North East

I took on designing the trip for North-East India as a personal mission of sorts. Arunachal and Himachal have always felt like home to me, so being able to design a trip crossing 9 destinations in both felt like a dream! And of course, it had to be a mountain biking trip.

The trip started in Guwahati where people from all over the country came together. From near Guwahati airport we put on our gear, said hi to people who were going to be family for the next 10 days and got onto 10 bikes and 1 jeep to ride on the mountain terrain.

We went up to Cherrapunji first to the double decker root bridge. The trek is world famous for being one of the top places where earth acts differently from how it usually does. The sturdy bridge made entirely of roots is a phenomenon for which you must climb up and down 3500 steps each way. Although we definitely were tired, it was truly worth taking breaks in the mountain sunlight on the way up to the beautiful bridge.

Post this we went to Shillong, which needless to say is famous for its beautiful cafes and quaint environment.

We were on our way to Dirang it got dark soon it got too late to ride up any further. We hadn’t reached the hotel we were meant to stay at and had to stop midway. We literally walked around till we finally found a modest motel in the corner of the street and spend the night there. Times like these are things that have given me the ability to figure out a solution no matter the environment.

Bomdilla and Tezpur were wonderful too, especially the drives there. On bike trips like these where you’re covering terrains, people often forget that the main character of the trip is very literally the journey. The joy of having gone upwards into the mountain on a bike is unparalleled. Your destinations are then merely rest stations.

Kaziranga National Park was beautiful, we each sat on a jeep and looked around at the beautiful creatures around us living in their natural habitat. The rare Rhinoceros was also spotted and the water bodies within the park were beautiful.

On the drive to Tawang you can literally see the snow covering the terrains as you slowly climb up. It’s all covered in white after a point and a lot of people got almost emotional at the indescribable and pristine sight. As our last destination, we did a bonfire with BBQ on the final night, sang songs and danced, had a lot of fun and then we finally returned to Guwahati to bid adieu.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *