[SohamBiswas]

A car, a bag full of warm clothes, some snacks for the road, a mobile for navigation and a camera to capture the moments - That's all I and my wife started with, for our much-awaited road trip to Tawang - The beauty spot of Arunachal Pradesh. Situated on Arunachal's western flank, bordering Bhutan in the West and China in the North, at an elevation of around 9000 feet. The plan we chalked this time was not to hurry our way to the destination, but to savor the journey, making stops at some of the most fascinating places en route.

To set the context, our itinerary was - Guwahati > Dhekiajuli > Nameri > Dirang > Tawang > Bomdila > Guwahati


Day 1: Guwahati to Dhekiajuli

We reached Guwahati a day before, at around noon and rented a self-drive car that had been our most trusted friend for the next 10 days - A Renault Duster from Panda Rides in Guwahati.

Link- https://www.pandarides.com

They provided us with a very well maintained, clean car and hassle-free service on top of it.



With some breakfast packed for the day and car tanked up, we set off from Guwahati at around 7 am in the morning - destination Sapoi Tea Farm, Dhekiajuli. The home-stay at Dhekiajuli was the tea garden owner's residential bungalow at Sapoi Tea Farm. A leisurely drive through the villages of Assam took us around 4 hours to reach the place, the last leg being a 10 to 15 km. detour from the highway to Tezpur.

Airbnb Link - https://www.airbnb.co.in/rooms/43798...wvT&s=JGzV5tpV

Our host Keshav and his grandmother were very cordial and welcoming, to say the least. We were greeted with "Chandan Tika", as we parked our vehicle at their well-decorated portico and entered the bungalow to discover its aesthetically pristine interior - the lavish furniture, the antique belongings, a fireplace from the yesteryear, a huge "cheetah skin" hanging from the wall, the old hanging maps of Assam valley, dated and drawn some hundred years ago and many more adding to the subtle grandeur of the place. The organic food grown in the back yards, the tea garden tour, the tea factory visit and the warmth of the Bonfire in the chilly evening added to the wonderful experience we had at Dhekiajuli.





Day 2: Dhekiajuli to Nameri Forest Reserve

The next morning we bid goodbye to the good people of Sapoi and continued on our journey. Our destination for the day - Lalimou Camp, Nameri Forest Reserve, Assam.



A two and a half-hour drive from Sapoi, Nameri National Park and forest reserve share its northern border with the Pakhui forest reserve of Arunachal. Though Nameri was only our pit stop before we delve deep into Arunachal's landscape, we had our fair share of "Forestry experience", all thanks to the beautiful camping destination (Lalimou Camp). We had a sumptuous lunch with local chicken and rice and a lazy afternoon stroll amidst the chirping birds and mild sounds made by various animals (my knowledge is too limited to identify the animals and birds from their sounds though).

The world seemed so calm and peaceful here! That chilly evening we again had a bonfire in the woods and an early dinner as we plan to start early for our next destination, Dirang in Arunachal Pradesh.




Day 3: Nameri to Dirang

We planned to start from Nameri very early in the morning, around 3 or 4 am, but the kid who set the bonfire cautioned - "Sir, you can stumble into elephant herds that early in the morning", and to us that was NOT desirable at all!



The reason we wanted to start early, is to cross a place called "Nag Mandir, Chariduar" on the Tawang Road (a 3 hours drive from Nameri ) before 9 am as the uphill vehicle movements were being stopped from 9 am to 2 pm for Road construction. (as of early 2019)

At 5 am we started our journey postponing it by 1 hour and were instantly awed by one of the most beautiful mornings drives so far. The broad roads, tall sleepy trees stooping from its sides and the blue shaded mountains in the horizon caressed by the rays of the rising sun - the beautiful landscape of Arunachal seemed to welcome us with open arms.

