[hothatchaway]

Very nice account and photos as usual Samba! Kudos to all the members, the camraderie among all is evident.
We drove to West khasi hills and cherrapunjee from the 8th to 17th. Was in shillong on the 13th, probably missed bumping into you!

[Yogi..Reeturaj]

Awesome an exhaustive travelogue Samba. Lovely pictures, it was nice finally catching up with you. Keep tripping.


Note from Support: Excessive dots removed.

[gmhossain]

Originally Posted by Samba

[b] So after a couple of days with increased blood pressure things looked to settle down. Me and wife had a good dinner to celebrate, that the trip was on!

Wah! It appeared to be an extremely eventful road trip. However, as one says, all's well that ends well.

It's amazing to read your new sailing adventure! The pictures are mind boggling. Congratulations to all of your team members, including the little ones, for completing such an epic road trip that one would cherish in the days to come.

Get well, and keep travelling!

[Sayata]

Excellent travelogue with crisp writing and beautiful pictures as always. It was a bad miss for us, that we could not join with this lovely team this time as our son is just two months old. Will hope for the best to join this team in the next trip.

[DriverR]

Lovely travelogue. Fantastic pictures. My family and I were in Shillong for a couple of days in the first week of October. We drove up from Guwahati on an EcoSport and Aspire. (As you have noticed, the Guwahati-Shillong road is one fantastic road to drive on.) Unfortunately the day we drove up to Cherapunji (Sohra), it was raining/pouring. So we could not see any sights and waterfalls. I have been there before but wanted my wife and son to see. Oh well, next time I guess.

Just FYI, for stay at Umian Lake (Bara Pani), Ri Kynjai Resort is a much better place, but more expensive. A better alternative is to stay at Shillong itself. Shillong traffic is bad, esp in Police Bazaar during the day, but the Night Bazaar is really good. Even if one drives up in their own vehicle, use taxis within Shillong if you go shopping. Less stress!!

[BlackPearl]

Excellent travelogue as usual Samba! Rated 5 stars. Arunachal and Meghalaya in a single trip is unheard of! We did two separate trips to these places.

Sorry to hear about the ordeals of your Duster and the brand new Nexon! But good thing is that these incidents did not hamper your trip to a major extent.

After seeing your pictures I went back to my thread on our 2015 Arunachal trip and all the pictures looked so horrible

Still posting a picture of me posing with my friend's Thar in Zemithang . I want to go back to Zemithang and stay there for a few days!



It was good that the 2WD cars could go till Bumla. When we went there in May, the road was so bad that only our Thar and an army Gypsy were able to go till the border. All the tourist Sumos could not make the last 3 kilometer stretch. In fact the Gypsy had broken down after reaching Bumla and we had to give lift to an army personnel while returning. I don't think I have any video or pic of that treacherous stretch as I was busy negotiating the boulders and the flowing streams on the road. This is one picture we had taken before this stretch.

[siddarthab]

Super travelogue !!! Crisp narrative and exquisite photographs.... rated 5*
Quite a testing time you must have had with the two incidents with the cars. This is where travelling in a group helps. Must say that your contacts and relationships came good and ensured that the trip went smoothly.

As for me, after Gurudongmar this October, Arunachal beckons !!!

Thanks for sharing.

Warm regards,

Siddhartha

[haisaikat]

The pictures and narration are as always awesome Samba, excellent and rated 5 stars. Some of the pictures like the one taken from above with the cars passing the road below will give drone shots a run for their money. But seriously I think you next upgrade to photography would be a DJI Mavic especially when you have such a convoy of cars. Well done once again and I literally traveled North East through your pics.

[Thermodynamics]

Was waiting for travelogues of Dussera holidays, what a read of the first one and what a way to start the weekend of Diwali. Your travelogue is a celebration in itself with all the colors, surreal scenes, magical photographs and vivid description. My favorite part is the photo of Nohkalikai falls, it appears like the waterfalls was in spot light by the play of hide and seek between clouds and sun.

Rated well deserved 5 stars.

I guess your shoulder pain was manageable throughout the trip and wish you get well soon. Thanks for writing painstakingly the fine details. I admire your perspective of keeping reader’s interest. Really, remembering the restaurant name where you had snacks at Kudos!

