West Arunachal road trip May 2023

May 11: A troubled beginning 

Raju took us to the Bengaluru airport in good time and we had breakfast at the card lounge in the new terminal - poor food for which we paid Rs 1300 as my card was not entitled. Chinna had started to feel unwell. We thought at that point that it was just her stomach.

By the time we landed in Guwahati, Chinna was feeling worse. I persuaded her to come with me to Merwyn’s apartment with the assurance that we would not stay long. 

Merwyn was welcoming and quickly put us at ease. He said the car was in good shape. He had used the 4WD L for a 50 km bad stretch while driving in Ukhrul district and said it performed well, steadily pulling along the car. The car had come in really useful for him ( his car probably was in repair) during the period I had left it. He had been driving mostly to Arunachal ( Ziro area) and to Ukhrul in Manipur. He said he was now thinking of buying a used scorpio 4WD for himself.

We talked a bit about his work - currently with communities to turn Arunachal villages into zero waste areas. In Manipur, their project was about turning hemp into a usable fibre to provide a source of income to farmers growing the crop.

Merwyn asked about our itinerary in West Arunachal and approved it. He mentioned that we may not be able to take a self driven car to Northern Sikkim - something I needed to worry about later. He also mentioned that if we had to stay out of Arunachal because of the bandh, it would be better to hole up in Nameri rather than in Bhalukpong, the later being just a small market town while Nameri was situated near a national park.

I would have liked to spend more time with Merwyn and learn more about his projects seeing his enthusiasm for them. But Chinna was feeling worse by the minute, so we took his leave promising to meet up with him if possible on our return from Arunachal or in Siliguri if it turned out that his dates for visiting Delhi matched with our dates for shipping the scorpio out.

May 12: Preparations for the trip

The night was not very comfortable at our Guwahati guest house as the AC stopped in the middle of the night. Chinna looked better this morning. She remained in the room while I drove the car out to the service Centre reaching there just before 9 am. The room made me claustrophobic and I was glad to be out.

At the service station, I asked for the 80,000 km service to be done and additionally asked for an inspection of the suspension and rectification of the rear parking camera. The service manager persuaded me to add hub caps on two tyres and rustproof the chassis. On the way back from the service station, I bought a mercury thermometer. Chinna had a temperature of 99. By lunch, this had climbed up to 100. 

It is afternoon and I have repacked my bags and we have made a list of things to buy at the Quick Shopee just across from us on Baruah road. The car is due at 4 pm.

May 13: We get to Arunachal

The Kameng at Bhalukpong 

Somehow, we made it! We are in Arunachal and settled in the Mandal Ghang hotel in a large comfortable room with a fabulous view of the Kameng  river curving below us. 

This morning things did not look too good. 

Chinna still had fever, just a little below 100 degree F. She had a bad stomach after the adventure with the artisan pizza yesterday. And she was in no mood to jump out of bed and make an early start. I took the time we had before breakfast to go down and set up the storage area of the car with the cartons containing car tools, emergency cooking set, milk and lassi tetra packs and packaged foods. There was plenty of time as breakfast was at 8.30 and we were up at 5. I returned to the room and took my time to brew coffee. I showed Chinna pictures of our hotel in Bhalukpong. Seeing the pictures of the Kameng in Bhalukpong and after realising that the drive was under five hours, Chinna agreed that we could proceed from Guwahati.

So here we were in Bhalukpong. Our room was on the third floor overlooking the highway and the river. The moment Chinna saw the room, she was a changed person. We sat in the open balcony just outside our room and watched the river and the traffic on the Tawang highway till darkness set in.

May 14: Mrs Khandu makes our day

We had a comfortable bed at the Mandal Ghang hotel and the AC worked without a glitch. I managed to sleep reasonably well though I am generally not fond of sleeping in an AC room. It was bright outside much before 5 am. There was a strong wind blowing and the temperature in the open balcony pleasant. Chinna wanted to rest in the morning, so I made coffee for myself and an oatmeal porridge for Chinna and packed at a leisurely pace. 