One point I must mention here - there are two routes from Guwahati to Dirang to choose from,

1. Via Mangaldoi, Kalaktang, Rupa, Bomdila, Dirang

2. Via Tezpur, Bhalukpong, Rupa, Bomdila, Dirang

Though the ETA is almost similar for both the routes, traveling on the second one might take a bit longer due to the intermittent bad patches. Having said that, we could stop by some of the best tea gardens and the forest reserves on this route.
The first route, however, carries very little traffic and has better scenic beauty to offer. We planned for our return journey by this route

We stopped briefly at Bhalukpong (Arunachal border) for document verification by the border force (ILP and Driving License were checked) and filling the fuel tank up to its brim as we were apprehensive about the diesel availability high in the mountains. (We later found out that in normal circumstances, fuel availability is usually not an issue in these routes)

ILP application link - https://www.arunachalilp.com/index.jsp

From here onward to Tawang, we drove through roads of almost all types - twisty, muddy, dusty, smooth, relishing and what not. All I can say as a driving enthusiast is that the drive was extremely challenging but satisfying and enjoyable at the same time.

This was my first time drive through the Himalayas, which did give me some butterflies in the stomach initially, but the sheer beauty of the surrounding mountains, the valleys that we passed, the tiny villages that we came across, the chilly morning breeze - all culminated to make our maiden road trip to the northeastern Himalayas a splendid experience.

On our way to Dirang, we got a view of the majestic Gori Chen mountain peak, standing tall at 22500 feet, the highest mountain peak in Arunachal.

Our destination in Dirang was a beautiful cottage called Gonpalok Homestay, which belongs to a very cordial young gentleman named Tsering Tashi. When we were booking the homestay through Airbnb, I could not gauge how the place and its surroundings will be. As we stepped in and saw our room we were pleasantly surprised by the size of it, the aesthetics of the entire property and the two attached balcony, one of them being a river-facing one.

Airbnb link - https://www.airbnb.co.in/rooms/20559...XG3&s=HW45-64S

We had our lunch at Dirang with local sticky rice and chicken cheese curry which gave us the much-needed warmth for the afternoon. The Kiwi orchard in the backyard of our homestay (though fruits have already been plucked for the season) was a beautiful sight and was something new for me.





Day 4: A day in Dirang

The town of Dirang sprang up as a small settlement on the sides of the river by the same name. Though Dirang mostly serves as a pit stop for the tourists and travelers going towards Tawang, it has its share of interesting places that is worth mentioning. The National Center of Research for Yak, the tribal area of Dirang Dzong, a sulfur-rich hot water spring, Sangti Valley (famous for the black-necked cranes), etc. are some of the places to visit in and around Dirang. Having said that, we spent most of our time in Dirang by trekking along the banks of the river, observing the life of local people and enjoying the colloquial beauty that Dirang had to offer us.

We woke up in the morning and packed our bags for a day-tour on foot in and around the town. The banks of the river, where we spent a couple of hours was very peaceful and enjoyable. The soothing sound of the continuous flow of mountain stream, horses grazing in the lush meadows at a distance and the occasional chirping of unknown birds graced the ambiance.

The market area of Dirang town was typical to any small hill stations in India where we came across its humble, peace-loving dwellers, small shops with colorful items on display, mothers with their cute red-cheeked toddlers tied to their back, doing their daily chores.

The temperature at Dirang ranged from a cherishing 15 degrees during the day to a chilly, 0 to 5 degrees during the night in the second week of December. We spent the evening chatting over a bowl of hot "thukpa" and some delicious chicken momos as we started preparing for our next and the last destination - Tawang. The feeling of butterflies in my stomach started creeping in again because tomorrow I will be driving through "The Se La pass" - the world's one of the highest motor-able road at an altitude of 13,700 feet on our way to Tawang.

Day 5: Way to Tawang

As we dragged our bags towards the car early in the morning we discovered our first hurdle of the day - windscreen covered in a thin layer of ice and then the car did not start in the first attempt. Our host Tashi helped out by providing boiling water to clear the ice layer from the windscreen. Now, a second attempt to start the car, and Bingo! It started with a grunt-ling sound.

Before we drove our way out of the gates of our Dirang nest, Tashi gifted us a packet full of homegrown kiwis for the road. We thanked him and bid goodbye to Dirang.



