Travel

As usual, like every Durgapuja holiday I become eager to escape from the city-crowd to find peace & adventure in remote tranquility and this year (2025) also it was no different.

Also, I visit my hometown every year during this auspicious festival time to meet my parents.

But I made a last minute plan about exploring the north-east this time & setting the western side of Arunachal Pradesh as my possible itinerary.

I always like my trips to be unplanned as it helps me better prepare for any uncertainty and at the same time it allows me for more surprises & adventures as well.

28 Sep (Sunday): Jalpaiguri

Distance covered: 600km

I started from Madyamgram and reached Jalpaiguri, my hometown in the evening. My parents were very delighted to see me after months, and so was I, but they were a bit worried since I had informed them about my travel plan to Tawang (Arunachal) all alone that too by road (driving my own vehicle) just a few days ago. Spent the night at the comfort of my home.

29 Sep (Monday): Udalguri

Route: Jalpaiguri-Bongaingaon-Barama-Mangaldoi-Kharupetia-Udalguri)

Distance covered: 462km

Started from Jalpaiguri at 11:20 in the morning & after crossing Bongaigaon I reached Barama market at 17:30 but I chose to take the state highway road via Nalbari-Baihata Chariali-Mangoldoi as advised by my father who was brought up in Assam and is better familiar with road conditions there. (also the direct shortcut route that goes to the left from Barama market towards Tamulpur was mostly flood damaged and was not in a very good shape, so avoided). There was more traffic & crowd on roads while passing through towns due to Durga puja pandal hoping people & related cultural festivities.

I reached Udalguri town before 21:00, checked in the hotel room which I had booked on the go through MMT, had dinner with desi chicken-roti and signed off.

30 Sep (Tuesday): Dirang Valley (height 1500m)

Route: Udalguri-Shergaon-Bomdila-Dirang Valley (Accomoon hillside stay)

Distance covered: 191km

In the morning I met with a nice local guy Alokesh and after knowing that I am travelling all alone to such far away places he gave me an early morning detour of Udalguri on his bike & helped me with information about my possible drive route. I thanked him, checked out from the hotel, got my beast (Thar) washed from a local washing centre properly before the beginning of my solo hill drive, then finally I left for Arunachal at 11:30.

Early that morning at Udalguri I got to know from Alokesh that just after crossing Bhairabkunda there was an entry point to Bhutan on the left. So after reaching Bhairabkunda I took permission from the Indian check post there for Bhutan entry but there was a long queue at the Bhutan side check post gate, and I waited there for forty minutes as the Bhutanese authorities were checking our vehicle RC, Adhar card and DL for allocating temporary permission, but it was taking more time than expected, so I had abandoned the Bhutan entry plan and started moving towards Dirang(Sangti) valley rather. After driving for a few more Kms there was a check post for ILP verification and that took another half an hour, I had my lunch there at a local restaurant and moved on. It was 16:30 when I reached Kalaktang, light drizzling had started, found an IOCL petrol pump, observed that fuel cost is darn cheap in AP compared to any other state of the country, topped up the tank & proceeded.

At Shergaon there are two separate routes for Dirang valley, one is a shortcut via Mandala top suitable for small vehicles only, has steep slopes and another one is via Bomdila, which is a longer route but safer due to routine vehicular & army movements. I took the Bomdila national-highway route since it was already getting dark and avoiding a steep uncertain jungle route through an unfamiliar deserted terrain during night is the best option available for a solo traveller.

Crossed Bomdila town and reached Dirang valley. The calm and tranquil nature, clean wind and sound of many flowing unseen rivulets modulated by the rhythmic noise of crickets were reenergising my inner soul, mind & body and apprising me that I have arrived in Arunachal, ‘the land of Sunrise’ finally. Then I started driving a little right towards Sangti valley alongside the Dirang river and reached Accomoon hillside stay at 20:00.

The stay at Accomoon was going to be one of the best stays of my travel-life. The hillside stay was surrounded by pure & cleanest natural vibes one could ever imagine. The bathrooms were very clean, the rooms were cozy, warm, clean, elegant and decorated with veneered wood & furniture. There was a blooming orange tree just in-front of the window of my room with a beautiful view of the Dirang valley & hills in front along with sporadically flying clouds nearby. I parked my beast(Thar), checked in, kept my luggage inside the room & rushed to the rooftop to feel the night vibes of Dirang/Sangti valley. The staff were very nice & friendly, and upon request they quickly arranged a bonfire on the rooftop itself, with a beautiful view of moonlit night, floating clouds and the hilltop. I played my favourite songs, they accompanied me, had a good conversation with them, and I had my dinner with hot freshly bonfire cooked fish fries & chicken kabab. With good lasting memories & dreams I finally signed off for the night.

