After our hair-raising Sumo taxi ride to Bomdila, we were more careful this time and booked our tickets early to Tawang. This time we asked for the front row seats and got them too – that meant we could get better views of the drive. After traveling in the last row of almost every vehicle we had boarded (excluding trucks where the first and last row are the same), this was a welcome change. Imagine our surprise when we saw that our driver drove ever so gently on the winding roads. Added to that we had music playing too in his vehicle! This journey was going to be a lot of fun – or so we thought. Right after we got out of the town, he boarded more passengers – now we had a lady sitting with us in the front row, 3 passengers and the driver in total. It gets really tough when the driver had to change gears and you have to move and on these roads, changing gears is required almost every half kilometer. Result – you cannot sleep. And, sleep is the best medicine for enduring long uncomfortable rides in our experience. The journey to Tawang is very scenic and is mentioned in numerous articles. The big draw that Tawang holds over Indian tourists is that it snows there in the winter. With most Indians never seeing snow because of the temperate or sub-tropical climates, seeing snow and experiencing snowfall is high on the list of any must-do items of an Indian. (However, we had seen enough snow in Chicago and Sweden earlier and were hoping there wasn’t any. We were planning to pitch our tents to save on hotel costs – we had enquired at the tourist lodge and they were booked full. Having snow would mean we would not be able to camp either.). At this time of the year though, there was only a slight chance of us encountering snow.
Bad roads on the way to Tawang
One big reason for the drive being scenic is that the road goes beside the river Kamang for the most part. Although we could only see the dry river bed most times, the effect of a river at the foothills of misty mountains is ethereal. We also saw some yaks on the way, but we couldn’t click any pictures of them as they were always in a military area. There is heavy presence of the army in Arunachal Pradesh because China considers it to be a part of their country – One China policy (sic). We requested our driver to stop for a little while at Sela Pass – the highest pass (13700ft) on the Tawang road. Sela pass can only be described in pictures.
Once we crossed Sela Pass, it was easy going and we got to Tawang by afternoon.