North East beats North

Entirely harassed and bogged down by Mumbai, I decided to take a trip to the still forlorn North Eastern part of India. I travelled with a friend from college, between March 6 and 15. It was a backpacking trip, though not exactly a budget one. We primarily covered Tawang and Shillong, though the wildlife sanctuary of Nameri deserves a mention too.

In this post, besides enumerating some very interesting - and possibly unique - experiences, I have also included some travel tips. The post is primarily based on my experiences in Tawang, which I found to be the prettiest destination I’ve visited in India, so far. That’s not to say others were ugly. Shillong is at once an idyllic hamlet and a modern, clean city, which deserves another post. Hopefully I’ll get down to it another time.

The following is a summary of our itinerary:

Mumbai-Guwahati-Tezpur-Nameri-Tawang-Shillong-Guwahati-Mumbai

March 6

7:15 PM- Arrived at Guwahati airport

7:45 PM- Boarded a taxi after much haggling at the airport. Settled to pay 700 bucks for a 15km ride, owing to complete lack of alternatives.

9 PM- Left for Tezpur from Assam State Transport Council (ASTC) bus stop. Sweet deal, only 180 bucks.

March 7

6 AM- Grave uncertainty prevailed over how to get permit to enter Arunachal. Decided to spend the night in Nameri.

12 PM- After locking down the permit from Bhalukpong, came back to Nameri.

March 8

6:30 AM- Forward ho! to Tawang

12 PM – Expelled a barrage of poisonous gases from my body in a life-or-death attempt to tighten my anal sphincter muscles

5:30 PM – Reached Tawang, without leaving yellow stains in my undies.

March 9

8 AM- Left for a trip around the several beautiful, sometimes frozen, lakes of Tawang.

3 PM- Came back to our hotel.

March 10

7 AM- Left for Bum La, the site of India’s border with China.

3 PM- Back to hotel

March 11

6 AM- Left Tawang with a very heavy heart.

7 PM- Reached the morose town of Tezpur.

8 PM- Left for Guwahati

March 12

9 AM- Left Guwahati for Shillong

1 PM- Checked into a hotel in Shillong

4 PM- Tried chatting up local girls. Epic fail.

March 13

8 AM- Boarded bus to Cherrapunji

3 PM- Back to Shillong

March 14

8 AM- Boarded cab for Mawlynngon, known as Asia’s cleanest village

5 PM- Left Shillong for Guwahati

March 15

9 AM- Flew back to Mumbai *sob sob*

Travel tips

Having been there, done that, I’d like to leave certain tips for future travellers that would help them make a cheaper, more organised trip:

Ø     Make sure you have an Ola cab waiting at the Guwahati airport. As mentioned above, we were robbed of 700 bucks for 15km by the local taxi.

Ø    Getting from Guwahati to Tezpur DOES NOT require a cab. You get a minibus for 180 bucks a seat from ASTC bus stop.

Ø    Permit to enter Arunachal is easily available from Tezpur as well as Bhalukpong. Takes a maximum of 3-4 hours. Saturdays and Sundays can get tricky, though.

Ø    In case you wish to travel back and forth between Nameri and Bhalukpong (20 km from the former), use shared cabs. They look like cannon-less tanks, charge you just 20 bucks/seat, and are available at a place called ‘Hathi Gate’, bang on the highway. Strictly avoid private cabs, which would set you back by 800 bucks.

Ø    The 12 hour journey from Nameri to Tawang is long and arduous. The 10-seater Tata Sumo costs 750 bucks/seat, and there’s no other transport (the chopper service was discontinued a while back). If you’re an elitist baby, book two seats. That’s what we did on our way back. Ignore the part about the elitist baby. And yes, shit to your heart’s contentment before you get into the car.

Ø    Tawang’s damn cold, though you get cheap winter clothes once you’re there. It’s advisable to pack light.