In the morning, I started trying to contact different hotels at Tawang sitting at the Accomoon stay for two hours but not a single hotel was available due to heavy tourist rush. Only two hotels were showing single room availability on MMT ; one was for 10k & another one for 22k for a night stay. So, I tried from google map & contacts but all hotels I spoke to were already pre-booked. So I changed my plan and abandoned my Tawang stay, rather I checked for availability of rooms in any nearest town to Tawang, luckily after a lot of tries I got a room in Jang town from where Tawang is only one hour drive (36km) distance.

I met with a family from Assam who were staying in the same lodge & came driving from the plains like me to spend the holidays in tranquility, had a nice discussion with them, played football with two local kids and checked out of the stay for nearby Sangti valley at around 10:30 am.

1 Oct (Wednesday): Sangti Valley, Mandala Top & Jang Valley

Route: Sangti Valley(8km)-Dirang(8.4km)-Mandala top(30km)-Dirang(30km)-Jang valley(95km)

Distance covered: 8+8.4+30+30+95 =171.4 km

Sangti Valley (height 1500m): I left Accomoon hillside stay at 10:30am for Sangti valley situated just nearby & visited the Sheep-firm but found no sheep, rather few goats were found to be left to roam scattered way on the firm grassland, with a curious mind I tried to reach the dead end of that Sangti valley road but it was taking me to no-where except to the end point somewhere deep down in the forest, so turned my vehicle back after putting little effort inside the narrow jungle road, came back a little, gone downhill at a point beside the river where locals were seen transporting their essential goods to the other side of the river using ropeways. Parked my beast beside the Dirang river. The blowing clean chilled wind, the sun rays and never ending sound of the flowing river together can saturate & soothe a traveller’s soul. Sat there for half an hour and proceeded towards Mandala top next.

Mandala top (height 3000m): From the Sangti valley river side I had left for Mandala top at 12:30pm, reached Dirang market, crossed the highway and reached Mandala top at 14:30. Situated at such a height the enroute is full of coniferous trees. The drive route till Mandala top is scenic with a view of distant floating clouds & hills all around. The presence of coniferous trees along the sideways & grazing Yaks denotes heavy snow-falling nature of this area. The top most part has a Budhha statue & a Buddhist Mandala, that's why it’s called Mandala top. The Mandala top area was very chilled, windy & foggy even during this post September time and during the winter these areas get completely covered in snow.

Jang valley(2905m): It’s 15:00 already on the clock, I left Mandala top & drove towards Jang valley for another night stay.

But just after crossing Dirang town I saw lots of landslide damaged roads & a BRO personal stopped my vehicle as there was a fresh landslide occured & road clearing work was going on. There were still small shooting stones falling from that landslide. Waited for 15 minutes till they cleared the road. It was 17:05 and it was already getting dark. I got a bit worried about the condition of the road till Jang next, which was the most difficult & dangerous amongst all which I realised a few days later during my return journey. Also to my dismay I saw there was only one or two vehicles going along the route I am travelling, although it is a national-highway (NH13) main route. In the hills darkness falls too fast after sunset. I was now only on my luck and started moving towards Jang in the cloudy low visibility night all alone. After a few hours of continuous upclimb I stopped a few kms before the Sela tunnel, pulled over my beast beside a hairpin bend, took a deep breath in the air, the chilled clean wind and cloudy but silent darkness of Arunachal was giving me a kind of vibe that I never experienced before. The whole day I hadn’t had any food except breakfast but still I was full of energy & excitement. I crossed the two tunnels at Sela and after an hour of driving could see the Jang town from faraway hill. The speciality of Jang valley is that it has innumerable hairpin bends and the town itself is situated in between many of those hairpin bends as well. From faraway Jang town looks like a beautiful wallpaper picture. Checked into Jang lodge at 20:30. I was feeling a bit hungry, so I had my dinner with veg-thali-rice-roti & tea (as per customs veg is the preferred food on wednesday here). I had an informative discussion with the owner after dinner. I got to know about all the possible must visit places enroute & Jang falls was one of his suggestions apart from regular visits to Tawang & connecting areas.

2 Oct (Thursday): Jang Falls, Tawang & Sangetstar Lake

Route: Jang valley-Tawang (38km), Tawang-Sangetstar lake-Tawang(34x2 km)

Distance covered: 108km

Tawang (height 3048m): After fuelling up at Jang town, I left for Tawang at 9:30am, it was a sunny morning. I visited the Jang or Nuraneng falls (on river Nuraneng) situated just 1.2km from the main highway. The chilled water droplets from the falls after hitting the rocky riverbed was creating a light rain-like mist that could be felt even from a few hundred meters away. Spent half an hour there and left for Tawang.

