There are places in India that are beautiful yet not well explored by travelers. Sometimes due to tough terrains and distances, reaching there may be a difficult task. But the overwhelming satisfaction you get after reaching the destination... the shear magnitude of accomplishment you feel when you finally get down from your vehicle... the magnificent mountains and valley views you are blessed with... and the solace you find sitting there for long... can easily compel anyone to travel along these uncommon zigzag roads. I had been thinking of travelling to North East for years, it was time to realize it into action.
I started my research about various North East routes and places to explore in late 2018. Vj joined the research and route finalization exercise few months before we started the adventurous bike ride to North East in May 2019. Despite spending little time on research, he was able to capture a lot of relevant stuff that would unfold as stories along the route. It was our second bike ride together after Leh in 2016. The journey was mind blowing, we covered all places we planned and more as recommended by locals, traveled as far as borders of 3 countries, well, got instant permits to enter one too. We witnessed tough duties done by Indian Army in snow clad mountains, 300 years old natural marvels, endless tea gardens and crossed mammoth Brahmaputra River in boat along with our bikes, traveled world's largest river island and drove through muddiest road we remember. The journey was adventurous, destinations were epic, and yes, we got nice souvenir from North East... beautiful memories.
The Plan
By definition, the word North East is usually referred to as 7 states in North Eastern part of India - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. We brainstormed enough to fit few places of each state in our itinerary... only to realize 2 weeks are not sufficient to cover even half of it. We settled for Arunachal, Assam and Meghalaya visit in first phase and planned to reach Guwahati by Train along with bikes transported by train as luggage/parcel. Places we planned to visit were broadly falling in 3 routes in reference to Guwahati.
- Up North till China Border covering Bomdila, Dirang, Tawang and Bumla Pass.
- Down South covering Shillong, Cherapunji (Sohra), Living Route Bridge, Dawky Lake.
- Eastern Assam along tea gardens till Kaziranga, Jorhat and boat ride to Majuli.
We kept it open to choose which way to go first. I was in favor to cover North first, then East followed by down South. Vj had the thought to cover South first then either North or East.
The plan... was simple... adventures just happened.
Train to Guwahati
Vj started journey one day ahead of me to reach Mumbai from Pune with his bike and luggage. From here we had planned to catch a train to Guwahati, whopping 52 hours journey.
We had plans to leave Guwahati as soon as we reach there but the train got late by 4 hours leaving less scope to prepare bikes and start the ride towards Shillong. So we decided to stay in a guest house and met this wonderful host Umakantan. He was a walking encyclopedia of North East and provided quite useful tips while travelling to North East. "You might want to try your luck with Kaziranga National Park first." He suggested. "It might get closed in a day or two." Contrary to our travel plans, we headed towards Kaziranga next day.
Assam Tea Gardens and Kaziranga National Park
In the morning, we prepared our bikes and loaded our bags. When you ride bikes, you need to take care of this single most important element that can make or break your journey. So, put some chain lube, check clutch, throttle, breaks, tyre pressure, load saddle bags and tie up other bags properly to bike back seat or carrier. Love for biking, especially RE, comes with a little cost, and we were happy to pay it considering the enjoyable journeys and shear fun of riding a classic masterpiece. However, choices for riding bikes have increased multi fold these days, and selection is discretionary.
Road from Guwahati to Kaziranga National Park is pure bliss. Tea Gardens, Forests all along the route. Few wet spells along the route only added to the pleasure. There was no reason to go fast on this route, and no reason not to stop every now and then. We enjoyed traditional Lal Chai (Tea without milk), visited couple of tea gardens, talked to a lot of friendly locals and as we reached near to the destination, we could see wild animals like Rhino, Elephants at some distance. It was first time I could witness these wild animals at such proximity. Next day during Park visit, the distance reduced to even few meters at some points...
Noticeable points along the routes are some nice restaurants made of bamboo sticks, and a Cave Restaurant that you can't miss due to presence of a giant King Kong statue easily reminds the classic movie.
We reached Kaziranga National Park by noon. There are 5 routes, we selected Bagori, Western Range as it is said to have more density of Rhinos.