We were just about to leave for Dirang around 10 when a Mrs Khandu - the owner of the hotel - dropped in to see us. The interactions with Mrs Khandu that followed turned out to be the highlight of our stay at Bhalukpong. Mrs K asked us where we were from and after learning that Chinna was from Kerala told us about her schooling at a Ramakrishna Mission school with teachers from Kerala. Teachers from Kerala were really good, she said, and schools employing them were much sought after by parents in Arunachal. Mrs Khandu had travelled to Bangalore and Kanyakumari but not to Kerala. She had the impression that people in Kerala were well educated and well off. Assamese workers were hard to get in Arunachal as they were moving to Kerala and securing better paid jobs.

At some point, Mrs K learnt of Chinna’s stomach ailment. She reeled out the names of several medicines, went to her apartment and returned with a couple and called up a pharmacy to procure some others ( including an antibiotic). I immediately suspected that she was from the medical profession and that turned out right ! She had done her MBBS from Delhi. She said she was ashamed to tell customers at the hotel- who took her to be a head cook or manager - that she was a doctor and worked at the nearby Government hospital. Learning that we wanted Dahi, Mrs Khandu sent her husband to a shop to pick up some for us. Then she walked to the parking lot to see us off and give instructions to our driver. Was she surprised to learn that I was the driver ! We parted with Dr Khandu, overwhelmed by her concern for us and the extent to which she went to take care of our needs. What a lovely person we had the good fortune to meet today!

The Dirang

May 15: Sick in Dirang

Last night was hell. I was too hot under the blanket and missing my head cover. From the previous morning, my chest felt heavy. I woke up in the middle of the night and doused myself with medicines, terribly worried that I was heading for a chest infection. On the other side, Chinna’s diarrhoea was really bad and she was also throwing up. At some point I drifted off to a fitful sleep with the medicine kicking in.

This morning, Chinna was a wreck. Her confidence was down. I knew that we had to consult some doctors. We consulted our family (literally family) doctor and also a doctor back in Bengaluru on the phone, letting them also know about our remote location. Both concurred in their diagnosis that Chinna had travellers diahorea. I started Chinna on the antibiotic ( which was in our possession thanks to Mrs Khandu) and went on a sortie to Dirang town to get the other medicines.

The stadium in Dirang at dusk

It is evening now and Chinna has been stable. We can’t travel tomorrow, so I have intimated the Tawang homestay, our next planned halt, that we will be delayed and booked a room at another homestay in Dirang town.

May 16: A day of rest

The Wangdi homestay in Dirang provided us a spacious room with windows looking out over the river. The lunch - boiled chicken with bamboo shoot and rice - proved to be tasty. Chinna was slowly recovering, still being very careful about what she ate. In the evening we walked around, visited the old Kalchakra monastery nearby and then walked inside a large stadium which offered nice vistas of the valley. By evening, Chinna was feeling better and agreeable to travel to Tawang the next day.

Approaching Sela pass

May 17: To Tawang over Sela Pass

We started our drive before 8 am and google showed the drive to Tawang to be a little over 4 hrs. On the first steep climb out of Dirang valley, I started getting a headache. Looked to be effect of rapid altitude gain. From that point I was dreading the climb to Sela pass that would take us to 13700 ft. During the climb, I was really conscious of my throbbing head and feeling quite uncomfortable. As we neared the pass, visibility became bad with low clouds and a slight drizzle. A poor motorcyclist was tailing me as I would have been an easy target to follow.

Eventually we reached Sela pass and stopped at a small shop selling tea and coffee. We had small cups of sweet lemon tea and used the toilet near the commemorative arch at the pass. At the urinal, I stepped on crunchy snow. The women’s urinal was a mobile toilet at waist height and Chinna had to hoist herself into it.

