It’s like a hidden jewel, nestled deep amongst mountains. Tawang. Home to the 2nd largest monastery. For anyone here at IITG, a trip to Tawang is a must in the 4 years he/she spends here. It’s like a pilgrimage. And recently I happened to be one of the pilgrims :P. A short trip to Tawang usually takes about 5 days. And a longer one, even more.
Getting there by road takes about 2 days from Guwahati. By Air, there is a helicopter service. But this depends on the weather, which is not so clear all the time. I set out with friends ( 13 of us in total ) on 27th Feb 2010 from IITG. We had 2 cars a Scorpio ( for the guys ) and a Tavera ( for the girls ). The journey initially to Tezpur was mainly about wide straight roads, surrounded by green fields and occasional towns. We made a stop for stocking up cash near Tezpur, which is advisable mostly.
From Tezpur to Bhalukpong, which is the Arunachal border, the roads get bad and then worse. A lot of road construction is going on and this part takes time even though the distance is 56 KMs. After the permit checking ( you need an Inner Line Permit for visiting AP ), we stopped for a brief lunch at Bhalukpong and continued. Our destination for tonight was Bomdila. It’s about a 100 KM. But takes 3+ hours as it’s mostly uphill. We stopped for some pictures, and some sightseeing at river Kameng. It was beautiful, and it was about evening. So we continued and managed to get to Bomdila before late.
Initially there were some problems getting proper accommodation, but soon everything was settled. And everyone wanted to get into the blankets. It was rather quite chilly ( after the normal Guwahati temperature just in the morning ). Dinner was simple in the same lodge, as everything closes about 7pm here. Staying indoors was the best option, and so we played cards for a while, before going to sleep.
View from Hotel La 😛
Next morning (28th feb ) we woke up fresh, and had a nice breakfast ( in the same place ), and started on the journey forward. The next stop was Dhirang about 30KM away. Here we stocked up on Chips, and Cold Drinks as there won’t be anything else till Tawang ( still 150 KMs from Dhirang ). Just a few KMs after Dhirang, the driver stopped at a so called Hot Spring, which turned out to be a dampener. After a lot of downhill climb, and trekking we reached a river, which was cold as a mountain. The spring happened to be a single pipe midway between the climb down. Even this pipe water was not really hot, just mildly warm.
Getting back up to the road, consumed a lot of energy and was a good exercise. We continued on the journey, and after 50KMs or so, we had our first glimpse of snow. We reached Sela Pass in another hour or so ( 70 KM from Dhirang ). And it was white all around with small patches of mountain visible. There was a lake down, and only few of us ventured to it. Again, getting back up was tough especially at 14,000 ft of Sela Pass. And then the car had also moved ahead few hundred meters, and we thought we were left behind in the mist. The Lake however was awesome.
Back in the car, with a mild headache, and heavily breathing, we continued stopping briefly at Jaswantgarh. It is a war memorial in memory of a soldier in the 1962 Sino-Indo war. Then we stopped at Nuranang Hydel Plant. There was a beautiful waterfall there, and a hydel plant harnessing the same for power.
Got to Tawang by the evening, but took some time before we could find the hotel to stay. The room was very endearing, and the blankets were calling out loud. It was some sort of New Year festival that day, followed by Holi next day. This meant, there were only a few hotel staff and everything was slow. Plus the power situation is grim, with a cut every few hours. So we got our dinner at 10 ( which soon became candle-light dinner ) , after ordering at 7.30pm. The altitude, and the cold, influenced me in calling it night early.