The drive route is beautifully maintained by BRO with many road signs & markings, safety barriers along with boards with motivational quotes about life and safety awareness. Due to the Jio network unavailability I lost track but was able to reach Tawang market after asking the army personnels and locals on the way. The traffic at Tawang was heavy compared to other times due to sudden surge in tourists due to the pre-winter holiday season. Previously, I had planned to return back from Tawang the same day as I couldn’t book any stay there, but changed my plan after enquiring with a hotel owner about the possibility of visiting Bum La(pass) which requires pre-approval from the Tawang DC office. Due to my Jio network issue and Internet-Map service unavailability I asked if any local support could be provided with direction to explore Tawang. She generously helped me & a young teenager named Tenzing accompanied me to visit Tso(12km) & Sangestar lake(34km). From Tawang the route was further upclimb. Both Bum La & Sangetstar lake are one hour (each 34km approx) distance from Tawang. The Y-junction at a distance halfway from Tawang bifurcates the road to Bum La & Sangestar lake.

Upclimbing from Tawang reduces the tree variations further and that filters out those coniferous trees only, signifying the heavy snowfall nature of this area. More up-climbs and there were no more trees could be seen, except only vast landscapes of mountain grass & barren rocky mountains.

Throughout Tawang heavy army presence could be seen everywhere. The heavy battle vehicles, artillery guns, well paved roads, well built infrastructure of the fourth largest military in the world on this barren inhabited cold land bordering China gives a feeling of pride & safety of being an Indian.

First I saw Tso lake and then reached Sangetstar lake at 15:00, the Sun was like playing hide and seek. It was very chilled & windy at the lake side. Newly joined & posted young army jawans could be seen performing extra curricular activities like singing/ orchestra etc to keep their morale and spirit high, as they have to be posted here for months in this high altitude harsh climatic region during this coming winter. Warmed us up with chole-bhature & hot coffee at the army canteen & did some shopping for winter wear and an all-weather boot. We left the lake side at 15:40 and returned to Tawang at 16:45. As time was very short & there was a second option so I didn't want to visit the DC office as it would lessen my available time for detouring of the Tawang city. I submitted copies of my vehicle RC, Insurance, Aadhar, DL & ILP to a local guy to get my vehicle permission paper ready for Bum La the next morning.

Tashi, a young kid, wanted to accompany me & help me in exploring Tawang city. Took him, and I was literally surprised about his knowledge about Arunachal, Dalai Lama & India’s history although he studies only in class seven. The Sun has already set. At 18:00, I entered Tawang Monastery which marks many pivotal points of history like the escape of the great Dalai Lama from Tibet into India(1959), the Indo-China war(1962), and the visit of many big Indian leaders. Many preserved old manuscripts & artefacts about Buddhist cultures, customs and traditions were available to see. Then I visited Jaswantgarh war memorial, which is a stark reminder of the 1962 Indo-China war, also the valour & resistance shown by the Indian army jawans against the Chinese aggression during the war. Came back to the hotel, took out the umbrella from my vehicle as little drizzling had already started. I had a nice dinner with Thenduk, a local dish at Mon Zhakhang, a famous restaurant at Tawang. It was 8’o clock in the night, the temperature went down to 8 deg C due to rain combined with chilly high altitude wind. Bought a few cadberries for my small guide Tashi, found him at his parent’s shop, handed those over to him, and concluded my day.

3 Oct (Friday): Tawang to Bum La (32km) & Bumla to Udalguri (349km)

Total: 381km

Bum La (height 4633m): In the morning I got myself ready before 7:00am, and collected the pass for Bum La. TPMS of my vehicle was showing low pressure on the front-left tyre, pulled out my mini tyre inflator from the boot, checked all the tyres & refilled air. 7:30 am, I started driving towards Bumla. For both Bum La & Sangetstar lake, It was the same route till Y-junction which is situated 13 km east of Tawang, then it bifurcates, the right-side route goes towards Bumla & the left one goes to Sangetstar Lake. It was a one-hour drive through barren but scenic high altitude land with many small, mid-sized lakes till the China border with heavy battle ready army presence throughout. There are multiple army checkpoints for vehicle passes to enter Bum La. I reached Bum La at 9:00 in the morning & parked my beast there. We had to wait till the previous group of tourists returned, then we were allowed to go near the border. Two Chinese army personnel could be seen having a friendly chit-chatting with our Indian jawans. The Chinese soldiers were taking our photographs and we were told by our army personnel to switch off/ disconnect our mobile from the network for safety reasons. I had hot maggi & coffee at the army-run canteen and did some shopping for mementos.

