(This story is part of my North-East travel series. For travel itinerary & tips, Arunachal guide is coming soon.)
Since we couldn’t visit Bumla Pass due to bad weather, we decided to take a slow return journey spanning two days and staying overnight in Bomdila, a quaint little town in Arunachal.
The Tale of the Sela Pass
We woke up quite early and checked out by 6 am, since we didn’t want to get stuck in Sela Pass, unlike last time. There were a couple of places left to visit on the way as well. We first went to Nuranang Waterfalls. It is probably the tallest waterfall I have ever seen from such a close distance. (Though Nohkalikai in Cherrapunji is the tallest in India, we always see that one from quite far.) The sound of water falling from such a great height, combined with the beauty of the valley with the river into which the water of the fall flows into, creates a view you’ll seldom forget.
We left from Nuranang after about an hour and reached Jaswant Garh by 10 AM. The Jaswant Garh memorial is made in the memory of Jaswant Singh, a martyr who played instrumental role in Indo-China war of 1962. The place looked amazing in the morning. The views were breathtaking. We spent quite some time playing in the snow, making snowballs and throwing at each other. My promise of not falling in love with snow again could not even last for 48 hours. We left in half an hour, hoping to cross the Sela Pass soon.
We reached the other end of the Sela Pass by 12, and stopped by the frozen lake which one can see while entering Sela Pass. The lake was half frozen and half filled with water. With black and white mountains in the background, the huge lake created such an amazing view which no words can probably describe nor any pictures can do justice to.
The Tale of a Chilled Night
After crossing Sela Pass, we stopped at a place for lunch and continued towards Dirang. We heard a lot about the hot water bath there and insisted on visiting it, though we didn’t plan to actually take a bath there. It was an enclosed area with hot water from the stream coming through a pipe into the tub. A couple of us took a bath there while others roamed around. The sound of the river flowing, with waving flags and small houses at a distance made it a picturesque location. We chilled there for a while before leaving for Bomdila.
We reached Bomdila by 7 PM, and found quite decent rooms at extremely cheap rates, as low as Rs.800 per room, thanks to our driver. After days of enjoying natural beauty, we were dumbstruck to find human beauty all around. The people in Bomdila is a sight you shouldn’t miss, be it male or female, and all of us including Neha and Sameeksha were in agreement.
The liquor prices in Arunachal were dirt cheap, the liquor tax being quite low in the state, and we planned to host a small party for ourselves. We came back to room after dinner, played some cards and had a lot of fun over drinks, reminiscing our college days. After having a good time for a couple of hours, we went to sleep.
The Tale of Landslide
The early morning stroll in the main road of Bombilla was quite an amazing experience. We were so engrossed in visiting tourist spots that we forgot to enjoy the quiet life of the hilly people. We were mesmerized by the beauty of the people. The rare food items being sold at the market, from beef pickle to stinging spices, were quite interesting.
We had breakfast and checked out by 9, heading towards the Small Gompa of Bomdila. This was a small monastery with nothing much exciting happening around, except the fact that it was a quiet place like all other monasteries we’ve visited. We then headed to the Big Gompa, which looked quite marvelous. Some of the young monks were playing football and demonstrating their juggling skills, while some other kids were walking around.
We then headed our way back through Tenga valley and Fikar Not. Right at the beginning of the valley, we reached the Indian Army operated Tenga Haat, where we spent some time looking around souvenirs from Arunachal. We were, however, disappointed to see most of the imported stuff and no local souvenirs.
We then had lunch at a nice place and headed towards Bhalukpong, a two hour drive from Tezpur. However, we were warned beforehand that the condition of the roads were not good, and we faced two landslides as expected. While the road was cleared in the first one in no time, clearing roads for the second one took quite long, and we got stuck there for around an hour or two. The sun already set by the time we reached Bhalukpong. Therefore we couldn’t go to Orchidarium, which is known to be filled with different kinds of orchids and quite beautiful.
After reaching Tezpur we were supposed to part ways. While two were going back to Guwahati, six of us were going to Kaziranga. We reached Tezpur by 8, and there were plenty of buses available to go to both Guwahati and Kaziranga, which were on two opposite sides. With a lot of memories created in the past 8 days, we bid farewell to the other two, thus ending the first leg of our Arunachal journey. The second leg of Arunachal trip was supposed to start after spending a day in Kaziranga in Assam.
How Much Did I Spend?
Here’s the rough estimate for the entire 4-day trip:
Stay Rs.1400 (Rooms on twin sharing)
Commute Rs.2300 (Rs.18000 for a car for 8 people)
Sightseeing Rs.0 (Everything was free)
Food & Drinks Rs.1300
Total Rs.5000
(For our visit to Kaziranga for watching One-Horned Rhinos and the second leg of our Arunachal journey, stories are coming soon.)