Day 1 – Guwahati->Tezpur->Bomdilla

Today morning, we woke up at around 4am in Guwahati, got ready and started in a winger(14 seated van). The route from Guwahati to Tezpur is completely plain road with beautiful tea plantations.

The road is full of trees on both sides and enjoyed the journey. We reached Tezpur by about 9:30.

Then we booked a sumo to go Bomdilla. We stopped after an hour at Balukpong for lunch. As it was getting late, we immediately started after lunch. We found small waterfall in the middle. Spent some time there taking pictures and then started back.

In the middle, we saw Denga river and a bridge on it. We got down there, walked on the bridge and got down into water. There are many stones in the stream, felt very nice playing with the water. The bridge is made of wood and looked like California bridge.

We continued our journey to Bomdilla. By around 4:30pm, the road is full foggy and we were not able to see what is there just infront of us also. The hotel incharge showed us the way. We spoke to a travel person there for our next day trip to Tawang and got a van for 10,000rs/- for complete return trip to Tezpur after 2 days. We were very hungry after day long journey and went for dinner, it costed 70rs per person for a simple Thali.

Have to start early tomorrow by 6:30am, so slept early. Eagerly waited to see Tawang next day 🙂

Day 2: Bomdilla -> Sela Pass -> Tawang

By the time we woke up next day morning, the water in the tank is frozen, forget the hot water and even normal water didn’t come. We got a bucket of hot water from the hotel incharge there. We quickly got ready washing our faces and started to Tawang by 7:30.

The roads of Bomdilla were clear in the morning and we could see the town clearly. It looked like a very small village with few shops. But it is considered to be one of the major towns of Arunchal Pradesh. We reached Dirang in an hour or so. There are natural hot springs there, so we went down to see the spring with lot of enthusiasm, but it was just like a tank with people washing clothes, having bath etc with luke warm water there. It is supposed to be tourist place, but not maintained properly. We got tired by the time we climbed all the steps back 😛 We continued our journey to Sela Pass.

We had good fun on the way playing Antakshari game. Slowly, we reached top of the hills, Sela Pass. We could feel the cool breeze and the condition of the road became worse. It is rocky and wet. I expected that this passs will be something like Nathu La Pass near Gangtok with a canteen, telephone etc.. But there is nothing there except a foundation stone.

Both sides of the road is covered with snow, it was very beautiful scenery. I couldn’t spend much time in the ice as I felt very cold and felt little dizzy and I wasn’t well prepared for it. I just got my sweater which I use in Guwahati for this trip.This was the first time, most of us are seeing ice. So, we are all excited.

After spending lot of time there taking pictures, we continued our trip to find a frozen lake close to Sela pass and its a visual treat with snow mountains on both the sides and frozen lake in the middle. The lake is completely frozen, couldn’t see water at all.

The road from Sela pass to Tawang is very beautiful with snow and pine trees all the way. We came down from there to a small bridge. Bridge is beautiful with waterfalls on both sides. We stopped at a small place for brunch, where we had maggi. After that, the driver showed us a mountain and that is called Baap-Beta as the rock is in that shape. Later we continued our Tawang without stopping anywhere.

Finally we reached Tawang, it appeared like a big town compared to Bomdilla(may be obvious). We reached our hotel ‘Tourist View’, it looked bad from outside with its red-pink color, but the rooms were good. We all got ready and planned to go down for dinner at 7pm. But there was a power failure there at the same time and itseems the power comes back only at 9:30pm. Since we were very hungry, we asked them to arrange our dinner and had it in candle lights. The food is also very good and spicy. Later after dinner, we chatted for sometime till 9pm and then power came, and we went to our room to sleep.

Forgot to mention, before dinner, we all went to call our parents at a nearby telephone booth and it took around 5mins for the call to connect and ring. Felt very surprising to see that.

Also, we got to know that Madhuri Lake, named after Madhuri Dixit as her song was shot there, is closed due to heavy snowfall, so we cannot go there tomorrow. Have to explore other places around.

Day 3 : Tawang

We woke up early today and had breakfast and started our journey. Our driver told us that he will take us to the place, till the road is blocked on the way to Madhuri Lake. But we asked him not to do so, as the sumo can get blocked in snow there. We started our journey to PTSO lake, which is nearer compared to Madhuri Lake. The road to PTSO lake is completely covered with snow, more than that we have seen Sela pass.

Only military camps are present on the way. We slowly reached the top of mountain where frozen lake is present. The lake is small compared to the previous lake near Sela, but it is reachable. This is the largest stretch of snow I have ever seen. It is not that cold as it was sunny. We walked over snow there.

As soon as I stepped into ice, my leg went deep down into snow. I got scared and immediately came back to the road. Again, I wasn’t prepared for snow, I wore normal chappals, not even shoes, which made it tough to walk on snow. We made a small snow man there and took pictures with that.

Then we started to go to Tawang monastery. Monastery is 500yrs old, very huge one. We went inside that, lighted diya and prayed. Buddha statue is very huge, almost the height of two floors. I have never seen such a huge Buddha status. We got “prasadam”, it is made with Dalda. Our driver later took us to an orphanage nearby. We gave some biscuits and chocolates to the kids there and came back. After lunch at our hotel, we went to market nearby. The special things of Tawang are hand-made mugs and shawls. I didnt take any, my friends did some of those.

After shopping, we came back to hotel, had dinner and our hotel owner presented us with Gamcha, Arunachal traditional cloth, made of silk. We felt very surprised and happy at this gesture.

Day 4: Tawang -> Guwahati

We woke up around 3, packed everything and started around 5am. The town looked very nice in the morning. We went past the Sela pass and this time it looked very different. The lake is not frozen now, it is filled with water.

Though it is sunny, the cool breeze made the place very cold. We took couple of pictures there and reached Bomdilla. We wanted to cover Orchid’s park on the way to Tezpur, but it was closed due to Holi. The orchids are planted inside glass houses. There were only few orchids inside and could see them from the gate outside. Then we started our journey back to Tezpur, and felt very good to be back on normal plain road after many days. From Tezpur, we took a winger back to Guwahati and we reached by 9pm.

That’s the end of TRIP TO SEVENTH HEAVEN- TAWANG 🙂