It was such a memorable day for me in my travelling life that I missed realising how those two & half hours passed so fast. It was 11:30, I started my return journey hoping to reach till Shergaon that day itself. After crossing Tawang & Jang town, the famous Sela Pass (4,170m) came. There are two different but parallel routes through Sela Pass to reach Senge, one through the two-tunnel route and another one via Sela Lake (a very high altitude & a sacred lake). I took this Sela Lake route this time.

The Sela Lake is a nature made surprise itself, where on one side there is the lake and on another side there is a deep down Sela valley, both are separated by a narrow strip of land (having only a two-lane road like width) that holds this massive amount of water, and this forms a kind of natural dam. Due to its high altitude, the wind here has a very high velocity. When I reached Sela pass, the weather was getting worse and the bone chilling wind was moving the clouds around me at very high velocity. It was very difficult to withstand that high velocity chilled gusty wind and rainy cloud, so I had to come inside the safety of my vehicle after capturing a few moments. I turned on the heater to warm myself up.

I exited Sela pass through Senge and started moving downhill towards Dirang. There are too many steep hairpin bends after Sela pass till Nyukmadung and the NH road too is very narrow and precarious throughout. I must say SELA PASS is DANGEROUSLY BEAUTIFUL. Even the white clouds could be seen floating a few Kms below me. I was just thinking with surprise, how I came all alone that day on 1-Oct night through this same steep, narrow & dangerous route from Dirang to Jang. It was a dark night with very low visibility because of moving clouds all around and my beast’s powerful mHawk diesel engine helped me upclimb this high altitude steep slope at such an ease that it didn’t let me realise the area’s precariousness that night in any way. I was truly amazed by this game of nature.

Amongst all the places I visited till then observed Dirang is most landslide prone due to the presence of soil rich hill surface and incessant rain can make those soft soil unable to hold anymore water and collapses, but the upper part of Arunachal has more rocky surfaces so is more stable.

I crossed Dirang at 17:30, stopped at a roadside hotel & had egg-maggy for dinner. Didn’t enter Bomdila town this time, rather took the bypass road to the left & reached Shergaon. At this time I was feeling a bit drowsy due to continuous hill driving since morning, so I stopped my vehicle near a well lit jungle side hut and had a power nap of ten minutes. At this point I found that the disk brake-pads of my beast were like giving up and making a metallic screeching noise upon hard braking. I realised continuous downhill driving using the brakes of this automatic Thar has taken a lot of toll and 27k kms has been completed so it was showing its sign of aging. I had to reduce my pace considerably due to this and drove very cautiously till I reached Udalguri at 12:30 in the night, checked in the same hotel and safely concluded my Arunachal trip.

4 Oct (Saturday) Udalguri to Jalpaiguri 

Distance: 427km

I realised it would be a very difficult journey with this burnt/worn out disk pads to travel till Jalpaiguri, so waited till 10:00 in the morning and visited the local Mahindra dealership but got to know nearest Mahindra service center is on a one hour drive distance towards Mongoldoi which is exactly opposite to my return route. So without any option left I took the decision of returning towards my hometown Jalpaiguri and to get the brake issue repaired in any garage available enroute. Luckily, I found a big garage just at the outskirts of Udalguri. They opened the disk rotors and pads to see that the pads were already damaged due to excessive heat produced as a result of high brake force required while driving downhill & that caused it to burn almost and become hard. They suggested for a pad replacement, but brake-pads of Thar were not available at Udalguri town so, only option left is to polish the rotors on lathe & the pads using sand paper as the disk-rotors were having groove marks due to those hard disk-pads continuously rubbing against the rotors and making a metal like screeching sound. After the lathe work & polishing was done they refitted the wheels and washed the vehicle properly. I finally left Udalguri at 14:30, and this time I had to take the shortcut but broken route via Tamulpur-Barama as I was getting way too late to reach home. I crossed Bongaigaon and a thunderstorm alert popped up on my mobile screen. Started facing incessant heavy rain along with stormy wind throughout. I felt lucky enough to conclude my journey before cyclonic weather hit the north-eastern plain & the mountains. Already saw many small landslides had started due to rain entering the Arunachal hills. I only pray to god for those thousands of tourists who got stuck on the hills or are about to travel towards the hills.

Update: A day later I saw north-bengal is in the national news due to landslide & flood devastation on Darjeeling hills, and this kind of situation is very rare in our north-bengal. I can only pray for the people of north bengal. I wish everyone to be safe & secure.

Note: Sadly, many of the photo_moments couldn’t be uploaded due to Tumblr’s upload restrictions.

Would be posting the complete blog on some other place soon.