The capital city of gateway to the North East (Assam), Guwahati is a bustling cosmopolitan city. We were in Guwahati thrice – first time when we got there from Silchar, second time when we were on our way to Arunachal and the last time at the end of our trip. Our experiences there have been different each time and they only got better each time. The first time, we had to spend a fortune (relative to our budget) and book a hotel room as our host had to leave town on some urgent business. The second time, we got an amazing host and were treated royally. The third time, we became good friends with someone who we had only known online earlier.
Our first visit to Guwahati was quite chaotic. We got there after multiple tedious bus/taxi rides from the Assam border via a supposedly disturbed area (Bodoland) and it was already dark by the time we reached. We were not only tired, but hungry too. To add to this, our host had left town on some urgent business. Now we were hungry, tired and without a place to stay. After a few frantic phone calls, it was clear we were not getting any other hosts for that night. So we got to the hotel our ex-host booked for us and crashed. The hotel room was totally out of our budget, but we had no other option at that time. The next morning, we were clear that we had to leave the hotel room but had no plan of where we were to go next. When we got to know that there may be a bandh the next day, we decided to get to Shillong (which resulted in one of our most interesting rides).
The second time we got to Guwahati, we had a little more experience traveling and so had a plan, accommodation set and a backup plan too. Plans have a funny way of not working out though. We wanted to leave Guwahati as soon as we got our permits for Arunachal Pradesh (we had accounted for one day), but things got mixed up and we had to actually stay there longer. Our hosts were ever so gracious and didn’t mind our sudden change in plans though. Talk about coincidence though - remember the beautiful paintings painted by school kids on the walls of the stadium compound? Our host was the principal of that school! We got to hang out with our host’s son and his friends for a bit too. The interesting part was that our host was a great traveler and motorbiker - his most recent ride was to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. We later met his nephew who had done a solo motorcycle ride from Pune to Pondicherry!
While we were in Guwahati and not running around the Arunachal office, we visited the Kamakhya temple. The temple sits atop a hill and is one of the 51 Shaktipeethas. We were lucky to have an informative gentleman standing next to us while waiting to get a darshan of the deity. He explained to us the importance and the history of the temple and why there is no statue of the deity in this temple - which would have flummoxed us if we hadn’t heard the story first. The big surprise for me (Ajay) was when I saw animal heads inside the main temple! I got to know later that animal sacrifice is common in temples built for Kali mata. A little distance before the temple, you can great views of the city.
One of the sacrificial altars at the temple
Views of the city from the viewpoint near the temple
The third time we were in Guwahati, we stayed with another traveler friend - Subhadeep. He had already helped us with tips and advice for traveling in the NE. He is a motorbiker too and a travel freak. He had earlier driven to Tawang on his bike! Not just that, he had driven there in the winter when there was snow and ice on the roads. We were just back from Arunachal and now knew what a task it must have been! It is not easy to drive there even in a 4X4, let alone a bike. Our stay this time was marked by heavy rains, waterlogged streets, warm hospitality and a celebratory dinner to end our trip.
With Subhadeep - our celebratory dinner.
