Snapshots in sepia: A fortnight's trail through rains, rivers and occasional melancholia

I

I did not know what to expect of Dibrugarh, a town on the banks of the Brahmaputra that is famed for its tea industry, and our first stop of what was going to be literally a journey into the unknown.We had decided to backpack our way through parts of Arunachal Pradesh, through places that usually do not fall in the regular "tourist circuit". In fact, the Eicher India Map is not much of a help when it comes to providing information about these places; it merely mentions the names of places, leaving one to wonder whether going there would actually mean falling off the map!

A land shrouded in mist and mystery, Arunachal Pradesh till quite recently was out of bounds for the "regular tourist". One had to travel in groups, as individual travellers were not issued Inner Line Permits (ILPs), a prerequisite if one has to travel through the terrain. Though situations have changed greatly, yet till date, whatever little information one gathers about this area is mostly from blogs of foreigners. The regular "tourist" still restricts herself to the Tawang-Bomdila-Bhalukphung circuit. Nature lovers at best try to squeeze in the fascinating Namdapha Sanctuary. We, on a whim, decided to give the usual touristy trails a miss and choose an off-the-beaten track instead.

However, it soon appeared that preparing an itenerary for such a trip would be quite a daunting task. Even though we could manage to chalk out a tentative route, we still failed to find accommodation for most of the places. As it turned out, the places that we were planning to visit didn't have private accommodation on rent, or so said "Google". The only available places to stay were inspection bunglows meant for sarkari karmacharis (public servants) of various departments and one needed proior permission to stay there. Sarkari connection was hard to come by for us and not having much time left, we decided to bank on the much-talked-about hospitality of the people of the region and the blessings of the Uparwallah in general. Not a very comfortable thought to start a trip with!