This is a sight you don’t see every day: a Tibetan settlement, complete with gompas and prayer flags, transplanted onto the sweaty plains of eastern Arunachal Pradesh. The village has been around since 1976. It was originally set up as a refugee camp for people that fled the madness that was the Cultural Revolution [...]
Much to our disappointment, we didn’t make it to the Lake of No Return. Here’s Jaime explaining why. (Above: the check point where we were turned back by the Assam Rifles).
Traveling out here sure has its quirks and oddities. Like the other day when we tried to cross into Arunachal Pradesh from Assam. To the horror of the border guards, we attempted to do this on a public bus. This could simply not be permitted: nay, we had to have our own vehicle. Unlike the [...]
What do you do when resources are scarce, but you really need new garage doors? In Dirang in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang valley, you save your cans of mustard oil, smash them flat and voila – the door is yours. We’re definitely going to start saving our mustard oil cans from now on. You [...]
Geography and politics have conspired to make the Tawang Valley very hard to reach. In fact, the only way to get there is to either bounce around in a jeep for two days, or to fly there with a helicopter. We did the jeeps on the way in – a scenic if somewhat uncomfortable way [...]
Yay for local culture! The other night, we were invited to the premiere of the movie ‘Journey of Life’, a film made by young Tawang people. We spent three dollars each on the entrance fee, something that entitled us to sit on the nice couches pictured below. The plastic chairs were a dollar less. Everybody [...]
India is a large enough country to have corners that are totally un-Indian. Tawang Valley, located in a corner of Arunachal Pradesh, is such a place. Ethnically, this is a side-branch of Tibet, and the local Monpa people speak a dialect of Tibetan. The food is similarly Tibetan-influenced, as are buildings, clothing and the general [...]
Today, we took time off from our Arunachal Pradesh quest to visit a national park – and what a park. Kaziranga is perhaps not the best known park in the world, but for us it ranks among the top attractions in India – it even counts as one of the major highlights of this whole [...]
How to receive a travel permit for Arunachal Pradesh trough a travel agent in Guawhati, Assam
Guwahati is the capital of Assam, and pretty much unavoidable if you wish to travel in India’s north east. It is a convenient hub with most of the mod cons (espresso, okay restaurants and travel agents). It also picks up a few points for its scenic location by the mighty Brahmaputra river. Other than that, [...]
We’ve arrived in Guwahati, the capital of the state of Assam. It is the jumping-off point for the ‘seven sisters’ – the seven small Indian states in the north-eastern part of the country. Our mission here is to try to get a permit to visit one of the sisters: Arunachal Pradesh, and then move on. [...]
Today, we yet again failed to secure a permit for Arunachal Pradesh (they’d moved the office to another part of town). We did, however, have a lengthy conversation with the Commissioner at the Manipur office. I’m posting this here for the benefit of travelers interested in visiting Manipur, because there is so much misinformation out [...]
You know the saying, “to fly by the seat of your pants?” Well, that's been our philosophy for most of our adult lives – before and after meeting, falling in love and marrying. We're now taking that idea on an extended round-the-world trip. Follow us as we share the good, the bad and the downright nasty of life on the road.