More details on this site, remember, timing matters:
https://www.kaziranga-national-park.com/wildlife-safari-in-kaziranga-national-park.shtml
After few minutes of rides, you see wide range flat plains covered with grass, flat enough to be submerged altogether when it rains; which was exactly going to happen in few days from now. Water bodies were calm and soothing, and we could see natural habitats of this land doing there regular grazing stuff at a distance.
Rhino crossing water. Is it knee deep or Rhinos can swim?
Wild Buffalo
Safe with Mom!
Some not so appreciable things also crossed our eyes while on safari.
Safari Hault at Dunga Camp
We completed the safari by 4 pm, and unanimously guided to Orchid Garden. Usually we try to avoid such suggestions, but Orchid Garden... sounds appealing. So we headed to the place, and it was worth it.
There are hundreds of varieties of orchid. Vanilla is an orchid! You knew? 5 petals normal, one petal skewed, easiest way to identify. The guides were really knowledgeable and helpful.
Orchid garden was best, but there were other noticeable things too, we visited one of them, cactus garden and realized, this place is heaven for a botanist.
It was almost dark, we try to observe the rule Sun down, Engine off while riding. So, we booked a nearby hotel, and headed our bike to our night stay.
Wooden craft shops along the roads had the right mix of art work related to locality and deserved a look.
Majuli - World's largest river island
According to Wikipedia, Majuli was 880 sqkm in 2000, and shrunk by 352 sqkm by 2014 due to river course changes, declared a district in 2016 and is still the largest river island of the world! Worth travelling, right?
Majuli is along the northern ghat of Brahmaputra River. We took ferry from Jorhat to reach there. Bikes were loaded in the boat and we started crossing "The Brahmaputra River". The ride was pleasant, but overcrowded. The frequent swirl formation in river keeps your eyes engaged while usual fast paced wind flows across your face to take away all thoughts other than cherishing the moments. They say turbulence is so high that if a person fall down, it will be hard to save him as he will be sucked in and thrown 100s of ft away by the swirls. We witnessed our hands tightening the grip across railing. Just a safety precaution i guess, nothing to be afraid of.
Majuli is beautiful. Be it ponds, rice fields or houses made upon bamboo platform (flood prevention).
Few cafe's made its way to Majuli.
Traditional stuff, can be skipped without any regrets.
We spent our evening travelling across the island. Its a different world in itself. It wasn't much commercialized, it wasn't much crowded. There were tribal population spread across the island. However some area was developed as a market for tourists. And even some tribal pockets had regular trained song and dance stuff, "Mising" village is one of the popular spot. There were traditional temples called Satra worshipped by Vaishnav people. One of the famous one makes Face Masks (Mukhota). We visited that Satra and then preferred spending time in nature. While exploring, we reached at the banks of Luhit River, best place in Majuli to watch sun set I believe.
We found a nice Bamboo Cottage Hotel named Yagdrasill. Yag - dra - sill. The location was in mid of the island, and its elevated bamboo hut's reflation from nearby pond looks so beautiful from the road that you can't miss it while travelling. Morning walk was so refreshing that it was hard to decide whether to extend our stay their or move forward to our ambitious plan to cover Bum La and Tawang. With a little thought to it, we decided to be back their with our families and other friends some time in future; and throttled our bikes towards Lakhimpur. We crossed Luhit river in a smaller boat this time, it took 10 minutes to load, unload and cross, and 2 hours in total including wait time. This will have a ripple effect in the journey onwards.
The road to Lakhimpur is partially built, rest of the stretch felt more like dried floodplain with bunds every now and then. We somehow made it to Lakhimpur and moved towards Balipara, north of Tezpur. Its a T-Point where NH-13 from Tezpur to Tawang meets road to Itanagar via Lakhimpur. The other option would have been to go back to Jorhat and travel back to Tezpur. The daylight and our travel for the day ended near Balipara. We rested well as the next stretch of the journey was going to be a tough one.
Next Stop - Dirang
We need ILP (Inner Line permit) to enter this part of India. We inquired about location and process, as informed, it was quite smooth formality. We had all the papers and total time spent in office was less than 15 minutes.
We started early, hoping to reach Dirang by afternoon. But this journey wasn't easy one. Map showed its a journey of just 5 hours, it took us 10. The road was under construction, some places no road at all. I have never traveled in such a muddy road. Our bikes and rain pants turned absolute grayish brown. Oh, did I mention it was drizzling all along the route till Bomdila. Quite a welcome to Arunachal :)
We reached by 4 PM. In mountains, weather changes very rapidly. So far our winter cloths were modest, but at Bomdila we had to take out the sweaters and caps. Bomdila is a beautiful town amidst the mountains. We tried traditional noodle soup - Thukpa in a nice shop in the market.