Sela Lake

After the pass, the going got better. My headache improved. We reached Dondrub homestay at 1pm, a little over 5 hrs after starting from Dirang. We got a nice welcome from the host and Shankar her able Assamese assistant who spoke some Kannada, having worked in Bangalore for 12-13 years as a guard. The first floor room we got was very well furnished and provided beautiful views of the town and the famous Tawang monastery. In the evening, we visited the Monastery.

May 18: Tawang

Sunrise happens somewhere between 4 and 4.30 in Tawang. We were awake early and had the first decent coffee together after many days. Chinna said her stomach was back to normal - close to 7 days after she started feeling ill. It was a cloudy morning with the sun playing hide and seek. 

View of the Tawang Monastery 

We decided to go for a long walk to a nearby sacred grove as suggested by a fellow traveller from Bangalore. The roads had only the occasional car or bike and even fewer people walking. We were able to find our way easily to the stadium and after that obtain directions several times to reach the Rigaling sacred grove and Gompa. We were rewarded with views of a lovely stretch of a forest of fir trees. We took a shorter way back but by this time there were motor vehicles on the road and we ended up breathing in a lot of diesel exhaust which again triggered my asthma.

Later in the morning after breakfast we drove to the hill with a giant Buddha statue and then to an Ani Gompa, a nunnery set in a secluded place. And in the evening, after the rain had subsided, we visited the war memorial.

May 19: To Zemithang

We got up very early, brewed coffee and slowly enjoyed it in the balcony looking out over the town, followed by a breakfast of oatmeal and bananas. We were on the road to Zemithang by 6.30. The early start allowed us to have a relaxed drive stopping at many spots to click photos of the beautiful valley of the Tawang Chu. 

The road was lined with chortens of various descriptions, rectangular ones having beautiful coloured inscriptions on stone or a row of prayer wheels, or little structures housing prayer wheels placed strategically under falling streams of water which kept the wheels moving and bells ringing. Our host at the Dondrub homestay had mentioned that there were 108 chortens on this route. We did not count, but this seemed likely.

On the way we stopped at several waterfalls and at the Gorson Stupa, a remarkable structure at a stunning location. It took a few missteps - or more literally, U-turns to find the Pangchem homestay located at the end of the market in Zemithang. The highlight of the afternoon was a trip to the border with China at Khinzemane organised by Gambu, our host.

May 20: A drive to remember 

This morning we set out early from our Zemithang homestay, crossed the Nyamjang Chu and drove up a zig zag road to the giant statue of Guru Padma Sambhava. The statue was located on a sheer hillside overlooking Zemithang and the Nyamjang Chu valley. We spent perhaps a half hour in the complex taking numerous photos of the valley unfolded before us with low moving clouds blowing across obscuring temporarily the peaks on the left bank of the river.

Nyamjang Chu near Gorson Stupa

While the infrastructure at the Pangchem homestay had some things lacking ( no wash basin in the bathroom, no geyser, no dustbin in the room, etc), the hosts Gombu and Tenzin more than made up by doing their best to make our stay comfortable. We took selfies with them and headed out on a different route back to Tawang, this time via Sungetsar lake and Y point junction. 

It was a drive to remember. The first part was a sharp climb of a 1000 ms from Zemithang (2200 m) with more hair pin bends than I have seen in any mountain climb in India. At some point during the drive, a thick fog descended on us reducing visibility and allowing only fir#t gear speeds. The climb was followed by a long drive along a ridge at 3200 m and then another climb to the Taktsang Gompa (3600 m). This road along the climb was in poor condition because of erosion by rain and the fog made driving really difficult on this road. 

Near Y junction 

After the Taktsang gompa, a short stretch fairly level stretch brought us to the high altitude (3700 m) Shungetsar lake. We walked around the lake taking in its spectacular surroundings. We had food at the cafe run by the army, I a Rajma Chawal and Chinna Maggie and momos. After Shungetsar, the road climbed to 4300 m before the Y junction (higher than the top of Sela pass) and we were above the snow line. The fog reduced visibility sharply. Eventually, we started the descent to a bitterly cold and grey Tawang.

