pretty good. After Bomdila, the roads are quite bad, hence restricting your speed.
I finally reached Dirang around 9pm. Met some of Manjulakka's neighbours, had bath, dinner and then retired for the day. Their house is in the teacher's quarters of Dirang. The quarters is located in a valley area, with hills on both sides and a river flowing along the valley. You cannot ask for a more scenic location for a house, although living in cold and remote areas has itz own challenges and frustrations.
The next day we started quite early in the morning for Tawang. Tawang is about 150kms from Dirang and is the last major town before China and Bhutan border. The highway passes through Se La Pass, which - at 4200 meters above sea level - I was told is the second highest roadway in India. Next you get JaswantGarh, a memorial dedicated to Param Vir Chakra awardee Jaswanth Singh in memory of his preventing the Chinese intrusion at that place during the 1962 war. At JaswantGarh, there is a military canteen manned by some south Indians where you get fresh hot Masala Dosas, coffee/tea, etc. It is an experience eating steaming hot Masala Dosa on the road-side at a temperature of about minus 8 degrees celsius!
We reached Tawang around 2pm. Tawang is the district head-quarters and quite a popular tourist place. You will be hard-pressed to find a couple of meters of flat land in Tawang. The whole town is made along a hill and once you reach a high altitude area, you can get a wonderful view of the whole town.
That evening we visited the Tawang Monastery, the largest Buddhist monastery in India. Buddhist monasteries are very colorful places, with painted walls and roofs. There is a museum inside the monastery, but me not a big fan of visiting museums that house boring memoirs.
That nite we stayed at the Inspection Bunglow at Tawang. Next day was Republic Day. In Bangalore, people would have probably woken up late enjoying the holiday and some kids would be all decked up for a parade at the school. However, at Tawang, it was an abolute festive atmosphere, and if you stood at the bazaar, it felt as if the whole town was moving in one direction - towards the ground where the Republic Day programs were organized. I reasoned to myself that probably occassions like these are the only times when people here feel part of mainland India. After breakfast, we made a visit to what is now called the "Madhuri Lake", a lake where the shooting of the Hindi movie Koyla took place, and hence the name since! The lake is about 40kms from Tawang towards the China border, and the road gets more treacherous. Since my visit was in peak of winter, we were greeted all over by frozen water falls, frozen rivers and finally even the "Madhuri Lake" was frozen. I guess this just enhanced the beauty of the place.
The same day we returned back to Dirang. The next day, I visited two manasteries at Dirang, spent some time with the neighbors of Manjulakka and that evening, I would depart to Tezpur, leaving behind a very different kind of vacation - at a place as different from mainland India as chalk and cheese.
Tips for people travelling to this part (north-western part) of Arunachal Pradesh:
1. The most important one! If you are an Indian citizen, you need an inner-line permit to enter Arunachal Pradesh! Get it at Guwahati....I dont know where, since for me Majulakka had arranged for one :)
2. Fly as much as possible! Although frequent train service is available till Guwahati, it is still a single-track, and hence susceptible to frequent delays. The nearest airport to Arunachal Pradesh is Tezpur, although I'm told only Indian Airlines (or Indian as it is called now) flies there. However, Guwahati is well connected by most of the airlines.
3. While scheduling your travel, keep in mind that Tezpur-Dirang service (or for that matter Tezpur-Tawang) service is only available twice a day - at 5am and 2pm.
4. If you need to stay at Tezpur, I'm told Hotel Luit is the best place. I forget the name of the place where I stayed, but is was pretty bad. However, Tezpur has a lot of hotels and you have a wide range of choices.
5. The Sumo-counter at the Tezpur bus stand is a big cheat! Even Majulakka told me this later. There is one more Sumo-counter about 5 mins from Tezpur bus-stand near Hotel Durba. This is supposed to be a better place.
6. If you are in a bigger group or if you want to travel fast or if you dont mind spending a bit more, take a private taxi from Tezpur. It may cost you upwards of Rs.12 per km depending on the car you hire. You get all kinds of car models - from Indicas to Sumos to Qualises. Also, you can then stop enroute whenever you feel like, and you can take lot more snaps of the amazingly picturesque routes of Arunachal Pradesh.
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since May 1, 2005