Journey from Bomdila to Dirang was smooth. But the road was foggy. It went a bit dark and we needed to break our rule and drive in the dark for an hour. Its not that we were not prepared; we had fog lamps, and all emergency supplies; its just that we believe its a safe practice to follow the sun while on long bike rides. However, exception happens; fortunately it was a memorable one. The foggy misty road in the evening was a memorable ride, that can only be remembered and cherished, not explained.
In the morning we visited Dirang Monastery. It was peaceful like every other ones visited so far, plus, the view of the valley was magnificent. I wonder how they end up finding such beautiful places for Monasteries. Have a look.
Weather app showed afternoon showers, so we prepared ourselves for that and started our journey to the ultimate destination Tawang.
Road to Tawang
Journey to Tawang was comfortable unlike previous day. May be our definition of comfort was altered by now. We witnessed a village function, realized it was a festival day, celebration was a little different from our perception though.
We crossed mystic mountains showing off their charm in full glory. Sela Pass enroute Tawang.
I couldn't believe I have finally reached to a destination I wanted to visit for so long. The stay at Tawang was modest but comfortable as we chose. Plan was to reach Bum La next day so we rested well. It wasn't expected to be a smooth ride, it didn't turn out to be either.
The ultimate ride to Bum La
Another permit PAP (Protected Area Permit) was required to enter Bum La. It is usual story for hotel staff to arrange it for a fee/commission. But we were a bit late to ask for it last evening (after 6pm). As the day was Sunday, it won't be possible to get the permit even today. So basically we can't go to Bum La that day, and next day either. Considering our plan to cover Cherapunji as well; we might have to skip Bum La. But you know shiddat and all. with little understanding of the process and decision to talk to few officials on our own, we were able to get permits and started our journey to Bum La!
The route was empty, not many bikers unlike Ladakh journey. And the valley was serene. This beauty must be evidenced by own eyes, still, what we could capture in clicks, is here:
China Border, quite different than Nathu La. Less built up, more scenery, much less crowd.
Subedar Joginder Singh PVC Memorial. Don't know him? Must read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joginder_Singh_(soldier)
Our Indian Army is filled with brave soldiers and these rides give us a chance to witness why we live such a comfortable & safe lives in cities. War memorials are filled with endless courageous stories, some even bring tears. We tried to cover all War Memorials en-route. Filled with mixed emotions, we bid adieu to Bum La and headed back to Y-Point.
Travel to Bum La is regulated by Indian Army. There are 5 check points till Bum La and you need to be at first check point before 11 AM (Or 12 Noon? not sure). Else they will not allow to proceed. The reason for that is sudden weather change in afternoon every now and then. We were about to witness it ourself today.
Y-Point is almost mid point of 3 legs. Easiest being Tawang to Y-Point. Take right from here and you travel to Bum La. Take left, to go to Sangatsar Lake (Madhuri Lake). We wanted to cover both in a day. A bit of tight schedule is a sign of bad planning. Anyway, too late for this trip to revise. We spent a lot of time in Bum La; ideally we should have gone back to Tawang.
"Weather seems fine, lets give it a shot." said Vj. I looked up, nodded and we were on our way to Sangatsar Lake from Y-point. The road is not so good, and its a challenge to ride downwards in hilly area. That we realized first time after crossing Rohtang La towards Keylong. Riding bike up gives you confidence only to take away while riding down. After so many rides, this fact remains the same.
We reached Sangatsar... and the skies changed colors and it started raining. We briefly visited the lake, which was not a great visual delight, above average, I believe. Or may be its the weather. I liked more the story of how this lake was formed.
"Formed by a flash flood after an earthquake in the year 1950, Madhuri Lake is originally known as Shonga-tser Lake, which is one of the most popular lakes in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh. The lake was renamed so after the shooting of Bollywood movie Koyla, starring Madhuri Dixit, the beautiful actress."
