Our journey to Arunachal was the most difficult to handle. We had no help there in terms of accommodation and as expected, it is the one costliest tourist circuits. Our journey was along the Balukpong – Bomdila – Tawang circuit. As known, all the domestic tourists have to take an Inner Line Permit – ILP – to enter the state of Arunachal Pradesh. There are five government approved tourist circuits and one can get a permit for one circuit in a single permit. Unfortunately we had to stay in Guwahati for 3 days to get ILP, thanks to the holidays and small working hours of the office, but that’s a different story altogether.
There are no direct buses from Guwahati to Tawang, we should get a bus to Tezpur in North Assam and then to Tawang. We got into the bus heading towards Tezpur early in the morning at 5:30 thanks our host in Guwahati who took the trouble of dropping us at the bus stand. The journey to Tezpur was a bland one, as we had just 3 hours of sleep the other night, we did nothing but sleep in the bus. Reached Tezpur at around 11:00 AM and we realized that we missed the bus to Tawang and the next one was only on the next day. The only alternative we had is to go to Bomdila. Doing this we could also solve one more problem – Acclimatizing with the high altitudes. Ajay already had an attack of High Altitude Sickness when he was in the US and I didn’t want to take the risk after he told how it feels.
We got into a Tata Sumo headed towards Bomdila. As usual, we got seats in the last row. We were warned that some road stretches are not in a good way and being extended to 2 lane roads. The journey again proved us that the local knowledge is so important for a traveler. We stopped at the Assam – Arunachal border for lunch and the Sumo took us to a particular hotel. A local boy traveling with us told us not to go there and took us to another hotel nearby. Later we got to know from other travelers that the food was inedible and they haven’t eaten a bit of it. The part of the journey after the lunch on the ghats of Balukpong can be identified with words like vomit, nausea cramps. All the travelers, the local boy beside me, the lady in front of me and another business man on the left were busy puking out all through next couple of hours. The driver drove so recklessly that we had to place our hands on the roof of the Sumo so that our head don’t strike against it though it was only after couple of hits on the head.
We called up the Tourist Lodge at Bomdila and reserved a room for us.
One thing we didn’t realize amidst all the puking and the nausea is that of the weather. We were dripping sweat when we started in Tezpur and by the time we reached Bomdila, we realized that we were shivering.
The first impression that we got of Arunachal is that the people are very friendly. They went out of their way to help when we asked for directions. Also, every one was speaking Hindi which made our work very easy. The Tourist Lodge receptionist received us and showed us our room informing us that there is water problem and we have to use it carefully. One great thing about the Tourist lodges is that they have their own restaurants and that reduces a lot of burden. We had hot rotis for dinner and man!! they were so delicious. The best part about food in this part of the country is that whatever you eat – Rice or Rotis – they are unlimited with no catches.
After what we can call the most dangerous journey of our trip, we slipped under the razais and slept like lumber.