May 21: Return from Tawang

Today was another Long driving day. We walked down to a spot near the stadium and back in the morning to limber up. Our start was somewhat delayed by a breakfast late in the arriving. We stopped at Jung to see the magnificent Fong Fong Ma waterfalls, something we had missed on our way up. 

Fong Fong Ma waterfalls

After that we stopped at a large well crafted statue of Tara. As we made our way up to Jaswant Garh memorial, we were again troubled by fog. The ride to Sela pass (4100m +) from the north side was quite smooth. This time neither of us felt any altitude effect as we had spent several days in Tawang. The descent on the south side towards Dirang was really steep with hair pin bends coming after very short stretches of level road. We were stuck behind a slow moving army convoy and it took a great deal of time and patience to overtake the vehicles in the convoy one by one. The ride from the highway to Thembang village - a distance of 14 km was on a narrow road cut out of the hillside. We arrived at the Kharjap homestay at 2.30, tired and really hungry. They had not kept lunch for us but on learning that we had not eaten, they scrambled some fast food.

May 22: Sangti Valley

On the spur of the moment, I took a decision yesterday that we would move to Sangti  Valley if we could get a room. Part of the reason was the room we got at the Kharjap Homestay - a small room with a leaking wash basin and a window looking into a back wall. The absence of our hosts at the homestay also contributed to my irritation. I called the Norbu Homestay in Sangti and  he said he could accommodate us. That decided our plan.

Entrance to Thembang village

At Kharjap, we met a nice family from Bangalore that was on its way to Tawang - Jinno a Malayalee working in a multinational company making road building machinery, his vivacious wife and a cute daughter studying in the 9th. Jinno had rented a car from Guwahati and had driven over straight from there to Thembang yesterday, reaching rather late in the evening. He gave me the contact of the rental company and we in turn told the family about our experiences in Zemithang.

This morning we walked along the paved road to Pangma village a distance of 6 km from Thembang. We turned around after covering about half the distance so as to get back to our homestay by 8 am. The road overlooked a valley all the way, but the valley was hidden by fog. We missed the vistas, but it was a good workout. After breakfast, we drove to Pangma only to be disappointed. The village consisted of just a handful of houses spread sparsely.

It was a short drive to Sangti valley and we settled into a large nice room by 12.30 and waited for our lunch to be prepared.

The Norbu Homestay

May 23: Stories of 1962

Our host Norbu at the eponymous homestay turned out to be an entertaining conversationalist and also helped us spend our time in Sangti Valley . On his instructions we crossed the river on a suspension bridge and walked along the left bank watching farmers - mostly women - planting chilli saplings in the sandy flood plain of the river. Tomatoes and Chillies were exported to Assam from the Sangti Valley, Norbu informed us. The sandy soil was not the best option, but people made do with whatever land was available. A woman farmer told us that they added chemical fertilisers to improve the crop.

This morning, Norbu took us for a walk to the old Sangti village to see his ancestral house. The village was located at an elevation on a hill, the houses close set, made of stone and wood, narrow lanes between them. A small Gompa occupied a central place in the village. Next to it was a Mani - a water mill operating prayer wheels - built by Norbu in memory of his father. Norbu told us that the village used to be surrounded by an impenetrable thicket of a type of poisonous bramble ( except for a guarded entrance) that served to protect the village from stray robbers belonging to tribes populating the neighbourhood.

One of the interesting stories that Norbu told us was about his fathers experiences during the Chinese invasion. They had come in along the Sangti valley and camped in the old Gompa. They were not carrying rations. For food they went around the village and collected pumpkins, then foraged for some leaves in the jungle, obtained large vessels from the villagers and cooked these together. The Indian troops on the other hand depended on the rations and were in trouble when the supplies stopped. The Chinese troops were at pains to convince the local Monpa that they were not their enemy. Only the bearded men ( Indians) were!

