Seat of Our Pants » northeast-states

Arunachal’s Tibetan Village

Martin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:06:14 +0000

This is a sight you don’t see every day: a Tibetan settlement, complete with gompas and prayer flags, transplanted onto the sweaty plains of eastern Arunachal Pradesh.

The village has been around since 1976. It was originally set up as a refugee camp for people that fled the madness that was the Cultural Revolution in Chinese-ruled Tibet.

Nowadays the refugees are pretty much settled into their new location. They are focused on building a life for themselves in this far-flung corner of the world – odd as it may seem: a proud high-altitude mountain culture 30 meters above sea level.

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Lake Disappointment

Martin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:53:58 +0000

Much to our disappointment, we didn’t make it to the Lake of No Return. Here’s Jaime explaining why. (Above: the check point where we were turned back by the Assam Rifles).

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Getting Into Arunachal Pradesh

Martin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:49:35 +0000

Traveling out here sure has its quirks and oddities. Like the other day when we tried to cross into Arunachal Pradesh from Assam. To the horror of the border guards, we attempted to do this on a public bus. This could simply not be permitted: nay, we had to have our own vehicle. Unlike the usual foreigner out here (mostly oil men and missionaries), we could only afford a scrappy little auto rickshaw for the last 25 kilometers to Miao.

Bump-eee.

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The Doors

Martin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:17:05 +0000

What do you do when resources are scarce, but you really need new garage doors?

In Dirang in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang valley, you save your cans of mustard oil, smash them flat and voila – the door is yours.

We’re definitely going to start saving our mustard oil cans from now on. You just never know!

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Helicoptering above the Himalayas

Martin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:13:32 +0000

Geography and politics have conspired to make the Tawang Valley very hard to reach. In fact, the only way to get there is to either bounce around in a jeep for two days, or to fly there with a helicopter. We did the jeeps on the way in – a scenic if somewhat uncomfortable way of reaching our destination.

On the way out, we opted for the chopper. Since people are comparatively poor in this part of the world, the Indian government partially subsidies the ride – an hour-long ride set us back ~60USD each.

While the weather was a bit hazy, the trip was still a memory for life. It’s not every day you find yourself cruising in a 1950s Soviet helicopter above the rice terraces of eastern Bhutan.

...but what's up with that beard??

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Movie Night in Tawang

Martin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:06:01 +0000

Yay for local culture! The other night, we were invited to the premiere of the movie ‘Journey of Life’, a film made by young Tawang people. We spent three dollars each on the entrance fee, something that entitled us to sit on the nice couches pictured below. The plastic chairs were a dollar less. Everybody else sat on those. Embarrassing but hey – we even got bottle service (well, I had one bottle of beer).

The movie itself was a surprise: a healthy old-fashioned slap-stick comedy, starring two slobbering country fools that stagger around Tawang town, messing up royally wherever they go. Even though the movie was entirely in the local Monpa language, we had no trouble following the ‘plot’.

Unfortunately we had to leave after an hour because the ear-splitting sound effects were so loud that we had to stuff napkins in our ears. Good times.

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Tawang Valley

Martin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:06:25 +0000

India is a large enough country to have corners that are totally un-Indian. Tawang Valley, located in a corner of Arunachal Pradesh, is such a place. Ethnically, this is a side-branch of Tibet, and the local Monpa people speak a dialect of Tibetan. The food is similarly Tibetan-influenced, as are buildings, clothing and the general feel of the place.

It is similar to its cousin region Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, but it is infinitely more lush and green. Since the area is claimed by China, there is also a strong military presence here. The situation is, however, very calm.

We find it to be an interesting place to visit for a couple of days. The surrounding villages are truly scenic, and on clear days one can see how truly majestic the valley is. Not bad for a far-flung corner.

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Good Times at Assam’s Top Attraction

Martin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:57:24 +0000

Today, we took time off from our Arunachal Pradesh quest to visit a national park – and what a park. Kaziranga is perhaps not the best known park in the world, but for us it ranks among the top attractions in India – it even counts as one of the major highlights of this whole trip. Being eye to eye with a full-grown, silently ruminating one-horned Rhinoceros is . . . but let me start from the beginning.

We arrived yesterday afternoon at the National Park entrance in Kohora, Assam, after a sweaty six hour bus ride from Guwahati. Apparently we lucked out, because the first hotel we tried had an affordable deluxe room available – other travelers later mentioned that they had made their bookings weeks or months in advance. After checking in we made arrangements for the morning after: at first we wanted to do just an Elephant safari, but we were talked into tacking on a two hour jeep ride (for an additional 20 USD). After that, we crashed out early, around nine thirty.

Eight hours later, we found ourselves on the back of a mama Elephant, face to face with a curious Rhinoceros. It’s pretty much an unbeatable feeling to get that close to one of the world’s great mammals. It’s an even better feeling doing it from on top of an even bigger mammal. Thanks to the fact that Rhinos and Elephants are friendly, we were able to get very close to the animals – as close as 10 feet at times. Other animals were also lulled into letting us close: water buffalo, a few kinds of deer, wild boars and so on. The tour lasted only one hour, but again: what an hour.

Next up was the jeep tour: we had braced ourselves for a bit of disappointment after the fantastic Elephant ride, but again Kaziranga NP came through. Thanks to a bit of wheeling and dealing, we managed to have our tour go off in between the other tours, so during two hours we didn’t see another soul: just us and the park (and our hired rifleman – for the unlikely eventuality of us meeting a Tiger). We didn’t get as close to the animals as we did from the back of our Tusker, but we saw wild Elephants, Rhinos, Vultures, Red Jungle Fowl, Buffalo and a whole heap of turtles sunning themselves on a log.

We arrived back at the camp at 9, just in time for breakfast. Not a bad morning, really.

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How to Get an Arunachal Pradesh Permit in Guwahati

Martin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:06:18 +0000

It looks like we are going to get our permit to Arunachal Pradesh after all! It’s been a process long in the making, to say the least. I am going to post a how-to here, for the benefit of other travelers hoping to do visit that far-flung corner of the planet.

First of all: if I knew what I know now, I’d try to get the permit arranged at the FRRO office in Kolkata. We did try Kolkata but thought it’d be faster to arrange it here in Guwahati, as the Holi festival was going to keep the branch shut down for a couple of days. Not so: Arunachal Pradesh permits are only available through an agency here – the Arunachal House refused us point blank.

So you need an agent. Our agent, who works part time at the Arunachal House office, visited us at our hotel at six o’clock in the evening. We had coffee in the restaurant, where we laid out our travel plans. He OK’d all our destinations, except for Changlang, made a few phone calls and that was it. The permit should be ours a few days later. Oh we had to pay a bit for it too… 8500 rupees/190 USD, to be specific. That is a heap more than the quote in Kolkata (30 USD), but it’s not like we can backtrack there and do it all over again.

The permit should arrive via email on Friday. We’re keeping every finger available crossed.

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How’s Guwahati? Weeell…

Martin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:36:14 +0000

Guwahati is the capital of Assam, and pretty much unavoidable if you wish to travel in India’s north east. It is a convenient hub with most of the mod cons (espresso, okay restaurants and travel agents). It also picks up a few points for its scenic location by the mighty Brahmaputra river. Other than that, there aren’t many more positives to list: it is a dusty, dirty and congested city.

Having said that, it is an interesting experience for another reason: you hardly see any other westerners here. Beside the stares (of which there are plenty), you can expect people to be interested in who you are and what you are doing here. Some will even go out of their way to be seen next to you – westerners are a novelty!

Still, after four days here it feels like it’s about time we move on. Now, if only that Arunachal permit would come through…

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