As first-time drivers in the high mountain passes, we had a lot of unknown possibilities in our minds. Though we were well acclimatized to the high altitude by now, we took precaution by having some medicines to avoid any high altitude sickness as we would be nearing 14,000 feet today.

As we started gaining altitude and nearing Sela, we saw snow on the leaves of the shrubs by the side of the road, we noticed the magnificent blue color of the clear sky that we, the city dwellers, can hardly get a chance to experience, the clouds hovered in the deep gorges as we looked down from the high altitude mountain roads.

We cautiously drove through the icy roads to Se La and reached the highest point at around 9 am in the morning. Both of us did feel the lack of oxygen to some extent as we stopped by the frozen lakes of Se La but we adjusted ourselves quickly by reducing the running around and taking slower steps as we walked to the banks of one of the frozen lakes. As we were standing by the lakes, we could hear a strange sound, which on the first impression seemed to be the sound of some wild animals nearby. But soon we realized that the sound was coming from the frozen lake itself. Later, we came to know from a local that this sound is created when lakes are frozen and there are air pockets created between the layer of ice and water. The ice layer moves slowly creating a "GLOB- GLOB" sound. Standing by the lake, we stared at a distance and discovered the absolute beauty of nature. All the hard work that went behind reaching the destination seemed to have paid off immediately as we took a 360-degree view of Se La.

With a brief stop at Se La, we carried on with our journey and reached Jaswantgarh War Memorial in another 50 minutes. The war memorial was made to honor the bravery of Jaswant Singh Rawat, an army man who bravely defended our territory against the impending Chinese invasion during the Indo-Shino war of 1962. Near the memorial, we met some very helpful and cordial military personnel who offered us some hot tea and refreshments. We interacted with them for a while and got a sneak peek to their life in these snowy passes of Tawang. After a halt of 30 mins, we carried on our way to the nest we booked in Tawang - The Dondrub Homestay.

Link - https://www.booking.com/hotel/in/don...al&type=total&

We reached the Tawang homestay by noon and met our host Lahm and his wife. The homestay was perfect for us with a large space to park the car just in front of our room. A road trip like this comes with a lot of risks and challenges and I believe luck also plays a vital role in making a trip like this cherish-able in the years to come. We felt really lucky to have chosen Dondrub for our stay in Tawang - the beautiful couple and their family hosted us with the utmost care and were ever-ready to help us in any kind of problems we faced. Be it asking for heaters of all sizes possible to survive the December cold in Tawang or helping us to repair the puncture of the car tire or serving us butter tea in the shivering sub-zero temperature at night, Lahm and his wife had been awesome.

After our lunch we went for a tour to the Tawang Monastery, the largest in India and the second-largest in the world after Lhasa, The Giant Buddha Statue at the center of Tawang city, the Handicraft Center of Arunachal Pradesh (a good place to buy a souvenir) and the Tawang War memorial. It was around 4 pm in the afternoon when we reached the war memorial. After a quick tour inside the memorial, we watched the ceremony of lowering the India flag by the army. At around 5 pm in the evening, the temperature dipped to around 0 to 1 degree when we decided to drive back to our nest for the night - a very cold one indeed.








Day 6: A Day Trip to Bum La and Sangestar Tso

Today our car was sent to a local garage for a checkup and the puncture repair. We were driven in a local cab for our day tour by a very cheerful local named Tashi. Before I go into the journey details, let me give a quick background of our destination for the day.



Bum La, right at the India- China border, at a height of more than 15,000 feet holds accounts of the fierce battles during the Indo-Shino war of 1962. This is also the route of the 14th Dalai Lama's great escape to India.

On our way to Bum La, we heard stories of war and folklore of the people of this region from Tashi. We reached a military post called, Y-junction at an altitude of 14,600 feet, from where the routes are divided in two - the right side goes to Bum La and the other to Sangestar Tso, a lake created during an earthquake.

Bum La has restrictions in visiting time and we chose to go there first and then to the lake. It took us a half an hour of treacherous driving through bad or no road to reach till the last point where public vehicles are allowed. Ahead of us, we saw few army camps and military settlements beyond which is the McMohan Line, the border between India and China. Though tourists are allowed to go till the McMohan line on foot, they are controlled, guided and cordoned by military personnel.

