North East trails: Exploring the untouched beauty

Three girls set on a 11-day journey to Assam, Meghalaya and Aruanchal Pradesh. Forest, wildlife, rivers, island, mountains, snowfall. All in one. Needless to say, it was a lifetime experience!

What are dreams made of? I would say, they are made of instincts, desires and passion.

I had this long standing dream of visiting the North Eastern part of India. For me, North East stood for its beautiful landscapes, diverse culture and lifestyle.

Given the travel buff I am, travelling to Seven Sister States was in my bucket list since long. Like it is said in The Alchemist “if a person really desires something, the universe conspires to help the person realise the dream”, my dream of travelling to the North East too came true this February. I, along with two other equally enthusiastic female friends, decided to pack our bags and get set for the journey.

The plan was to go as travellers rather than as tourists. We arrived at a mutual consensus of opting out of organised/package tour. Not knowing anybody at or from the North East, responsibility was on our shoulder to plan everything from the scratch. 

First, we had just 11 days at our disposal – the maximum leaves we could get from our respective jobs. Then we were faced with the question - how many states should we cover in 11 days? Well, we decided to visit three states. Selecting the states was yet another daunting task. Of the seven states, we filtered three – Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. Ask us why, because we felt they are culturally and geographically diverse.

I wouldn't call myself an expert in preparing itinerary. But, yes I had some previous experiences of making itinerary. So I took it upon myself the responsibility to chalk out the plan and execute things. I must concede, during the course of planning, mapping the details, booking the accommodations, making tens of calls to unknown people in the far away North East, I gave hectic work to my brain for almost a month. It wasn’t easy at all. Nevertheless, it wasn't impossible too!

We finalised on visiting following places during the trip – Kaziranga National Park and Majuli River Island in Assam, Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, Cherrapunji and Mawlynnong in Meghalaya. The travel trail that we chose was quite unconventional, considering the limited days we had in hand. Of the places that we chose, each of us had inclination for specific location. My picks were Majuli and Tawang.

While researching and going through plenty of travel blogs and websites, I realised that there was no enough material available handy to plan the trip the way we wanted. Either people go to Tawang alone for a week taking breaks at Bomdila and Dirang on the way, or at the maximum, they cover two states in 10 days. So, one thing was clear. Whatever and however well we plan, it was going to be a very tight schedule. But then we had no other go!

This is how we planned the itinerary for 11 days:

Day 1 – Travel from Bengaluru to Guwahati in an early morning flight. Then from Guwahati travel to Kaziranga

Day 2 – Safari at Kaziranga and then travel to Majuli River Island

Day 3 – Sightseeng at Majuli

Day 4 – Proceed to Tezpur from Majuli, via Jorhat

Day 5 – Travel from Tezpur to Tawang (13 hour journey)

Day 6 – Sightseeing at Tawang

Day 7 – Sightseeing at Tawang

Day 8 – Tawang to Guwahati (fly in chopper) and then go to Shillong

Day 9 – Shillong to Cherrapunji and sightseeing in Cherrapunji

Day 10 – Visit Mawlynnong

Day 11- Back to Guwahati and catch the evening flight to Bengaluru

Itinerary looked perfectly fine, except for the helicopter part. We had read enough reviews about the unpredictable and dangerous helicopter service between Tawang and Guwahati. The reviews scared us all. Still we decided to take a chance. We also had a backup plan in the mind, just in case helicopter service turns us down.

Don't miss the ILP!

Apart from booking the accommodation in advance, another tedious task pending before us was securing Inner Line Permits (ILP) to visit Arunachal Pradesh. Since Arunachal comes under restricted area, it is mandatory for an outsider to carry ILP while entering the state.

I tried to explore several options to get the ILP done. First was trying out the easiest option of applying for it online. I must say the online service is pathetic; or rather it is just defunct. Despite filing the online form on www.arunachalilp.com, I failed to get any response even after two weeks. That is when I seriously started looking for other alternatives. The other option, which was mostly preferred by tourists was to apply at the office of the Deputy Resident Commissioner of Arunachal Govt at Guwahati. But this option wasn’t convenient enough. It demanded us to spend one whole day at Guwahati waiting to get the ILP done and we weren't ready to waste our one whole day to get the damn thing.

As a last attempt, I called the office of the Resident Commissioner of the Govt of Arunachal Pradesh at Delhi. They insisted me to send a friend or family member who can submit the hardcopy of the application form on my behalf. That too didn’t seem to work out. Finally, upon request, the Delhi office staff agreed to solve things via post. I was asked to send an application with brief information about the visitors, copy of ID proof, photographs and DD of Rs 200 each. After completing the formalities all we were left with was hopes!

Within 15 days of posting all the documents, we got our ILPs through speed post! In fact, having faced disappointment earlier in getting the ILPs through online, I had least expected this quick response from Delhi office. But gladly they were prompt enough!

With this, we were all set for the great North East trip. From here on, we three girls, were going to take chances after chances. We just kept our fingers crossed and the travel bug in us held our spirit high.