Source: https://tawang.nic.in/tourist-place/sangestar-tso-madhuri-lake/
We wrapped up our visit to Sangatsar sooner than planned and rushed back to Y-Point. Freezing rain drops, winds, pebbled roads what else we could have needed to make this journey more adventurous? Tactical failure of my gloves! I borrowed Vj's gloves as I was driving. After reaching Y-point, first thing we did was to go to fire place of our Sainik bhailog and warmed ourself up. Ordered a lot of pakodas and tea. It became more of a mission in last few hours. Did somebody said something about "sudden weather change in afternoon every now and then?" Yeah! I bet its true to each word.
Back to Tawang and Bomdila
Journey from Y-point to Tawang was smooth. It was a great feeling to cover Bum La pass, that seemed almost impossible by last night. We spent our evening in Tawang local market, which was quite well developed unlike our expectations.
Like every major-minor town in the Himalayas, Tawang had a monastery too, a very big one. Monks told us the town has developed only in last 10 years, before that there were very few houses here and there.
Visit to the this Center/Museum was nice.
Timeless lessons engraved in stones...
We started our ride back to Bomdila, our stop for the day, en-route we crossed beautiful Sela Pass once again.
Reached Bomdila before sunset.
We spent time exploring local market and drove till Helipad uphill in Bomdila next day.
Yethrog Restaurant in the market, our favorite restaurant by now.
Next stop was bit of a surprise for us. We were told by another biker group we met, that we can enter Bhutan while going back to Guwahati. Though we were not sure as our research concluded Phontshiling is the entry point and is nowhere near our route plan. So it was a pleasant addition to our itinerary, we decided to take our chances. So rather than driving back to Guwahati, we headed towards Bhutan!
Bhutan - well, geographically, at least
This bike trip was full of surprises. When we started from Bomdila, our target was to reach Kalaktang. So we took the road towards it from T point near Rupa (is a place.). And in a few kilometers, we saw a beautiful structure towards right side of the road. It was Chilipam Monastery and it was beautiful! We decide to turn right and go visit this one, roughly 100m from the road.
Actual name of Monastery, if you can remember/pronounce. Chilipam is fine with me.
Weather was favorable today, we reached to the gates of Bhutan in the afternoon. The place to keep in mind is Bhairav Kund; a tri junction between Assam, Arunachal and Bhutan.
So the story is that, there is a small town called Jongkhar in Bhutan. It is landlocked between hills and there is no accessible road to Bhutan Capital and other areas, even villagers travel to Thimphu via India. So, to promote local business and tourism, Bhutan Government allowed access to this village without immigration. If you have car, you can go inside in it. If you have bike, you can go and fill petrol which is cheaper than India, but cannot go to the village. So we needed to park our bikes outside Bhutan, and walk to the village. As a proof of identity, voter's card is enough.
We had optiosn to stay in Bhutan, but there were few formalities and paperwork, so we chose to stay in our country. It was a nice short visit to Bhutan, though everything seemed much like North East.
Gates were closed for traffic by the time we came back. We just walked through side doors with security checks. We really have very friendly relations with Bhutan.
Bye - Bye (Mini) Bhutan. :)
Night stay was is Bhairavkund, the tri-junction. We targeted ride to Shillong, bypassing Guwahati, and if possible reach somewhere near Cherapunji (Sohra). We have a habit of shortlisting stay options, talking to owners but not booking it. The reason for this is in the past. Our first ride was Ladakh. We had crossed Rohtang, Gramphu, Tandi and reached Keylong. We realized there are may stay options here, but just to save few bugs we decided to travel just few (30-40) kms more to Jispa, where we had booked a very nice hotel. That ride was killing. The altitude was going up, it was already dark and wind was chilling our spines. We realized, biking can never be definitive plan and so we do our research, familiarize ourselves. But... except key places, we try to avoid locking our money in bookings. We target and improvise. Yeah, that sounds better. :)
Meghalaya
So, the ride to Shillong is a nice hilly road ride. Less challenging, but equally beautiful. We started very early, crossed Guwahati and had our brunch on the way at Krishna Restaurant. Food quality was nice, so was the decor.
After a brief hault at Umiam Lake; we reached Shillong by afternoon. The town is nice, but central area is too dense. That's the story of every town in India. After one point, the central area swells like anything as if market elsewhere can't be developed; Shillong was no exception. We needed few basic supplies, that we gathered quickly, took a round of main market. And we were on our way to Cherapunji in no time.
