(This is an introduction to my North-East travel story series. For travel itinerary & tips, North-East Travel Guide is coming soon.)
North-East India never disappoints any traveler, whatever be one wishes to see. From white mountains to green valleys, from hills to river islands, from natural beauties to man-made architecture, from wildlife to tribal people – you will find a truly diverse range of tourist destinations. What’s even better is the fact that most of these places are not crowded or overcrowded unlike some of the major tourist destinations of other parts of India. Therefore, while on one hand you can meet amazing people on your way, on the other hand you can have a peaceful and lovely time away from the crowd.
During our last few days in IIM Indore, when we were planning for our graduation trip, a couple of my friends suggested we go to North-East. Born and brought up in Guwahati, I had a fair idea about the region and hence the travel itinerary (and I’m pretty sure that was one of the main reasons why they chose North-East). We also wanted to see how cheap one can have a fun grad trip and made it extremely budget friendly, and you wouldn’t believe how much the trip cost!
Timeline:
Our exams got over by first week of March and we planned our trip right after. It is the perfect time if one wants to cover entire North-East. It is neither too cold to cross the snow-filled Sela Pass into the beautiful Tawang, nor rainy enough to visit Cherrapunji, one of the wettest places on earth; neither too hot to roam around the streets of Guwahati nor high-season enough to overpay for accommodations. When I asked my friends how long they want to travel, one of them replied, “As long as you can and want to”. I planned for roughly an 18 days trip, covering major tourist destinations of 5 states – Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tripura; because why not! We all had different dates of return and the initial group of 8 people went down to 3 by the end of the trip.
Itinerary:
We kept a moderately fast-paced itinerary, neither too hectic to not enjoy the grad trip and the company of each other nor slow enough to hardly cover any places. It was good to be flexible since we faced unexpected challenges during the trip, from being stuck in a blizzard to facing a 24-hour state bandh, from terrorist threats to running out of cash. Here is the final itinerary we followed: (Click on the links to read the detailed story)
Day 0: Indore to Guwahati
Day 1: Shillong: Beyond Just a Hill Station (Meghalaya)
Day 2: Dawki: Where Boats Fly, or So They Say (Meghalaya)
Day 3: Cherrapunji: Of Unbelievable Natural Wonders (Meghalaya)
Day 4: Guwahati: Homecoming to the Gateway of North-East (story coming soon)
Day 5-6: Tawang: The Buddhist Paradise in Snow (Arunachal)
Day 7-8: Bomdila: Taking a Chill Pill in Arunachal (Arunachal)
Day 9: Kaziranga National Park: Rhino and the Tea Story (story coming soon)
Day 10-11: Ziro Valley: The Unexplored Paradise (story coming soon)
Day 12-13: Majestic Majuli: Of Birds, Tribes and Dancing Monks (story coming soon)
Day 14-15: Imphal: Polo Matches and the Great Travel Fail(story coming soon)
Day 16-17: Nagaland: Breaking Stereotypes (story coming soon)
Day 18: Reached Guwahati
In my following travel series, I’m putting down detail of every place I visited – how we did vs. how I think others should, now that I’ve learnt the lesson. I am also providing multiple itineraries for each state – which you can mix and match based on interest – representing what I believe were the best elements of North-East.
Budget:
Though we wanted to have our fair share of fun of a grad trip, we also wanted to see how cheap budget backpacking across North-East can be. We didn’t let go of the basic comfort and of course saving money was not the first priority – we booked entire vehicles to ourselves, stayed at pretty good places and tried experiencing local food and culture everywhere. And yet, guess how much it cost?
Only Rs.20000 for 18 days! That is, less than Rs.1200 a day on average.
It seemed to be a pretty daring and impossible task. Previous backpacking experiences, however, came in handy at times. Though it’s difficult to average out the spend into buckets such as food, commute and sightseeing since it drastically varied (which I’m noting down at the end of each individual story), here is a quick breakdown of the cost:
- Food: Except for a couple of destinations like Shillong, most of the other places don’t have a ‘must-visit’ restaurant, so we preferred any good place based on local’s recommendation. This usually becomes much cheaper and we didn’t spend much on food. While there were days we would splurge on some fancy food, other days would average it out.
Average cost per day: Rs.300
- Stay: The concept of hostel is not wide here and solo travel can become much costlier in this regard. Since this was not a solo trip, we would often book larger rooms on sharing basis. This, along with the fact that some places to stay were extremely cheap, helped us lower the accommodation cost than it would have costed otherwise.
Average cost per day: Rs.400
- Travel & Sightseeing: North-East, being a natural and cultural paradise, is mostly free for visitors except for Rs.20-30 entry tickets here and there, Kaziranga National Park being an exception. One hardly has to spend anything in sightseeing. Travel, however, is not cheap. Due to most of it being remote and hill areas, hiring private vehicle comes in handy, which is what we did most of the times. If you choose public transport, that will be a little cheaper, though, unless you’re solo in which case hiring a private vehicle will cost a bomb.
Average cost per day: Rs.500
The above cost are ex-Guwahati. The travel to and back from Guwahati will of course depend on one’s base location, but there are direct flights from all Tier 1 cities and many Tier 2 cities as well, which shouldn’t cost more than Rs.10000 for a round trip.
Please subscribe and stay tuned for the detailed accounts of getting stuck in a blizzard, trying rice beer, staying in a Vaishnavite monastery for a day and many more.