Bum La is a flat corridor flanked between small mountain peaks on both sides, which makes winds pass through the area intensely, making the place extremely cold; at 11 am in the morning that day, the recorded temperature was -11 degree Celsius which dips down to less than - 20 degrees during the night. Salute to our Jawans who are posted at Bum La to keep an eye on Chinese movements 24*7. An army man gave us a briefing about the place, about their life and relationship between their Chinese counterparts (which seem to be cordial enough).

We stayed at Bum La for around 45 mins and started our journey for Sangestar Tso - Tso means lake in Tibetan. The lake is also called "Madhuri" by some locals and tourists, as Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit shoot there for the movie "Koyla". Amidst the high rocky mountains sits a frozen body of water, with scattered tree trunks protruding out from all over the surface of the ice, a small number of birds flocking in the water puddles created from melting ice - "Madhuri Lake" was picture perfect. We had some snacks from a military canteen by the side of the lake which serves hot soup and momos, puri sabzi and tea.

We took some great snaps in and around the area - rocky mountains at a distance, snow on the road, frozen lake Sangestar, our day tour itinerary was complete. We came back to Tawang and had late lunch. The rest of the day we went around the town of Tawang on foot to have a closer look a the local life of the town. Tomorrow we start our return journey - destination Bomdila.




Day 7: Return journey - Destination Bomdila

We packed up and started our journey at around 8 am in the morning bidding goodbye to Lahm and his family. A 6 hours drive with a very little break in between took us to the town of Bomdila, about 170 km from Tawang at an altitude of 7900 feet.



Bomdila, unlike Dirang or Tawang, is a place with many people - crowded market area and business centers, sellers marketing their products from their shops - all in all, Bomdila appeared to be a small but bustling and colorful town amidst the high mountains. After lunch in a local restaurant, we dropped our bags in our homestay (Anu Homestay, Bomdila) for the day and traveled to the helipad just outside the city which is also a good viewpoint of the entire Bomdila town. In the evening we roamed around in the market area to try some sweets and street food and bought some local Rajma for our family back home.

We did not want to strain ourselves too much that day and crashed early in bed as tomorrow we were to do the longest stretch of driving in the entire trip - Bomdila to Guwahati - A 280 km. drive without any major break in between.





Day 8: Back to Guwahati



Once I came across a dialogue from the Hindi movie "Highway" which says - I don’t want to go where I have started from, I don’t want to reach where I will be reaching to, but the road, the road I travel is beautiful, I don’t want this journey to end - This is exactly what we felt when we were driving down the Trans-Himalayan highways amidst the high mountains of North East Himalayas. We started from Bomdila at around 6 30 am in the morning, with packed breakfast for the road and fuel tanked up for the 280 km journey to Guwahati. We stopped for a while in Khalaktang and at the check post of Arunachal borders as we descended towards the foothills.
We drove through the beautiful forest reserve of Sonai-Rupai near the borders of Bhutan, we stopped by the lonely roads for a while just to breathe the fresh air and savor the winds caressing lazily through the leaves of long pine trees standing upright from the deep gorges, the dry leaves fallen on the sides of the road creating magnificent colors that we only get to see in a canvas of a painter.






As the winding mountain roads came to an end the canvas outside our car started changing rapidly - miles and miles of open fields with cattle grazing on them, the tea plantations on both sides of the road and blue mountain ranges of Arunachal in the horizon bidding goodbye to us.

After 8 to 9 hours of drive, we reached Guwahati at around 3 30 or 4 pm in the afternoon. We paid a quick visit to the Kamakhya temple and parked our car at our hotel to end our amazing road trip to Tawang - An event that we will cherish for a long time to come.

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Travelogues Section. Thanks for sharing!