Ø    I’d recommend avoiding local cuisine. Except Shillong, good food is hard to find. Within the city, Café Shillong and City Dhaba are a North Indian’s delight.

Ø    Always start your day early (you should be out by 7AM, latest). People of this region observe self-imposed curfew after dark. Tawang is especially bad. There are no street lights either. 

Journey to Tawang

Much more than the beautiful scenery, the bright spot during the tiresome journey to Tawang is the rather quirky spate of signboards that lace the 300 km hilly terrain. These signboards usually exhort education and safety, but that's only if you're too nerdy/bored/tired to overlook the obvious double-meanings.

This one takes the cake:

Yes ma'am, always

As a precursor to the uber cool bunch of people that await you at Tawang, most signboards are titled “BRO” (though not the one in the picture above).To my utter disappointment, I found out later that BRO was only an acronym for Border Roads Organisation, which happens to be arguably the biggest threat to India’s national security in the entire world. I say that because this infamously corrupt organisation, tasked with the construction and maintenance of roads in India’s critical frontier regions, has failed so miserably that it’ll be hard to estimate the extent of this catastrophe till China yet again decides to trample on our land. It would be a shame to even use the term ‘road’ for the dusty tracks that lead to Tawang. In shocking contrast, the roads on the Chinese side - facing similar ambient conditions - are broad, smooth and all-weather. As a minimum punishment, they should be debarred from calling themselves BRO.  The video below will give you a good idea of the ineptitude of this organisation. PS: My hands are always rock-steady.

The Monpas

While reams have been written about the natural beauty of North East in general, and Tawang in particular (and trust me when I say that every word is yet an understatement), it’s the people of Tawang, commonly known as the ‘Monpa’ tribe, who truly make the experience worthwhile. To the completely non-racist North Indian mind, the word ‘tribe’ is evocative of coal-black skin, ‘jhingalala’, incessant and pointless revelry, chill penury and uncooked dogs for dinner.

Entirely contrary to perception, Monpas are the coolest, best dressed and the most suave inhabitants of this otherwise style-starved nation. Blessed with the most malleable hair in all of humankind, this amazing bunch of people can draw it into the most bewildering of shapes to sport enviable hairstyles. All this becomes still more surprising given that Monpas are Buddhists, people better known for their detachment. Perhaps the photo below puts my thoughts in perspective.

Don't worry, these guys are absolute doves in behaviour

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Tawang is a feminist’s paradise too! Here, even most liquor shops are ‘womaned’.  I suppose the men in my part of the country would consider it not just their birth right but even their divinely-assigned duty to rape a woman who dared run a liquor shop. Thankfully, Monpas happen to be far more evolved. Women are pretty, and they never break eye contact if they happen to be interested in you. Sadly, my knowledge in this regard is mostly vicarious.

Given that virtues come rare, most societies would well have exhausted their quota in achieving such inspiring social progressiveness and envious physical attractiveness. Not the Monpas. They still have up their sleeve unparalleled warmth and charm. Where else in India would you expect strangers to wave at you, that too when your looks are a giveaway of your distinct origins? Being invited for a cuppa by shopkeepers is not uncommon. Goods are dirt cheap, yet bargaining comes easy.

Anurag with Tashi (it's arguably the most common Monpa name), the shopkeeper who invited us for snacks. The good thing is I don't need to point out who's who.

Keep in mind that Monpas are closely in touch with their Buddhist identity. It seems their coolness quotient takes a hit when it comes to allowing immigrants into their holy land. One of our cab drivers was strongly critical of increasing number of Muslims making Tawang their home, being particularly unhappy with the likely prospect of mosques coming up in the region in the near future. We tried teaching him the virtues of tolerance and how North Easterners were facing exactly the same problem in the rest of India. Clearly, that fell on deaf ears.