Cherapunji is now called Sohra. And before reaching there, we were welcomed by intermittent mist and fog. "Sohra me kohra" (Fog in Sohra) smiled Vj. Before we reached Sohra, we could witness cloudy skies, awesome weather, beautiful curvy landscapes and a lot of signboards of home stays. Sun went down few km before Sohra, we turned off the bikes at next restaurant cum home stay.
Next morning we started early as it was planned to cover Living Route Bridge. It requires to trek 3500 steps up-down-up-down to reach there and same to return unless you have plans to trek further to Paradise falls or stay there in village houses; there are few near each route bridge.
Google Map Age has reduced requirement of frequent route guidance but still we don' trust it 100%, anyway its fun to talk to locals. We reached to the starting point of trek by 9:30 something. After parking our bikes, we started the trek. Its an awesome trek in dense forest, with occasional huts and restaurants. I can't say it was an easy trek, but while going there it didn't feel like a difficult one either. There were many streams, cable bridge crossings, few sacred/restricted parts and Living Route Bridges.
Basically a stream crossing made by a living tree routes is called Living Route Bridge. The tree is on one side of the stream and villagers have tied the routes on the other side. The interesting fact is that, it takes centuries to build one bridge! So few generations of villagers have continuously built/assembled the routes to make it. And then there are Double Decker Route Bridge, next to a water fall. It's amazing to witness something like that with your own eyes. We saw few other Route Bridges too, and after having Maggi and Tea, we started trekking back to our bikes.
Coming back to our bikes was a difficult trek. Oh wait, it was the same trek. Why it was looking much more exhaustive? Well its a net ascend as there were more up-treks in the trek route while coming back, and we were tired already. I believe it would have been nice to stay there overnight.
Next day, we reached the cleanest village of Asia. It is a place where you can come and have little walk around with a baby in your lap and one running ahead. It is well maintained but honestly its not so appealing to us bikers. We moved towards Dawki, a border town next to Bangladesh. Dawki is famous for its crystal clear water, made famous by Airtel girl few years back. The water is so clean and transparent that a boat seems to be floating in air.
Well, we were travelling in the month of May. The water was muddy, and the charm of clean water couldn't be witnessed. However, as it happened many times in this trip, beyond plans, we were able to find a location nearby, called Snompdaeng, which is a camping area by the river. Part of the river flow was muddy, but part of it was clean enough to try boating once.
The good thing about travelling is that you meet wonderful people along the journey. One such family of Imisha we met near Double Decker Bridge recomended us to visit Krang Shuri Water Fall. So while heading back, we decided to stay overnight at Krang Shuri and explore waterfall next morning. We were able to reach there when there was still daylight. We came to know there is 10-15 minutes trek to reach there, so we thought to have a look at the falls and decide on our stay accordingly. The first look of the falls while trekking:
It was an instant decision to stay there and spend some time at this beautiful fall tomorrow morning. Next Morning we were up early, and reached the falls in no time.
This is the only fall I know where you can go behind the falls in water and come back. They said there will be boats in the day take you inside shallow cave like structure behind falls. But we had less patience to wait for that, we trusted our swimming skills and reached there. One word of caution, one must wear life jackets and safety helmets, which is available there, as water falls have many shallow/deep stretches and occasional debris fall is not uncommon. It was hard to swim near falls as water was pushing us back. With few trials we even crossed the falls. Swimming across the falls, first time.
Back to Mumbai
Visiting Krang Shuri wasn't in our plan. But it wasn't the only change either. This trip was impromptu in many ways, we planned well, but we adapted too, and we covered much more than planned and the time had come to bid adieus to North East. Well, adventures were not over yet. We faced the biggest jam of our life between Shillong and Guwahati. We had a weekly train to catch, that, if we miss, the next will be after 3 days. The ticket was confirmed for sleeper but we were trying our luck for II AC in tatkal, that, wasn't confirmed yet.
So, we tried and dodged the jam with our bikes, we had to. After reaching Guwahati, and spending 30 minutes convincing Railway Officials why we were late and 1 hour in wrapping and loading bikes in train... and sitting in our sleeper seats, as II AC ticket didn't confirm... along with 6 more people in the compartment, thinking, now do we know the meaning of an adventurous trip? We would certainly know after next 52 hours for sure. :)
Thanks for reading. You are the best!