[SJQIL87]

Nice travelogue!
Some of the roads especially the forest reserve are very scenic.
It is good to get lost sometimes in those locations in this busy world

[ARAY]

Great thread and some great pictures. This brings back very fond memories of our Arunachal trip in duster awd.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...uster-awd.html (Hyderabad to Arunachal, Assam & Meghalaya in a Duster AWD)



Keep traveling and sharing such wonderful memories.
And welcome to Teambhp, a great way to start this epic journey.

[MDED]

SohamDa, I must congratulate you and boudi for this incredible trip of yours. Going alone to these treacherous drives are the ones which remains with us throughout our lives and thereafter. I am curious to know, why did you select rental car from GHY? You could have driven all the way from Rosogolla City to Tawang. Rating the thread a well deserved 5 star!

[SohamBiswas]

Thanks for liking my post. This trip is the first of its kind for me and it will be cherishable for a long time to come

Thank you for the warm welcome. I read your tale to Tawang here, and honestly, it's one of the most fascinating travelogues I have read recently.
By the way, your Duster AWD looks very intimidating!

Originally Posted by MDED

SohamDa, I must congratulate you and boudi for this incredible trip of yours. Going alone to these treacherous drives are the ones which remains with us throughout our lives and thereafter. I am curious to know, why did you select rental car from GHY? You could have driven all the way from Rosogolla City to Tawang. Rating the thread a well deserved 5 star!

Thank you for the good words and 5 stars. The Tawang tour is something I will cherish for a long time to come.
The reason for taking a Rental car and not taking my own from Kolkata is, unfortunately, a shortage of time. My next blog will be on my recent drive to Sikkim, which I did in my car from Kolkata. See you soon.

[earthian]

Well, one more great travelogue with beautiful pictures. My urge to go to the NE intensifies every day and particularly after i read about these wonderful trips.

When i clicked on pandarides, the types of cars offered were the ISUZU VCROSS 4X4, MAHINDRA XUV 500, and MAHINDRA MARAZZO. Are there any other service providers there?

Thank you for sharing. Great pictures and narration.

[Ramanjit]

Hi SohamBiswas,
At the outset let me commend you for a well written Travelogue. Your write-up took me down the memory lane. As a youngster fresh out of the Indian Military Academy,my first posting was at Misa,on Guwahati-Jorhat highway. My operational role was in those mountains, in fact I have foot-slogged the mountains from Bomdila till Sela. Man those were the days ,Bomdila was a small town, which use to rely on Indian Armed forces for the commerce.Was quite famous for Hand woven woolen Carpets in those days.
The write up definitely deserves a 5 star.

[SohamBiswas]

Originally Posted by earthian

Well, one more great travelogue with beautiful pictures. My urge to go to the NE intensifies every day and particularly after i read about these wonderful trips.

Thank you for your nice comments on my travelogue. North East of India is mostly underrated, however, one of the best places in terms of scenic beauty and tranquility.
You can call the Panda Rides contact no, mentioned in the header of their homepage. They usually have more cars to offer than what is displayed on their website. If you search on google with "Self Drive Car Guwahati", you will get some more websites similar to Panda Rides (which I have not tried).
Lastly, you can avail Zoom car self-drive service in Guwahati (Having said that I am not a big fan of their service).

Originally Posted by Ramanjit

Hi SohamBiswas,
At the outset let me commend you for a well written Travelogue. Your write-up took me down the memory lane. As a youngster fresh out of the Indian Military Academy,my first posting was at Misa,on Guwahati-Jorhat highway. My operational role was in those mountains, in fact I have foot-slogged the mountains from Bomdila till Sela. Man those were the days ,Bomdila was a small town, which use to rely on Indian Armed forces for the commerce.Was quite famous for Hand woven woolen Carpets in those days.
The write up definitely deserves a 5 star.

Foot Slogging from Bomdila to Sela!! That's definitely a story to be heard/ read. Thank you for your nice comments on my travelogue, sir.

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[Thermodynamics]

Welcome to the Team. Beautiful write up, relaxed travelogue, felt like a honeymoon ride. Thanks for the useful tips, history, background, references for stays and rentals.

Description of traversing Sela pass was superb and while reading it I really wanted to see the pictures of frozen lakes.

Keep traveling, keep writing.