[SS-Traveller]

Wow... You write faster than you drive! To sort, edit and resize that many photos, as well as write the whole travelogue in one and a half days (22 Oct. 3:11 pm and 24 Oct. 1:17 am are the timestamps of your first and last posts) is a mammoth effort that only those who write travelogues can appreciate. Rated a well-deserved 5 stars.

Originally Posted by Samba

My take on the Bum La/ Sangetsar road is, any car can do this circuit. High ground clearance is any-day more preferable. 4wd is not required. Any high GC 2wd vehicle can do this circuit.

Good to see the huge improvement in road condition both from Bomdila to Tawang and Tawang to Bumla - our experience from May 2013 was quite the opposite. The videos from our trip to Bumla bring back those memories, and can be seen on this post (Roadtrip to The Middle of Nowhere... Monyul (Tawang) and More). As BlackPearl said, it was pure 4wd high-GC vehicle territory.

Originally Posted by BlackPearl

It was good that the 2WD cars could go till Bumla. When we went there in May, the road was so bad that only our Thar and an army Gypsy were able to go till the border.

[Abhinav V]

An amazing travelogue filled with adventures and celebrations.
North-East during this part of the year looks completely different from the rest of the year. Every nook and corner is draped with different shades of green all over and variety of flowers have sprung up which make it look like the sets of Jumanji or Jurassic park.
It is a blessing in disguise that through t-bhp members you could get car parts in time without which, it would have been a nightmare to get stranded in the middle of nowhere, co-ordinating with Road side assistance single-handedly.
From now on, those of us with 2wd cars, can now go without any worries thanks to your detailed and descriptive travelogue.

[nikhilthegunner]

What pictures man! Samba you take brilliant photos, are you a professional photographer? Already want to download a few of them and use it as a wallpaper for my laptop. Would it be ok?

Looks like a great trip. Would love to undertake something like this with my friends or other bhpians if time permits. Driving on those roads would have been amazeballs!

Putting a 5 star rating for this thread.

[sudsan]

[quote=Samba;4679024]Himalaya keeps calling us & we always try our best to answer the call!
This time its Northeast.

Thanks for your post Samba.

Four of us from Bangalore are planning to do a road trip to the North Eastern States in Feb-March 2020. Initially, we had planned to drive all the way from Bangalore but since that will add an additional ten days minimum (or more with sightseeing along the way) we have dropped this idea and instead intend to fly to Guwahati and commence our road trip from there.
Intend drawing upon the travel experience of you and the other intrepid*travellers of this forum and would seek your advice/suggestions based on the following:

Our rough plan is as follows:


1) Hire a self-drive car at Guwahati
2) Drive to the following places in the next three weeks or so:-Tezpur / Bomdilla / Tawang / Gumte / Ziro / Daporijo / Pasighat / Tezu / Jorhat / Kohima / Imphal / Silchar / Agartala / Panisagar* /Aizawl / Shillong
3) Need advice on:
a) Self-drive car hire availability like Zoom Car etc with contact nos. if available.
b) Recommended hotels at each of the above places or as many as possible, with a rough indication*of rates.
c) Any and all information about Inner Line Permits (where applicable / available etc in the NE States
d) Places of interest in the above named towns/cities and any other not mentioned / included
e) Precautions to be taken when driving through these states
f) Safety and other issues , if any.
g) Availability of diesel* etc in the above named places
h) Any other points not included in the foregoing.

You may have included the requested info which I might have missed but would appreciate either you or anyone else taking the time out to respond and thanks in advance* for the same.

[Iyencar]

Lovely write-up. Which car did the best overall in terms of comfort, reliability and ruggedness between the Duster, Nexon and TUV? Thanks!

[debuda]

Wonderful travelogue, rated 5 stars. Especially liked the outstanding, professional quality photographs -- a visual treat.

Disappointed to learn about the mechanical failures in your Duster and your friend's Nexon, both cars being quite new. While the Nexon's coolant leak attributable to a failed fastener is unsurprising going by Tata Motor's present reputation, two injectors failing in your new Duster is unacceptable for an internationally successful car. Renault blaming Indian fuel quality doesn't sound very convincing because many other Indian diesel vehicles using CRDI technology are running without any injector problems for lakhs of Km. Renault India needs to carry out suitable technical modifications to obviate injector failures in the Indian Duster.