Northeast India-what not to miss?
 

hi all. am about to head out for assam and eastwards next week from here in kolkata on my buddy's bullet. just got back from a month in bangladesh.
just wondering if anyone has any tips on beautiful drives through the norhteast of india and what i should not miss out on.
the plan is assam and down through meghalaya to tripura and mizoram. then up through nagaland to arunachal pradesh and tawang. i will be going through most national parks along the way.
i will find a place with a nice hotel and use it as a base for day trips throughout the area and then move on. i will have until the end of april or more for the trip.
also, if anyone knows the possibility of getting into the areas requiring a permit without one, i would like to hear of it. the office here in kolkata says you must be in a group of 4 or a married couple. strange requirements, but hey, its india! he 'suggested/hinted' that i could talk to the officers at the state borders and probably work out a deal. good old baksheesh, i suppose.
any help gets a big thanx.
mitch

Make sure you stay in darjeeling and ride the world heritage toy train.
Early next morning ride from darjeeling to tiger hills to enjoy the world famous sunrise
On a clear day, you can see Kanchenjunga and even Mt. Everest.

North India : Worth Visiting places
 

Ladakh
Kashmir,
Himachal,
Jaipur
Agra,
Delhi,
Udaypur

These are the places you should not leave in north india...:scooter:

Mitch.
How did you go with all the permits for the seven sisters?
Did you have to hook up with a group?

We are planning to head through there but are not a married couple... Although we have faked it before!

Interested!

Nathan and Aki

NE India is wonderful, though I only visited the permit free states - Tripura, Maghalaya and Assam. Meghalaya is very beautiful (go to Cherapunjee, great camping at Nohkalikai Falls).

I'd be very, very surprised if you got anywhere near Manipur. It's verging on civil war, at times. Mizoram and Nagaland do have insurgencies too, but are less volatile.

Arunachal Pradesh is probably the most beautiful and interesting, but permits can be expensive.

And now the real problem: As far as I know, even if you get a permit (and there are ridiculous strings attached which only the Indian government could think of), this is for you, not you and your car / bike. I've only met Indian citizens who've entered with their own vehicle.

Give it a try (permits for Nagaland / Mizoram / Manipur are free), but be prepared for huge bureaucratic nonsense. I know of some overlanders who wrangled for months with the Burmese to allow them to cross the border from India, only to be barred entry to Manipur by the Indians.

Re entering illegally - this is no small matter. If you manage to bribe the border guards (and I guess it would cost a lot), you'd probably be thrown out by their buddies 20km down the road. You know how India works, right?

Daniel

Thanks Daniel.

When did you head through NE India?
Good news some of the states dont require permits... Maybe we will just visit Tripuri, Meg and Assam.
AP although very beautiful would be too hard on out little bike, mountains too high, so not this time.
Those three states and then squeeze through the Corridor into Bihar sounds fine to us. Will be nearby in Bangladesh (Sylhet) anyway.

Wonder how Mitch is going up there.

Cheers

I went from Akhaura, near Comila in Bangladesh acrosss to Agartala, then up through Tripura, cut a corner of Assam (appalling roads) to Meghalaya, then back down to Guwahati to Sikkim, then to Nepal via Siliguri. The NE is really special, the tribals in the east of the region are amazing. In fact, those in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the east of Bangladesh were even more interesting, if you go deep into the jungle, they're really untouched. I stayed with one family there in a bamboo hut village full of pretty girls and ate wild pigs, tortoise and pigeons. Pretty cool.

Daniel

hi from aizawl
 

i am answering my own question as i go!
check the thread in this area on burma. i just posted a lengthy one and talk about the permit for mizoram.
i went through a recommended travel agent for the AP permit. IR7500...OUCH!!! paying for 4 people. i can get one for manipur but i will give it a miss as so much shit is happening there lately. still waiting for the naga permit. and sikhim is easy to get i hear in rangpo b4 entering gangtok.
anyway, cherrapunjee area is quite beautiful in meghalaya. the roads and rides are spectacular.
mizoram is quite steep and the roads are good too. the new highway south to lunglei from aizawl will be finished by june. great people and nice scenery. its a dry state...no booze. but you can get the rice wine in towns if you ask quietly.
the roads all around silchar are horrible! when you leave meghalaya, the sign says 'welcome to assam'. it should add, 'kiss your good roads goodbye'!
will be heading to tripura soon and then naga and AP then sikhim over the next 3 months.
will add more as i go.
later

Gps?
 

It would be great if you could make GPS tracks as you go along. That entire area is a bit of a GPS black hole, it would really help if we could get tracks.

Gps ?
 

dont have one. probably never will.
there are roads of all qualities throughout these states. many are not shown on most maps. if you plan on coming here, you can pretty much count on being able to get to where you want to go. so far, the worst roads are around silchar in south assam. and i was informed by everybody not to go from silchar to haflong through the cachar hills. too many militants and bandits competing for your wealth!
i'm now in agartala, tripura's capital and will be heading back up to guwahati to pick up my naga permit and my AP permit too!
later

Places in Assam
 

South side of the Bramaputra:

Kaziranga Game Park between Guwahati and Dibrugarh-world class rhino and elephant viewing
Sibsagar area near Jorhat-Old temples and palaces
Manjuli Island near Jorhat-Hindu monasteries and dance groups.
Siva Temple in Guwahati-photographic sadhus

North Side:

Manas Game reserve for wildlife and river rafting.

Assam and its people are delightfull.