Tawang’s lakes

Besides the sheer joy of living amongst its people, Tawang also provides you the rare opportunity to witness several frozen (at this time of the year) lakes, housed among tall mountains. The most famed of the lot is Madhuri Lake, popularly named after a rather well known actress, after she performed a dance sequence while shooting for the movie ‘Koyla’. This lake is surrounded by a snow-capped mountain on one side and an almost perfectly vertical, rocky mountain on the other. The only downside to these otherwise amazingly beautiful, frozen lakes is that the ice is too thin, and walking on it is simply not an option. I did make an attempt, and this is what happened:

Pieces of ice that cracked under the weight of my foot

Panoramic view of Madhuri Lake

The frozen Madhuri Lake with barren trees jutting out of its surface

Bum La

“La” means ‘pass’ in Tibetan. At 15200 feet, Bum La is the site of Indo-Sino border, and the sanctum sanctorum of Tawang’s beauty. Keep in mind that all visitors to Bum La need to secure a pass. Thankfully, the local travel agencies (Arunachal Holidays, in our case) do the job for 500 bucks, irrespective of the number of visitors. You’d be well advised to apply for the pass a day prior to your visit to Bum La.

Both of us being political animals and war enthusiasts, this was the biggest attraction of our entire sojourn. And it didn’t disappoint one bit. We could even freely step a few metres inside China without taking sniper shots to our heads. It’s a little demeaning that while our forces stand right at the zero point, not a Chinese soul is visible till as far as the eye can see. The only visible Chinese presence in this region is a far-off post, which is usually thinly populated. Below is probably the only clear picture of this post. The tiny lly a three-storey building.

Visible in green and white, it's actually a three-storey building. To its right is another watchtower.

Another view of the border

Panoramic view of Bum La

In the realm of cool poses, this one epitomises 'epic fail'. Damn the photographer :/

Let's rechristen the above to epic fail 1.0, for this one is epic fail 2.0. Again, the photographer failed to capture my service to the nation as I snipe at the Chinese post in the background

Thoughts on the army

The army men posted at Bum La are unbelievably friendly and warm. At least in Arunachal (and parts of Assam and Meghalaya, which we visited) there seems to be no hint whatsoever of abuse of local populace. In fact, one of our cab drivers even hurled abuses at the driver of a military truck when he wasn't granted his right of way by the truck driver. 

Army men welcome visitors with open arms and take pains to answer each and every naïve question thrown at them by bloody civilians, though it must be kept in mind that on our trip, we only interacted with non-officers (infantry men) of the army. I am not sure if the officers of the army would be similarly welcoming.

What makes this attitude even more heart-warming is the hardships these men have to go through each day of their lives. At far sub-zero temperatures, there is barely 6 hours of electricity made available to them, through diesel generating sets. While on our way back, we managed to gain entry into an igloo-like dormitory. One of the men told us that owing to lack of Oxygen at such altitudes, getting adequate sleep was a battle they had to wage every night. To make things more pitiable and shameful, the in-house loo was dysfunctional, which meant the men had to make do with a makeshift toilet situated not less than half a km away.

Outside view of dormitory

Inside view

On our way down from Bum La, two officers hitchhiked in our vehicle. One of them, Lance Naik DK Patnaik, proudly pointed out to us the discrete spaces Indian army had carved out for itself - often perched on top of mountains - to be used in event of war with China. Funnily enough, his joy turned to fear once I began discussing minute details of India’s artillery. Poor guy suspected me of being a Chinese agent and promptly abandoned any further revelations. It was only after seeing my PAN card that he seemed more relaxed, albeit not entirely.

Most surprisingly, all the army personnel we chatted with were totally accepting of the debacle of 1962. A documentary that we witnessed at the war memorial in Tawang went as far as to use the phrase “apathy of the political class and mishandling of the army” to describe what happened back then. This seems like a rare case of actually learning from past mistakes. The men boasted confidently about defending the nation from any future Chinese shenanigans. I certainly hope their undying patriotic fervour holds in the face of another war, since given the pathetic state of infrastructure in these regions, they’d need plenty of it to hold on to the territory they so proudly walk on.