May 24: Shergaon

We have a lovely room at the DKT homestay in Shergaon, spacious, well furnished, with lots of windows and light. However DKT has one big problem. They have a new employee - a girl from the tea plantations who has been here only 6 months - as a cook and there is no one to supervise her cooking, the mistress of the house being away at work in Teju. After an awful dinner last night, I made up my mind to find another homestay to shift to.

View of Himalayan peaks from Mandala top

This morning we woke up to the sound of thunder. By the time we had finished our coffee, it had started raining. Around 10, the rain eased up a bit and e took a walk under umbrellas around the town. Just 10 mins away, we found the Lopon Homestay, located on the road coming down from Mandala top with a nice view. We liked the room and the landlady and even got her to prepare lunch for us while we went on a long walk to see two nearby monasteries. The lunch of rice and boiled vegetables was really tasty. We fixed with her that we would come and stay at her place tomorrow.

After meeting the Lopon homestay landlady and going on our walk, my mood lifted. I started appreciating the beauty of the Shergaon area and even the village. In the afternoon, we drove to the monastery at Chillipam, a beautiful structure located in breathtaking surroundings. Thee are still several places of interest to visit to tomorrow. After all, the plan to stay here three nights may have been the right one.

Chillipam Monastery 

May 25:

The morning started with Chinna’s coffee making which she has perfected over the last week of travel. We went for a walk on the old highway that runs through the upper part of the town enjoying the crisp morning, looking at the birds flitting about, undisturbed by vehicular traffic. We stopped at a tea shop where the owner came and sat down at our table and enquired about us. He had two daughters and a son, he told us. The eldest daughter studied in Delhi and was teaching in a school there as there were no jobs in Arunachal. The younger daughter trained to be a nurse in Bangalore and was now working nearby. His son had opened up a hotel near the SSB camp across the river. He had a house in Purani Basti near the Gompa and had shifted a while back to his current location. Before the new highway came up, they used to get much more custom at his tea house.

After a quick breakfast and bath we shifted our luggage to the Lopon guest house and went on a drive to the Buddha park located on a hill overlooking Jaigaon. The Buddha statue had been installed but the surroundings were still under development with construction work everywhere. I spotted a mason working meticulously on one of the108 pillars encircling the Buddha. He was from Guwahati and told me that he and his co-workers had been brought from Assam for the work. They had expertise in this type of work and had built the main structure standing the Buddha statue. 

On the way back to Shergaon, we stopped at the State Horticultural farm. We were walking about cluelessly till we spied a man sitting in the front porch of an office who hailed us and wanted to know what we had come for. Nimalama was from Darjeeling. He had been working in the farm a long time an₹ was settled in Shergaon with his family. Over the next half hour he gave us a conducted tour of the orchard showing us the apple, plum, peach and berry trees and treated us to a few ripening cherries plucked from the tree.

We returned to a sumptuous lunch provided by our host at the Lopon guest house. This is our last full day in Arunachal. Tomorrow we return to the heat and dust and traffic of Guwahati.

May 26: Last day in Arunachal

Our Arunachal trip ended yesterday. We left after an early breakfast around 7am. The distance to Guwahati was only 250 km but it took us over 7 hrs. The area around Shergaon and Kalaktang was really scenic. Lush green hills, vegetable cultivation on cleared slopes, villages perched high up, cotton wool clouds moving low across the hills and rain in flashes.

Google took us on a route that avoided Bhairabkunda and took us on a more easterly route to the boundary of the Orang National park and then along the Brahmaputra to Guwahati. The Assam traversal was on a two lane highway with heavy traffic making for slow speeds.

After upgrading to a deluxe room which cost us Rs 3000 more, we drove straight to the Quick Service Laundry to deposit nearly 9 kg of soiled clothes with the assurance that we would get them the next day.