Oops
 

Oops,

Just saw the age of the thread.Anyway,hope the info is useful to someone out there!!

Keep them coming
 

Keep them coming - we arrive in November and am following this thread with interest :)

Thanks

NE India
 

Willdo.We are now based in Hyderabad,if you r in this direction pop in for a hangover:thumbup1:

INvite
 

Now that's my kind of invite :) Thanks will try and take you up on that ...

from guwahati at the moment
 

hi all. sitting now (again) in guwahati waiting for permits to nagaland and AP. just spent the last several weeks in meghalaya, mizoram and tripura.

first, road conditions. if coming from siliguri to guwahati, take the southern route via goalpara. better road as the other one is under construction. in sousthern assam the roads around silchar are atrocious(good use of the word!)...to say the least. also, i was warned by EVERYBODY to avoid the cachar hills from silchar to haflong. bandits are competing with militants for your money!!
the roads in megalaya are great! very good condition in most places. the ttrip down to cherapunjee is outstanding and to stay in latkinsew (sp?) to take the walking trek to see the living tree bridges is as spectacular as gruelling! i have heard from ones who did it, that the center road from shillong to tura is horrible. there is a southern one but the military may not let anyone go on it. i will try to find out later about this.
the road from shillong east to silchar is great until the sign welcomes you to assam. then you can kiss the good roads goodbye. crossing down into mizoram the road is bad until (yep, guessed it) the border and then it is a beautiful highway all the way to aizawl. there is a big part of about 60kms under construction but it should be done by june. same for the road to lunglei in the south.
tripura has nice roads through rolling hills and flat areas.
you can go from aizawl to tripura without going back to silchar. up NW to mamit and then a small road also under construction.

i would say that mizoram is the most beautiful of the states i have been so far. mostly because of the mountains and riding the bullet here. there is not a lot of east-west travel though because of all the mountain ridges. the whole northeast is hazy now too because of the slash and burn farming going on. jhum farming.
meghalaya is also very clean mountain country and i want to see the western part around tura b4 i finish.
tripura is flatter and hotter but you can make better time there. lots of things to see and do there.

waiting now for my permits. for indian citizens it is an easy matter. being a foreigner makes some things difficult and others easy. ie, at the state bhavans, they go out of their way to help me.
after getting the permit for mizoram, i went through the border and nobody stopped me to see it. dammit, i thought as i went through. i WANTED to show it off!! and so i was in and without any time restriction either as i was not required to show up in the govt office to 'check in' there.

i would say for those in india coming from the south and west, you could save yourself some time and wear on your vehicle if you cross through bangladesh and come out into tripura. from kolkata you could be in agartala in 2 days of driving. that beats going up to siliguri.

will hopefully give some good info on naga and AP soon.
take care and keep the rubber on the road

Hi Tony,

Was interested to read your comments. The missus and i are riding from London to Melbourne in 2010. We've been trying to work out how much time we should plan for India and trying to get an idea of what part of the country are worth seeing and what aren't.

I appreciate that India's enormous but the views of somebody living there would be really invaluable and will go along way to helping us plan our trip.

thanks

Time In India
 

This is a really hard one.

Your best way to start planning may be to decide how you want to exit.I if u r going to Oz then the overland route thro China may/maynot suit you so,aiming for Kochi(Kerala) or Kolcutta may be the options.Whatever,you will then be able to plan your drive there.

Touring in India is painfully slow so,do not overestimate daily driving,400km here is a VERY full day in most places and like 1200k in Europe.If you have 'loadsadosh'you may wish to see some key places by internal air rather than days of driving.I have done a lot of driving in the North and have been driven a lot in Assam.See Mitchells prevoius message re NE but,this area should definately be on yr hit list.

If that were the case then I would allow 4 weeks to see all of Rajasthan,some of Gujerat and up to Amritsar.

Then to the Himalyas for 2-3 weeks and down to Delhi and Agra,say another week.

It may then take you a week to get to Guwahati(Assam) and do Assam and the NE.Check Mitchell on this but I would say a min of 3weeks just to cover main sites.Do you want to go to Sikkm and Bhutan,if so add time.

From there you could probably get to Kolcutta in 5 days and ship from there.

The other option would be to spend several more weeks touring thro South-Central and shipping from Kochi which is a great place and you will see a lot of India.

Kajuraho should not be missed but unless your a pilgrim the majority of Temple sites do not compare with it or,some of the ones you will have seen already.

If you allowed 3-4 months you will have done a lot but nowhere near all.

There are only 3 things required for driving here:

Balls of Steel
Nerves of Iron
Manic sense of humor

You will have developed all within 3 days of entering;failure of any could be disasterous but hey if you got this far what the hek.:clap:

weather issues
 

now in kohima, the capital of nagaland. nice place, people etc.
one thing i keep saying to myself here in the northeast is: 'i wonder how much more beautiful it is during the monsoon'.
you have two choices here. dry and cool winter season or the wet summer. in the winter, every day is dry but the sky is hazy, dusty and now with the slash and burn season, smokey too. all the fields are brown and dusty. very few lush green views anywhere. dry waterfalls. sometimes you cannot even see across a small valley due to the haze.
i'm thinking another trip out this way in the wet might be worth it for the beauty. probably from late oct to january.
now, i have also been on some pretty bad roads that i feel fortunate that it is not wet!! they would be absolute hell in mud during that time. most have been in assam as meghalya and mizoram are nicely paved.
just a note as i sit here.
later